Могильный холм моей возлюбленной

Вячеслав Толстов

Английский плохой. Похьола ещё беднее. Северный холод и земля смерти.
Верно? Нет. Бедность - это Суомемме, бедность - Похьоламме.
Но богатый, в конце концов, кейхю-дессян...
Финляндия богата, Скандинавия богата.
Она бедна и богата одновременно. Она богата, когда отправляет
мир жизни, лучшие плоды. Это плохо, когда беспощадный
смерть отбирает самые лучшие из мальчиков, которые являются наиболее дорогостоящего имущества.
Бедный богатый мальчик Похьола лежит здесь перед нами, тяжелая судьба
перелом... Богата была земля, которую ты породил, бедна она теперь у тебя
после потери именно тогда, когда Северное сияние проникло в глубины твоей души.Это был один из его друзей, о котором курган говорил... много говорил
еще... насколько я помню, "и летняя ночь тоже".

Одному товарищу прислали стихотворение. Оно у меня сохранилось до сих пор. Это кто-то другой
его лучший спутник, создающий жизнь.

"Упал на дороге туйскуу,
вниз по долине экспорта шквалов:
В горы ты идешь, парень —
кто знает, где теперь снова закончится?

Слишком рано выставлять тебя из игры,
навыки, которыми ты должен обладать!
Кен сейчас зажигает скандинавию
завораживает страны мира?

Кен сейчас заказывает Киммел-найт?
Основа золотого пояса today?
Кен, теперь олень взлетит!
сделайте нас таулуиссанцами?

Многие из вас создали, но лучшие
создатели пропустили хаавельмат.:
Мечтают о сокровищах Лапландии.
день и ночь эти са!

Похоронен Кайхомиелин
мы создаем переростки, товарищ,
скорбим по всей Остроботнии
студенты кохталоас хуока.

Итак. Размер скандинавский, скучаю по нему. Никто, впрочем, не такой, как я.
Ну, может быть, впрочем, отечество, Похьола, на лоне земли которого ты сейчас лежишь...

И все же мы здороваемся со старой девушкой.
Старая девушка?
Я что-нибудь пишу? Она говорила что-нибудь о том, что я знаю? Спросил я.
Я не хочу вспоминать Элли и ее одновременно. Это ранило его
в тишине его могилы и затуманило бы мои прекрасные, светлые
воспоминания. Пусть Бог простит Эллиля! И дарует мне любить
его, хотя он был враждебен! Великий Боже, каким ужасным злом
может быть человеческое сердце! — Подумал я, когда вспомнил Элли.

Ну, как прошла ночь. Уже утро. Сегодня вы уже можете начинать.
заготовка сена.
Когда день поднимется выше, так что его лучи коснутся кургана,
Я иду сорвать цветы на холме...
Это проистекает из его любви.

Я помню сентябрьскую ночь, когда ему пришлось уехать далеко.
поездка за границу... мы ездили на кладбище в сумерках, когда день
просто начни считать на Западе холмы позади... Это хиеккакумпу -
(hiekkakumpu),сосны и берёзы на подкладке.

"Здесь я хотел бы отдохнуть", - сказал он. "Сюда входит шум от прикосновений,
этот вид на весеннее половодье и небо на западе лиентелевы, а здесь проходит
пайни Ридж перекидывает забор и соглашается с большим салуном и
кивелиен ..."

Теперь это его, могила Кумпунса. Теперь ты молодец, мой друг!
Друзья мои! Fianc;!

* * * * *

Я обещал быть с ними, приемными родителями, моими детьми.

Ректор сказал:

"Теперь у нас больше нет никого, кроме Анны ... Мир стал другим.
наш сын и мой дорогой Мартин, мы лежим в траве внизу... Пусть наши дети у меня есть,мы стареем в свое удовольствие ... общее горе связывает нас..."

Таким я хочу быть.

Но у меня есть своя мечта, которая, я надеюсь, сбудется, если ты будешь жив
Старый. И вряд ли это жизнь. Было бы забавно умереть.

Поэтому я думаю:

Когда умрут пожилые люди Якалярован, я перееду на свой собственный маленький домик в деревне, хижина на гребне лесистого склона, скала Халтиайн по соседству.
Здесь есть все, что нужно маленькому одинокому человеку в моей жизни. Это
сауна для купания, это овечья свалка. Светлая хижина водного источника
за полями хижина вокруг. Рядом с ним находится камень Халтиайн, который появляется
лестница в каюту. Повсюду в окружении самые замечательные воспоминания
дни моей жизни - утренняя минута пейстейзелла из...

Летний водитель страны, бывшие тропы Самоа, поют с птицами
и я плачу, грустный круг по дикой природе ... летними ночами слушаю пение кекиена. Камни на привале. Это включает в себя рёв порогов и тот факт, что я могу видеть бассейн, сверкающую воду и лухдик-косарет...

Зимней ночью пряду и сочиняю стихи для собственного удовольствия. Первое
поскольку я поэт, две молодые любви - поющая и плохая, которые
гложут всегда.

Его "Ночь в летнюю ночь" досталась мне в наследство. Видеть только один раз
в год ... в то утро, когда он умер...

Но, может быть, мне не нужно долго оставаться одной. Боже,
какие мои мысли, чтобы узнать, да, простите меня...

* * * * *

День, когда я еще не под кайфом. Уже связан с движением людей со стороны и из сада.Но наверху, в комнате на чердаке, так тихо...

Удивительное, сияющее июльское утро. Воздух пахнет луговыми цветами
запах. Сад для уже распустившихся цветов.
Теперь остановитесь и продолжите в другой раз, завтра вечером.

Вэет уже вышла на луг, который блестит от утренней росы. Яркие,
свежеотточенные косы сверкают на солнце кииллосса...

Жизнь, следовательно, продолжается, продолжается... Возможно, это сильнее, чем смерть... Я думаю, что смерть сильных мира сего...
Уходи сейчас и возьми первый цветок с могильного холма моей возлюбленной...
***
THE RED ENVELOPE

Mr. Spedding, the admirable lawyer, lived on Clapham Common, where he
owned the freehold of that desirable residence, “High Holly Lodge.”

He was a bachelor, with a taste for bridge parties and Madeira.
Curious neighbors would have been mystified if they had known that Mr.
Spedding’s repair bill during the first two years of his residence was
something well over three thousand pounds. What they _did_ know was
that Mr. Spedding “had the builders in” for an unconscionable time,
that they were men who spoke in a language entirely foreign to Clapham,
and that they were housed during the period of renovation in a little
galvanized iron bungalow erected for the purpose in the grounds.

A neighbor on visiting terms expressed his opinion that for all
the workmen had done he could discern no material difference in the
structure of the house, and from his point of view the house presented
the same appearance after the foreign builders left, as it did before
their advent. Mr. Spedding met all carelessly-applied questions
concerning the extent of the structural alterations with supreme
discretion. He spoke vaguely about a new system of ventilation, and
hinted at warmth by radiation.

Suburbia loves to show off its privately conceived improvements to
property, but Mr. Spedding met veiled hints of a desire to inspect his
work with that comfortable smile which was so valuable an asset of his
business.

It was a few evenings after the scene in the Lombard Street Deposit
that Mr. Spedding sat in solitude before his modest dinner at Clapham.

An evening newspaper lay by the side of his chair, and he picked it up
at intervals to read again the paragraph which told of the release of
the “Borough Lot.” The paragraph read:--

“The men arrested in connection with the gambling raid at Poplar were
discharged to-day, the police, it is understood, failing to secure
sufficient evidence to justify a prosecution.”

The lawyer shook his head doubtfully.

“I rather like Angel Esquire’s definition,” he said with a wry smile.
“It is a neat method of saving the face of the police, but I could wish
that the ‘Borough Lot’ were out of the way.”

Later he had occasion to change his opinion.

A tap at the door preceded the entry of a sedate butler. The lawyer
looked at the card on the tray, and hesitated; then, “Show him in,” he
said.

Jimmy came into the room, and bowed slightly to the elder man, who rose
at his entrance.

They waited in silence till the servant had closed the door behind him.

“To what am I indebted?” began the lawyer, and motioned his visitor to
a seat.

“May I smoke?” asked Jimmy, and Mr. Spedding nodded.

“It is in the matter of Reale’s millions,” said Jimmy, and allowed his
eyes to follow the cloud of smoke he blew.

“I thought it was understood that this was a subject which might only
be discussed at my office and in business hours?” said the lawyer
sharply, and Jimmy nodded again.

“You will confess, Mr. Spedding,” he said easily, “that the Reale
will is sufficiently unconventional to justify any departure from
established custom on the part of the fortunate or unfortunate
legatees.”

Mr. Spedding made an impatient movement of his hand.

“I do not inquire into your business,” Jimmy went on smoothly
enough, “and I am wholly incurious as to in what strange manner you
became acquainted with your late client, or what fees you received
to undertake so extraordinary a commission; but I am satisfied that
you are recompensed for such trifling inconveniences as--say an
after-dinner visit from myself.”

Jimmy had a way of choosing his words, hesitating for the exact
expression that would best convey every shade of his meaning. The
lawyer, too, recognized the logic of the speech, and contented himself
with a shrug which meant nothing.

“I do not inquire into your motives,” Jimmy resumed; “it pleases me to
believe that they are entirely disinterested, that your attitude is the
ideal one as between client and agent.”

His pause was longer this time, and the lawyer was piqued into
interjecting an impatient--

“Well?”

“Well,” said Jimmy slowly, “believing all this, let us say, I am at a
loss to know why at the reading of the will you gave us no indication
of the existence of a key to this mysterious verse.”

“There is no key,” said the lawyer quickly, and added, “so far as I
know.”

“That you did not tell us,” Jimmy went on, as though unconscious of
any interruption, “of the big red envelope----”

Spedding sprang to his feet white as death.

“The envelope,” he stammered angrily, “what do you know--what envelope?”

Jimmy’s hand waved him to his seat.

“Let us have no emotions, no flights, no outraged honor, I beg of you,
dear Mr. Spedding. I do not suggest that you have any sinister reasons
for withholding information concerning what my friend Angel would call
the ‘surprise packet.’ In good time I do not doubt you would have
disclosed its existence.”

“I know of no red envelope,” said the lawyer doggedly.

“I rather fancied you would say that,” said Jimmy, with a touch
of admiration in his tone. “You are not the sort of fox to curl
up and howl at the first bay of the hound--if you will permit the
simile--indeed, you would have disappointed me if you had.”

The lawyer paced the room.

“Look here,” he said, coming to a halt before the semi-recumbent form
that lay behind a haze of cigarette smoke in the arm-chair, “you’ve
spent a great deal of your time telling me what I am, describing my
many doubtful qualities, and hinting more or less broadly that I am
a fairly representative scoundrel. May I ask what is your ultimate
object? Is it blackmail?” he demanded harshly.

“No,” said Jimmy, by no means disconcerted by the brutality of the
question.

“Are you begging, or borrowing, or----”

“Stealing?” murmured Jimmy lazily.

“All that I have to say to you is, finish your business and go.
Furthermore, you are at liberty to come with me to-morrow morning and
search my office and question my clerks. I will accompany you to my
banks, and to the strong-room I rent at the deposit. Search for this
red envelope you speak about, and if you find it, you are at liberty to
draw the worst deductions you will.”

Jimmy pulled gently at his cigarette with reflective eyes cast upward
to the ceiling.

“Do you speak Spanish?” he asked.

“No,” said the other impatiently.

“It’s a pity,” said Jimmy, with a note of genuine regret. “Spanish is a
very useful language--especially in the Argentine, for which delightful
country, I understand, lawyers who betray their trust have an especial
predilection. My Spanish needs a little furbishing, and only the other
day I was practising with a man whose name, I believe, is Murrello. Do
you know him?”

“If you have completed your business, I will ring for the servant,”
said the lawyer.

“He told me--my Spaniard, I mean--a curious story. He comes from
Barcelona, and by way of being a mason or something of the sort, was
brought to England with some other of his fellow-countrymen to make
some curious alterations to the house of a Se;or in--er--Clapham of all
places in the world.”

The lawyer’s breath came short and fast.

“From what I was able to gather,” Jimmy went on languidly, “and my
Spanish is Andalusian rather than Catalonian, so that I missed some
of his interesting narrative, these alterations partook of the nature
of wonderfully concealed strong-rooms--steel doors artfully covered
with cheap wood carving, vaults cunningly constructed beneath innocent
basement kitchens, little stairways in apparently solid walls and the
like.”

The levity went out of his voice, and he straightened himself in his
chair.

“I have no desire to search your office,” he said quietly, “or perhaps
I should say no further desire, for I have already methodically
examined every hole and corner. No,” he checked the words on Spedding’s
lips, “no, it was not I who committed the blundering burglary you spoke
of. You never found traces of me, I’ll swear. You may keep the keys of
your strong-room, and I shall not trouble your bankers.”

“What do you want?” demanded the lawyer shortly.

“I want to see what you have got downstairs,” was the reply, and there
was no doubting its earnestness, “and more especially do I want to see
the red envelope.”

The lawyer bent his brows in thought. His eyes were fixed unwaveringly
on Jimmy’s.

“Suppose,” he said slowly, “suppose that such an envelope did exist,
suppose for the sake of argument these mysterious vaults and secret
chambers are, as you suggest, in existence, what right have you, more
than any other one of the beneficiaries under the will, to demand a
private examination? Why should I give you an unfair advantage over
them?”

Jimmy rose to his feet and stretched himself before replying.

“There is only one legatee whom I recognize,” he said briefly, “that
is the girl. The money is hers. I do not want a farthing. I am equally
determined that nobody else shall touch a penny--neither my young
friend Connor”--he stopped to give emphasis to the next two words--“nor
yourself.”

“Sir!” said the outraged Mr. Spedding.

“Nor yourself, Mr. Spedding,” repeated Jimmy with conviction. “Let us
understand each other thoroughly. You are, as I read you, a fairly
respectable citizen. I would trust you with ten or a hundred thousand
pounds without experiencing the slightest anxiety. I would not trust
you with two millions in solid cash, nor would I trust any man. The
magnitude of the sum is calculated to overwhelm your moral sense. The
sooner the red envelope is in the possession of Angel Esquire the
better for us all.”

Spedding stood with bent head, his fingers nervously stroking his jaw,
thinking.

“An agile mind this,” thought Jimmy; “if I am not careful there will be
trouble here.”

He watched the lawyer’s face, and noticed the lines suddenly disappear
from the troubled face, and the placid smile returning.

“Conciliation and partial confession,” judged Jimmy, and his diagnosis
was correct.

“Well, Mr. Jimmy,” said Spedding, with some show of heartiness, “since
you know so much, it may be as well to tell you more. As you have so
cleverly discovered, my house to a great extent is a strong-room.
There are many valuable documents that I could not with any confidence
leave deposited at my office. They are safer here under my eye, so to
speak. The papers of the late Mr. Reale are, I confess, in this house;
but--now mark me--whether the red envelope you speak of is amongst
these I do not know. There is a multitude of documents in connection
with the case, all of which I have had no time to go through. The hour
is late, but----”

He paused irresolutely.

“----If you would care to inspect the mysteries of the basement”--he
smiled benevolently, and was his old self--“I shall be happy to have
your assistance in a cursory search.”

Jimmy was alert and watchful and to the point.

“Lead the way,” he said shortly, and Spedding, after a moment’s
hesitation, opened the door and Jimmy followed him into the hall.

Contrary to his expectations, the lawyer led him upstairs, and through
a plainly furnished bedroom to a small dressing-room that opened off.
There was a conventional wardrobe against the wall, and this Spedding
opened. A dozen suits hung from hooks and stretchers, and the lawyer
groped amongst these for a moment. Then there was a soft click, and the
back of the wardrobe swung back.

Spedding turned to his visitor with a quizzical smile.

“Your friend Angel’s method of gaining admittance to the haunt of the
‘Borough Lot’ was not original. Come.”

Jimmy stepped gingerly through into the darkness. He heard the snap of
a button, and a soft glow of light revealed a tiny chamber, in which
two men might comfortably stand upright. The back of the wardrobe
closed, and they were alone in a little room about as large as an
average cupboard.

There was a steel lever on one side of the walls, and this the lawyer
pulled cautiously. Jimmy felt a sinking sensation, and heard a faint,
far-off buzzing of machinery.

“An electric lift, I take it,” he said quietly.

“An electric lift,” repeated the lawyer.

Down, down, down they sank, till Jimmy calculated that they must be at
least twenty feet below the street level. Then the lift slowed down and
stopped at a door. Spedding opened this with a key he took from his
pocket, and they stepped out into a chill, earthy darkness.

“There’s a light here,” said the lawyer, and groped for the switch.

They were in a large vaulted apartment lit from the roof. At one end
a steel door faced them, and ranged about the vault on iron racks a
number of black japanned boxes.

Jimmy noted the inscriptions, and was a little surprised at the extent
and importance of the solicitor’s practice. Spedding must have read
his thoughts, for he turned with a smile.

“Not particularly suggestive of a defaulting solicitor,” he said
ironically.

“Two million pounds,” replied Jimmy immediately, “that is my answer to
you, Mr. Spedding. An enormous fortune for the reaching. I wouldn’t
trust the Governors of the Bank of England.”

Spedding may have been annoyed as he walked to the door in the wall and
opened it, but he effectively concealed his annoyance.

As the door fell backward, Jimmy saw a little apartment, four feet by
six feet, with a roof he could touch with his hand. There was a fresh
current of air, but from whence it came he could not discover. The only
articles of furniture in the little cell were a writing table and a
swing chair placed exactly beneath the electric lamp in the roof.

Spedding pulled open a drawer in the desk.

“I do not keep my desks locked here,” he said pleasantly enough.

It was characteristic of him that he indulged in no preamble, no
apologetic preliminaries, and that he showed no sign of embarrassment
as he slipped his hand into the drawer, and drawing forth a bulky red
envelope, threw it on to the desk.

You might have forgotten that his last words were denials that the red
envelope had existed. Jimmy looked at him curiously, and the lawyer
returned his gaze.

“A new type?” he asked.

“Hardly,” said Jimmy cheerfully. “I once knew a man like you in the
Argentine--he was hanged eventually.”

“Curious,” mused the lawyer, “I have often thought I might be hanged,
but have never quite seen why----” He nearly added something else, but
checked himself.

Jimmy had the red envelope in his hand and was examining it closely.
It was heavily sealed with the lawyer’s own seal, and bore the
inscription in Reale’s crabbed, illiterate handwriting, “Puzzle
Ideas.” He weighed it and pinched it. There was a little compact packet
inside.

“I shall open this,” said Jimmy decisively. “You, of course, have
already examined it.”

The lawyer made no reply.

Jimmy broke the seal of the envelope. Half his mind was busy in
speculation as to its contents, the other half was engaged with the
lawyer’s plans. Jimmy was too experienced a man to be deceived by the
complaisance of the smooth Mr. Spedding. He watched his every move.
All the while he was engaged in what appeared to be a concentrated
examination of the packet his eyes never left the lawyer. That Spedding
made no sign was a further proof in Jimmy’s eyes that the coup was to
come.

“We might as well examine the envelope upstairs as here,” said the
lawyer. The other man nodded, and followed him from the cell. Spedding
closed the steel door and locked it, then turned to Jimmy.

“Do you notice,” he said with some satisfaction, “how skilfully this
chamber is constructed?” He waved his hand round the larger vault, at
the iron racks and the shiny black boxes.

Jimmy was alert now. The lawyer’s geniality was too gratuitous, his
remarks a trifle inapropos. It was like the lame introduction to a
story which the teller was anxious to drag in at all hazards.

“Here, for instance,” said the lawyer, tapping one of the boxes, “is
what appears to be an ordinary deed box. As a matter of fact, it is an
ingenious device for trapping burglars, if they should by any chance
reach the vault. It is not opened by an ordinary key, but by the
pressure of a button, either in my room or here.”

He walked leisurely to the end of the vault, Jimmy following.

For a man of his build Spedding was a remarkably agile man. Jimmy had
underrated his agility.

He realized this when suddenly the lights went out. Jimmy sprang for
the lawyer, and struck the rough stone wall of the vault. He groped
quickly left and right, and grasped only the air.

“Keep quiet,” commanded Spedding’s calm voice from the other end of the
chamber, “and keep cool. I am going to show you my burglar catcher.”

Jimmy’s fingers were feeling along the wall for the switch that
controlled the lights. As if divining his intention, the lawyer’s voice
said--

“The lights are out of control, Jimmy, and I am fairly well out of your
reach.”

“We shall see,” was Jimmy’s even reply.

“And if you start shooting you will only make the atmosphere of this
place a little more unbreathable than it is at present,” Spedding went
on.

Jimmy smiled in the darkness, and the lawyer heard the snap of a Colt
pistol as his captive loaded.

“Did you notice the little ventilator?” asked the lawyer’s voice again.
“Well, I am behind that. Between my unworthy body and your nickel
bullets there are two feet of solid masonry.”

Jimmy made no reply, his pistol went back to his hip again. He had his
electric lamp in his pocket, but prudently kept it there.

“Before we go any further,” he said slowly, “will you be good enough to
inform me as to your intentions?”

He wanted three minutes, he wanted them very badly; perhaps two minutes
would be enough. All the time the lawyer was speaking he was actively
employed. He had kicked off his shoes when the lights went out, and
now he stole round the room, his sensitive hands flying over the stony
walls.

“As to my intentions,” the lawyer was saying, “it must be fairly
obvious to you that I am not going to hand you over to the police.
Rather, my young friend, in the vulgar parlance of the criminal
classes, I am going to ‘do you in,’ meaning thereby, if you will
forgive the legal terminology, that I shall assist you to another and,
I hope, though I am not sanguine, a better world.”

He heard Jimmy’s insolent laugh in the blackness.

“You are a man after my own heart, Jimmy,” he went on regretfully. “I
could have wished that I might have been spared this painful duty; but
it is a duty, one that I owe to society and myself.”

“You are an amusing person,” said Jimmy’s voice.

“I am glad you think so. Jimmy, my young friend, I am afraid our
conversation must end here. Do you know anything of chemistry?”

“A little.”

“Then you will appreciate my burglar catcher,” said Spedding, with
uncanny satisfaction. “You, perhaps, noticed the japanned box with the
perforated lid? You did? Good! There are two compartments, and two
chemicals in certain quantities kept apart. My hand is on the key now
that will combine them. When cyanide of potassium is combined with
sulphuric acid, do you know what gas is formed?”

Jimmy did not reply. He had found what he had been searching for.
His talk with the Spanish builder had been to some purpose. It was a
little stony projection from the wall. He pressed it downward, and was
sensible of a sensation of coldness. He reached out his hand, and found
where solid wall had been a blank space.

“Do you hear, Jimmy?” asked the lawyer’s voice.

“I hear,” replied Jimmy, and felt for the edge of the secret door. His
fingers sliding down the smooth surface of the flange encountered the
two catches.

“It is hydrocyanic acid,” said the lawyer’s smooth voice, and Jimmy
heard the snap of the button.

“Good-by,” said the lawyer’s voice again, and Jimmy reeled back through
the open doorway swinging the door behind him, and carrying with him a
whiff of air heavily laden with the scent of almonds.

CHAPTER VII

WHAT THE RED ENVELOPE HELD

“My dear Angel,” wrote Jimmy, “I commend to you one Mr. Spedding,
an ingenious man. If by chance you ever wish to visit him, do so in
business hours. If you desire to examine his most secret possession,
effect an entrance into a dreary-looking house at the corner of Cley’s
Road, a stone’s-throw from ‘High Holly Lodge.’ It is marked in plain
characters ‘To Let.’ In the basement you will find a coal-cellar.
Searching the coal-cellar diligently, you will discover a flight of
stone steps leading to a subterranean passage, which burrows under the
ground until it arrives at friend Spedding’s particular private vault.
If this reads like a leaf torn from Dumas or dear Harrison Ainsworth it
is not my fault. I visited our legal adviser last night, and had quite
a thrilling evening. That I am alive this morning is a tribute to my
caution and foreseeing wisdom. The result of my visit is this: I have
the key of the ‘safe-word’ in my hands. Come and get it.”

Angel found the message awaiting him when he reached Scotland Yard
that morning. He too had spent sleepless hours in a futile attempt to
unravel the mystery of old Reale’s doggerel verse.

A telegram brought Kathleen Kent to town. Angel met her at a quiet
restaurant in Rupert Street, and was struck by the delicate beauty of
this slim girl with the calm, gray eyes.

She greeted him with a sad little smile.

“I was afraid you would never see me again after my outburst of the
other night,” she said. “This--this--person is a friend of yours?”

“Jimmy?” asked the detective cheerily. “Oh, yes, Jimmy’s by way of
being a friend; but he deserved all you said, and he knows it, Miss
Kent.”

The girl’s face darkened momentarily as she thought of Jimmy.

“I shall never understand,” she said slowly, “how a man of his gifts
allowed himself to become----”

“But,” protested the detective, “he told you he took no part in the
decoying of your father.”

The girl turned with open-eyed astonishment.

“Surely you do not expect me to believe his excuses,” she cried.

Angel Esquire looked grave.

“That is just what I should ask you to believe,” he said quietly.
“Jimmy makes no excuses, and he would certainly tell no lie in
extenuation of his faults.”

“But--but,” said Kathleen, bewildered, “he is a thief by his own
showing--a bad man.”

“A thief,” said Angel soberly, “but not a bad man. Jimmy is a puzzle to
most people. To me he is perfectly understandable; that is because I
have too much of the criminal in my own composition, perhaps.”

“I wish, oh, how I wish I had your faith in him! Then I could absolve
him from suspicion of having helped ruin my poor father.”

“I think you can do that,” said the detective almost eagerly. “Believe
me, Jimmy is not to be judged by conventional standards. If you ask
me to describe him, I would say that he is a genius who works in an
eccentric circle that sometimes overlaps, sometimes underreaches the
rigid circle of the law. If you asked me as a policeman, and if I
was his bitterest enemy, what I could do with Jimmy, I should say,
‘Nothing.’ I know of no crime with which I could charge him, save
at times with associating with doubtful characters. As a matter of
fact, that equally applies to me. Listen, Miss Kent. The first big
international case I figured in was a gigantic fraud on the Egyptian
Bank. Some four hundred thousand pounds were involved, and whilst
from the outsider’s point of view Jimmy was beyond suspicion, yet we
who were working at the case suspected him, and pretty strongly. The
men who owned the bank were rich Egyptians, and the head of all was
a Somebody-or-other Pasha, as great a scoundrel as ever drew breath.
It is impossible to tell a lady exactly how big a scoundrel he was,
but you may guess. Well, the Pasha knew it was Jimmy who had done the
trick, and we knew, but we dare not say so. The arrest of Jimmy would
have automatically ruined the banker. That was where I realized the
kind of man I had to deal with, and I am always prepared when Jimmy’s
name is mentioned in connection with a big crime to discover that his
victim deserved all he got, and a little more.”

The girl gave a little shiver.

“It sounds dreadful. Cannot such a man as that employ his talents to a
greater advantage?”

Angel shrugged his shoulders despairingly.

“I’ve given up worrying about misapplied talents; it is a subject that
touches me too closely,” he said. “But as to Jimmy, I’m rather glad you
started the conversation in that direction, because I’m going to ask
you to meet him to-day.”

“Oh, but I couldn’t,” she began.

“You are thinking of what happened on the night the will was read?
Well, you must forget that. Jimmy has the key to the verse, and it is
absolutely imperative that you should be present this afternoon.”

With some demur, she consented.

   *    *    *    *    *

In the sitting-room of Jimmy’s flat the three sat round a table
littered with odds and ends of papers.

The girl had met him with some trepidation, and his distant bow had
done more to assure her than had he displayed a desire to rehabilitate
himself in her good opinion.

Without any preliminaries, Jimmy showed the contents of the packet. He
did not explain to the girl by what means he had come into possession
of them.

“Of all these papers,” began Jimmy, tapping the letter before him,
“only one is of any service, and even that makes confusion worse
confounded. Reale had evidently had this cursed cryptogram in his mind
for a long time. He had made many experiments, and rejected many. Here
is one.”

He pushed over a card, which bore a few words in Reale’s characteristic
hand.

Angel read:--

“The word of five letters I will use, namely:

1. White every 24 sec.
2. Fixed white and red.
3. White group two every 30 sec.
4. Group occ. white red sec. 30 sec.
5. Fixed white and red.”

Underneath was written: “No good; too easy.”

The detective’s brows were bent in perplexity.

“I’m blessed if I can see where the easiness comes in,” he said. “To me
it seems so much gibberish, and as difficult as the other.”

Jimmy noted the detective’s bewilderment with a quiet smile of
satisfaction. He did not look directly at the girl, but out of the
corner of his eyes he could see her eager young face bent over the
card, her pretty forehead wrinkled in a despairing attempt to decipher
the curious document.

“Yet it was easy,” he said, “and if Reale had stuck to that word, the
safe would have been opened by now.”

Angel pored over the mysterious clue.

“The word, as far as I can gather,” said Jimmy, “is ‘smock,’ but it may
be----”

“How on earth----” began Angel in amazement.

“Oh, it’s easy,” said Jimmy cheerfully, “and I am surprised that an old
traveler like yourself should have missed it.”

“Group occ. white red sec. 30 sec.,” read Angel.

Jimmy laughed.

It was the first time the girl had seen this strange man throw
aside his habitual restraint, and she noted with an unaccountable
satisfaction that he was decidedly handsome when amused.

“Let me translate it for you,” said Jimmy. “Let me expand it into,
‘Group occulting White with Red Sectors every Thirty Seconds.’ Now do
you understand?”

Angel shook his head.

“You may think I am shockingly dense,” he said frankly, “but even with
your lucid explanation I am still in the dark.”

Jimmy chuckled.

“Suppose you went to Dover to-night, and sat at the end of the
Admiralty Pier. It is a beautiful night, with stars in the sky, and you
are looking toward France, and you see----?”

“Nothing,” said Angel slowly; “a few ships’ lights, perhaps, and the
flash of the Calais Lighthouse----”

“The occulting flash?” suggested Jimmy.

“The occ.! By Jove!”

“Glad you see it,” said Jimmy briskly. “What old Reale did was to take
the names of five famous lights--any nautical almanac will give you
them:

Sanda.
Milford Haven.
Orkneys.
Caldy Island.
Kinnaird Head.

They form an acrostic, and the initial letters form the work ‘smock’;
but it was too easy--and too hard, because there are two or three
lights, particularly the fixed lights, that are exactly the same, so he
dropped _that_ idea.”

Angel breathed an admiring sigh.

“Jimmy, you’re a wonder,” he said simply.

Jimmy, busying himself amongst the papers, stole a glance at the girl.

“I am very human,” he thought, and was annoyed at the discovery.

“Now we come to the more important clue,” he said, and smoothed a
crumpled paper on the table.

“This, I believe, to have a direct bearing on the verse.”

Then three heads came close together over the scrawled sheet.

“A picture of a duck, which means T,” spelt Angel, “and that’s erased;
and then it is a snake that means T----”

Jimmy nodded.

“In Reale’s verse,” he said deliberately, “there are six words; outside
of those six words I am convinced the verse has no meaning. Six words
strung together, and each word in capitals. Listen.”

He took from his pocketbook the familiar slip on which the verse was
written:--

“Here’s a puzzle in language old,
Find my meaning and get my gold.
Take one BOLT--just one, no more--
Fix it on behind a DOOR.
Place it at a river’s MOUTH
East or west or north or south.
Take some LEAVES and put them whole
In some WATER in a BOWL.
I found this puzzle in a book
From which some mighty truths were took.”

“There are six words,” said Jimmy, and scribbled them down as he
spoke:--

“Bolt (or Bolts).    Leave (or Leaves).
Door.             Water.
Mouth.             Bowl.

Each one stands for a letter--but what letter?”

“It’s rather hopeless if the old man has searched round for all sorts
of out-of-the-way objects, and allowed them to stand for letters of the
alphabet,” said Angel.

The girl murmured something, and met Jimmy’s inquiring eyes.

“I was only saying,” she said hesitatingly, “that there seems to be a
method in all this.”

“Except,” said Jimmy, “for this,” and he pointed to the crossed-out
duck. “By that it would seem that Reale chose his symbols haphazard,
and that the duck not pleasing him, he substituted the snake.”

“But,” said Kathleen, addressing Angel, “doesn’t it seem strange that
an illiterate man like Mr. Reale should make even these rough sketches
unless he had a model to draw from?”

“Miss Kent is right,” said Jimmy quickly.

“And,” she went on, gaining confidence as she spoke, “is there not
something about these drawings that reminds you of something?”

“Of what?” asked Angel.

“I cannot tell,” she replied, shaking her head; “and yet they remind me
of something, and worry me, just as a bar of music that I cannot play
worries me. I feel sure that I have seen them before, that they form a
part of some system----” She stopped suddenly.

“I know,” she continued in a lower voice; “they are associated in my
mind--with--with the Bible.”

The two men stared at her in blank astonishment. Then Jimmy sprang to
his feet, alight with excitement.

“Yes, yes,” he cried. “Angel, don’t you see? The last two lines of
Reale’s doggerel--

“‘I found this puzzle in a book
From which some mighty truths were took.’”

“Go on, go on, Miss Kent,” cried Angel eagerly. “You are on the right
track. Try to think----”

Kathleen hesitated, then turned to Jimmy to address the first remark
she had directed to him personally that day.

“You haven’t got----?”

Jimmy’s smile was a little hard.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Miss Kent, but I _have_ got a copy,”
he said, with a touch of bitterness in his tone. He walked to the
bookcase at one end of the room and reached down the book--a well-worn
volume--and placed it before her.

The rebuke in his voice was deserved, she felt that.

She turned the leaves over quickly, but inspiration seemed to have
died, for there was nothing in the sacred volume that marshaled her
struggling thoughts.

“Is it a text?” asked Angel.

She shook her head.

“It is--something,” she said. “That sounds vague, doesn’t it? I
thought if I had the book in my hand, it would recall everything.”

Angel was intently studying the rebus.

“Here’s one letter, anyway. You said that, Jimmy?”

“The door?” said Jimmy. “Yes, that’s fairly evident. Whatever the word
is, its second letter is ‘P.’ You see Reale’s scribbled notes? All
these are no good, the other letters are best, I suppose it means; so
we can cut out ‘T,’ ‘O,’ and ‘K.’”

“The best clue of all,” he went on, “is the notes about the
‘professor.’ You see them:

“‘Mem.: To get the professor’s new book on it.
Mem.: To do what the professor thinks right.
Mem.: To write to professor about----’

Now the questions are: Who is the professor, what is his book, and what
did he advise? Reale was in correspondence with him, that is certain;
in his desire for accuracy, Reale sought his advice. In all these
papers there is no trace of a letter, and if any book exists it is
still in Sped--it is still in the place from whence this red envelope
came.”

The two men exchanged a swift glance.

“Yes,” said Angel, as if answering the other’s unspoken thought, “it
might be done.”

The girl looked from one to the other in doubt.

“Does this mean an extra risk?” she asked quietly. “I have not
questioned you as to how this red envelope came into your possession,
but I have a feeling that it was not obtained without danger.”

Angel disregarded Jimmy’s warning frown. He was determined that the
better side of his strange friend’s character should be made evident to
the girl.

“Jimmy faced death in a particularly unpleasant form to secure the
packet, Miss Kent,” he said.

“Then I forbid any further risk,” she said spiritedly. “I thought I had
made it clear that I would not accept favors at your friend’s hands;
least of all do I want the favor of his life.”

Jimmy heard her unmoved. He had a bitter tongue when he so willed, and
he chose that moment.

“I do not think you can too strongly impress upon Miss Kent the fact
that I am an interested party in this matter,” he said acidly. “As she
refused my offer to forego my claim to a share of the fortune, she
might remember that my interest in the legacy is at least as great
as hers. I am risking what I risk, not so much from the beautifully
quixotic motives with which she doubtless credits me, as from a natural
desire to help myself.”

She winced a little at the bluntness of his speech; then recognizing
she was in the wrong, she grew angry with herself at her indiscretion.

“If the book is--where these papers were, it can be secured,” Jimmy
continued, regaining his suavity. “If the professor is still alive he
will be found, and by to-morrow I shall have in my possession a list of
every book that has ever been written by a professor of anything.”

Some thought tickled him, and he laughed for the second time that
afternoon.

“There’s a fine course of reading for us all,” he said with a little
chuckle. “Heaven knows into what mysterious regions the literary
professor will lead us. I know one professor who has written a treatise
on Sociology that runs into ten volumes, and another who has spoken his
mind on Inductive Logic to the extent of twelve hundred closely-printed
pages. I have in my mind’s eye a vision of three people sitting amidst
a chaos of thoughtful literature, searching ponderous tomes for
esoteric references to bolts, door, mouth, et cetera.”

The picture he drew was too much for the gravity of the girl, and her
friendship with the man who was professedly a thief, and by inference
something worse, began with a ripple of laughter that greeted his sally.

Jimmy gathered up the papers, and carefully replaced them in the
envelope. This he handed to Angel.

“Place this amongst the archives,” he said flippantly.

“Why not keep it here?” asked Angel in surprise.

Jimmy walked to one of the three French windows that opened on to a
small balcony. He took a rapid survey of the street, then beckoned to
Angel.

“Do you see that man?” He pointed to a lounger sauntering along on the
opposite sidewalk.

“Yes.”

Jimmy walked back to the center of the room.

“That’s why,” he said simply. “There will be a burglary here to-night
or to-morrow night. People aren’t going to let a fortune slip through
their fingers without making some kind of effort to save it.”

“What people?” demanded the girl. “You mean those dreadful men who took
me away?”

“That is very possible,” said Jimmy, “although I was thinking of
somebody else.”

The girl had put on her wrap, and stood irresolutely near the door, and
Angel was waiting.

“Good-by,” she said hesitatingly. “I--I am afraid I have done you an
injustice, and--and I want to thank you for all you have undergone for
me. I know--I feel that I have been ungracious, and----”

“You have done me no injustice,” said Jimmy in a low voice. “I am all
that you thought I was--and worse.”

She held out her hand to him, and he raised it to his lips, which was
unlike Jimmy.

CHAPTER VIII

OLD GEORGE

A stranger making a call in that portion of North Kensington which lies
in the vicinity of Ladbroke Grove by some mischance lost his way. He
wandered through many prosperous crescents and quiet squares redolent
of the opulence of the upper middle classes, through broad avenues
where neat broughams stood waiting in small carriage-drives, and once
he blundered into a tidy mews, where horsy men with great hissings
made ready the chariots of the Notting Hill plutocracy. It may be
that he was in no particular hurry to arrive at his destination, this
stranger--who has nothing to do with the story--but certainly he did
not avail himself of opportunity in the shape of a passing policeman,
and continued his aimless wanderings. He found Kensington Park Road, a
broad thoroughfare of huge gardens and walled forecourts, then turned
into a side street. He walked about twenty paces, and found himself in
the heart of slum-land.

It is no ordinary slum this little patch of property that lies between
Westbourne Grove and Kensington Park Road. There are no tumbled-down
hovels or noisome passages; there are streets of houses dignified with
flights of steps that rise to pretentious street doors and areas where
long dead menials served the need of the lower middle classes of other
days. The streets are given over to an army of squalling children in
varying styles of dirtiness, and the halls of these houses are bare
of carpet or covering, and in some the responsibility of leasehold is
shared by eight or nine families, all pigging together.

They are streets of slatternly women, who live at their front doors,
arms rolled under discolored aprons, and on Saturday nights one street
at least deserves the pithy but profane appellation which the police
have given it--“Little Hell.”

In this particular thoroughfare it is held that of all sins the
greatest is that which is associated with “spying.” A “spy” is a
fairly comprehensive phrase in Cawdor Street. It may mean policeman,
detective, school-board official, rent collector, or the gentleman
appointed by the gas company to extract pennies from the slot-meters.

To Cawdor Street came a man who rented one of the larger houses. To the
surprise of the agent, he offered his rent monthly in advance; to the
surprise of the street, he took no lodgers. It was the only detached
house in that salubrious road, and was No. 49. The furniture came by
night, which is customary amongst people who concentrate their last
fluttering rag of pride upon the respectability of their household
goods. Cawdor Street, on the _qui vive_ for the lady of the house,
learns with genuine astonishment that there was none, and that the
newcomer was a bachelor.

Years ago No. 49 had been the abode of a jobbing builder, hence the
little yard gate that flanked one side; and it was with satisfaction
that the Cawdor Streeters discovered that the new occupant intended
reviving the ancient splendor of the establishment. At any rate, a
board was prominently displayed, bearing the inscription:

J. JONES, BUILDER AND CONTRACTOR.

and the inquisitive Mr. Lane (of 76), who caught a momentary vision of
the yard through the gate, observed “Office” printed in fairly large
letters over the side door.

At stated hours, mostly in the evening, roughly-dressed men called at
the “Office,” stayed awhile, and went away. Two dilapidated ladders
made their appearance in the yard, conspicuously lifting their perished
rungs above the gate level.

“I tried to buy an old builder’s cart and a wheelbarrow to-day,” said
“Mr. Jones” to a workman. “I’ll probably get it to-morrow at my own
price, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get a few sacks of lime and a
couple of cartloads of sand and bricks in, also a few road pitchers to
give it a finishing touch.”

The workman grinned.

“You’ve got this place ready in time, Connor,” he said.

Mr. Connor--for such “J. Jones, Builder and Contractor” was--nodded and
picked his teeth meditatively with a match stick.

“I’ve seen for a long time the other place was useless,” he said with a
curse.

“It was bad luck that Angel found us there last week. I’ve been fixing
up this house for a couple of months. It’s a nice neighborhood, where
people don’t go nosing around, and the boys can meet here without
anybody being the wiser.”

“And old George?”

“We’ll settle him to-night,” said the other with a frown. “Bat is
bringing him over, and I want to know how he came to let Angel get at
us.”

Old George had always been a problem to the “Borough Lot.” He held
the position of trust that many contended no demented old man should
hold. Was it safe or sane to trust him with the plate that had been
so laboriously acquired from Roebury House, and the jewels of Lady
Ivy Task-Hender, for the purloining of which one “Hog” Stander was at
that very moment doing seven stretch? Was it wise to install him as
custodian of the empty house at Blackwall, through which Angel Esquire
gained admittance to the meeting-place of the “Borough Lot”?

Some there were who said “Yes,” and these included the powerful faction
that numbered “Bat” Sands, “Curt” Goyle, and Connor amongst them. They
contended that suspicion would never rest on this half-witted old
gentleman, with his stuffed birds, his goldfish, caged rabbits and
mice, a view that was supported by the fact that Lady Ivy’s priceless
diamonds lay concealed for months in the false bottom of a hutch
devoted to guinea pigs in old George’s strange menagerie, what time the
police were turning London inside out in their quest for the property.

But now old George was under a cloud. Notwithstanding the fact that he
had been found amongst his live stock securely bound to a chair, with a
handkerchief over his mouth, suspicion attached to him. How had Angel
worked away in the upper room without old George’s knowledge?

Angel might have easily explained. Indeed, Angel might have relieved
their minds to a very large extent in regard to old George, for in
marking down the haunt of the “Borough Lot” he had been entirely
deceived as to the part played by the old man who acted as “caretaker”
to the “empty” house.

In a fourwheeled cab old George, smiling foolishly and passing his hand
from time to time over his tremulous mouth, listened to the admonitions
of Mr. Bat Sands.

“Connor wants to know all about it,” said Bat menacingly; “and if you
have been playing tricks, old man, the Lord help you.”

“The Lord help me,” smiled old George complacently.

He ran his dirty fingers through his few scanty white locks, and the
smile died out of his face, and his loose mouth dropped pathetically.

“Mr. Sands,” he said, then stopped; then he repeated the name to
himself a dozen times; then he rubbed his head again.

Bat, leaning forward to catch what might be a confession, sank back
again in his seat and swore softly.

In the house of “J. Jones, Builder and Contractor,” were gathered in
strength the men who composed the “Borough Lot.”

“Suppose he gave us away,” asked Goyle, “what shall we do with him?”

There was little doubt as to the feeling of the meeting. A low animal
growl, startling in its ferocity, ran through the gathering.

“If he’s given us away”--it was Vinnis with his dull fishlike eyes
turned upon Connor who was talking--“why, we must ‘out’ him.”

“You’re talking like a fool,” said Connor contemptuously. “If he has
given us away, you may rest assured that he is no sooner in this house
than the whole place will be surrounded by police. If Angel knows old
George is one of us, he’ll be watched day and night, and the cab that
brings him will be followed by another bringing Angel. No, I’ll stake
my life on the old man. But I want to know how Mr. Cursed Angel got
into the house next door.”

They had not long to wait, for Bat’s knock came almost as Connor
finished speaking.

Half led, half dragged into the room, old George stood, fumbling his
hat in his hand, smiling helplessly at the dark faces that met his. He
muttered something under his breath.

“What’s that?” asked Connor sharply.

“I said, a gentleman----” began old George, then lapsed into silence.

“What gentleman?” asked Connor roughly.

“I am speaking of myself,” said the old man, and there came into
his face a curious expression of dignity. “I say, and I maintain,
that a gentleman is a gentleman whatever company he affects. At
my old college I once reproved an undergraduate.” He was speaking
with stately, almost pompous distinctness. “I said, ‘There is an
axiom to which I would refer you, _De gustibus non est disputandum_,
and--and----’”

His shaking fingers went up again to the tell-tale mouth, and the
vacant smile came back.

“Look here,” said Connor, shaking his arm, “we don’t want to know
anything about your damned college; we want to know how Angel got into
our crib.”

The old man looked puzzled.

“Yes, yes,” he muttered; “of course, Mr. Connor, you have been most
kind--the crib--ah!--the young man who wanted to rent or hire the room
upstairs.”

“Yes, yes,” said Connor eagerly.

“A most admirable young man,” old George rambled on, “but very
inquisitive. I remember once, when I was addressing a large
congregation of young men at Cheltenham--or it may have been young
ladies--I----”

“Curse the man!” cried Goyle in a fury. “Make him answer, or stop his
mouth.”

Connor warned him back.

“Let him talk in his own way,” he said.

“This admirable person,” the old man went on, happily striking on the
subject again, “desired information that I was not disposed to give,
Mr. Connor, remembering your many kindnesses, particularly in respect
to one Mr. Vinnis.”

“Yes, go on,” urged Connor, and the face of Vinnis was tense.

“I fear there are times when my usually active mind takes on
a sluggishness which is foreign to my character--my normal
character”--old George was again the pedant--“when the unobservant
stranger might be deceived into regarding me as a negligible quantity.
The admirable young man so far treated me as such as to remark to his
companion that there was a rope--yes, distinctly a rope--for the said
Mr. Vinnis.”

The face of Vinnis was livid.

“And,” asked Connor, “what happened next? There were two of them, were
there?”

The old man nodded gravely; he nodded a number of times, as though the
exercise pleased him.

“The other young man--not the amiable one, but another--upon finding
that I could not rent or hire the rooms--as indeed I could not, Mr.
Connor, without your permission--engaged me in conversation--very
loudly he spoke, too--on the relative values of cabbage and carrot as
food for herbaceous mammals. Where the amiable gentleman was at that
moment I cannot say----”

“I can guess,” thought Connor.

“I can remember the occasion well,” old George continued, “because that
night I was alarmed and startled by strange noises from the empty rooms
upstairs, which I very naturally and properly concluded were caused----”

He stopped, and glancing fearfully about the room, went on in a lower
tone.

“By certain spirits,” he whispered mysteriously, and pointed and
leered first at one and then another of the occupants of the room.

There was something very eerie in the performance of the strange old
man with the queerly-working face, and more than one hardened criminal
present shivered a little.

Connor broke the silence that fell on the room.

“So that’s how it was done, eh? One held you in conversation while the
other got upstairs and hid himself? Well, boys, you’ve heard the old
man. What d’ye say?”

Vinnis shifted in his seat and turned his great unemotional face to
where the old man stood, still fumbling with his hat and muttering to
himself beneath his breath; in some strange region whither his poor
wandering mind had taken him he was holding a conversation with an
imaginary person. Connor could see his eyebrows working, and caught
scraps of sentences, now in some strange dead tongue, now in the
stilted English of the schoolmaster.

It was Vinnis who spoke for the assembled company.

“The old man knows a darned sight too much,” he said in his level tone.
“I’m for----”

He did not finish his sentence. Connor took a swift survey of the men.

“If there is any man here,” he said slowly, “who wants to wake up at
seven o’clock in the morning and meet a gentleman who will strap his
hands behind him and a person who will pray over him--if there’s any
man here that wants a short walk after breakfast between two lines of
warders to a little shed where a brand new rope is hanging from the
roof, he’s at liberty to do what he likes with old George, but not in
this house.”

He fixed his eyes on Vinnis.

“And if there’s any man here,” he went on, “who’s already in the shadow
of the rope, so that one or two murders more won’t make much difference
one way or the other, he can do as he likes--outside this house.”

Vinnis shrank back.

“There’s nothing against me,” he growled.

“The rope,” muttered the old man, “Vinnis for the rope,” he chuckled to
himself. “I fear they counted too implicitly upon the fact that I am
not always quite myself--Vinnis----”

The man he spoke of sprang to his feet with a snarl like a trapped
beast.

“Sit down--you.”

Bat Sands, with his red head close-cropped, thrust his chair in the
direction of the infuriated Vinnis.

“What Connor says is true--we’re not going to croak the old man, and
we’re not going to croak ourselves. If we hang, it will be something
worth hanging for. As to the old man, he’s soft, an’ that’s all you can
say. He’s got to be kept close----”

A rap at the door cut him short.

“Who’s that?” he whispered.

Connor tiptoed to the locked door.

“Who’s there?” he demanded.

A familiar voice reassured him, and he opened the door and held a
conversation in a low voice with somebody outside.

“There’s a man who wants to see me,” he said in explanation. “Lock the
door after I leave, Bat,” and he went out quickly.

Not a word was spoken, but each after his own fashion of reasoning drew
some conclusion from Connor’s hasty departure.

“A full meetin’,” croaked a voice from the back of the room. “We’re all
asked here by Connor. Is it a plant?”

That was Bat’s thought too.

“No,” he said; “there’s nothin’ against us. Why, Angel let us off only
last week because there wasn’t evidence, an’ Connor’s straight.”

“I don’t trust him, by God!” said Vinnis.

“I trust nobody,” said Bat doggedly, “but Connor’s straight----”

There was a rap on the door.

“Who’s there?”

“All right!” said the muffled voice.

Bat unlocked the door, and Connor came in. What he had seen or what he
had heard had brought about a marvelous change in his appearance--his
cheeks were a dull red, and his eyes blazed with triumph.

“Boys,” he said, and they caught the infectious thrill in his voice,
“I’ve got the biggest thing for you--a million pounds, share and share
alike.”

He felt rather than heard the excitement his words caused. He stood
with his back to the half-opened door.

“I’m going to introduce a new pal,” he rattled on breathlessly. “I’ll
vouch for him.”

“Who is he?” asked Bat. “Do we know him?”

“No,” said Connor, “and you’re not expected to know him. But he’s
putting up the money, and that’s good enough for you, Bat--a hundred
pounds a man, and it will be paid to-night.”

Bat Sands spat on his hand.

“Bring him in. He’s good enough,” and there was a murmur of approval.

Connor disappeared for a moment, and returned followed by a
well-dressed stranger, who met the questioning glances of his audience
with a quiet smile. His eyes swept over every face. They rested for a
moment on Vinnis, they looked doubtfully at old George, who, seated on
a chair with crossed legs and his head bent, was talking with great
rapidity in an undertone to himself.

“Gentlemen,” said the stranger, “I have come with the object of gaining
your help. Mr. Connor has told me that he has already informed you
about Reale’s millions. Briefly, I have decided to forestall other
people, and secure the money for myself. I offer you a half share of
the money, to be equally divided amongst you, and as an earnest of my
intention, I am paying each man who is willing to help me a hundred
pounds down.”

He drew from one of his pockets a thick package of notes, and from two
other pockets similar bundles. He handed them to Connor, and the hungry
eyes of the “Borough Lot” focused upon the crinkling paper.

“What I shall ask you to do,” the stranger proceeded, “I shall tell you
later----”

“Wait a bit,” interrupted Bat. “Who else is in this?”

“We alone,” replied the man.

“Is Jimmy in it?”

“No.”

“Is Angel in it?”

“No” (impatiently).

“Go on,” said Bat, satisfied.

“The money is in a safe that can only be opened by a word. That word
nobody knows--so far. The clue to the word was stolen a few nights ago
from the lawyer in charge of the case by--Jimmy.”

He paused to note the effect of his words.

“Jimmy has passed the clue on to Scotland Yard, and we cannot hope to
get it.”

“Well?” demanded Bat.

“What we can do,” the other went on, “is to open the safe with
something more powerful than a word.”

“But the guard!” said Bat. “There’s an armed guard kept there by the
lawyer.”

“We can arrange about the guard,” said the other.

“Why not get at the lawyer?” It was Curt Goyle who made the suggestion.

The stranger frowned.

“The lawyer cannot be got at,” he said shortly. “Now, are you with me?”

There was no need to ask. Connor was sorting the notes into little
bundles on the table, and the men came up one by one, took their money,
and after a few words with Connor took their leave, with an awkward
salutation to the stranger.

Bat was the last to go.

“To-morrow night--here,” muttered Connor.

He was left alone with the newcomer, save for the old man, who hadn’t
changed his attitude, and was still in the midst of some imaginary
conversation.

“Who is this?” the stranger demanded.

Connor smiled.

“An old chap as mad as a March hare. A gentleman, too, and a scholar;
talks all sorts of mad languages--Latin and Greek and the Lord knows
what. He’s been a schoolmaster, I should say, and what brought him down
to this--drink or drugs or just ordinary madness--I don’t know.”

The stranger looked with interest at the unconscious man, and old
George, as if suddenly realizing that he was under scrutiny, woke up
with a start and sat blinking at the other. Then he shuffled slowly
to his feet and peered closely into the stranger’s face, all the time
sustaining his mumbled conversation.

“Ah,” he said in a voice rising from its inaudibility, “a gentleman!
Pleased to meet you, sir, pleased to meet you. _Omnia mutantur, nos et
mutamur in illis_, but you have not changed.”

He relapsed again into mutterings.

“I have never met him before,” the stranger said, turning to Connor.

“Oh, old George always thinks he has met people,” said Connor with a
grin.

“A gentleman,” old George muttered, “every inch a gentleman, and a
munificent patron. He bought a copy of my book--you have read it? It
is called--dear me, I have forgotten what it is called--and sent to
consult me in his--ah!--anagram----”

“What?” The stranger’s face was ashen, and he gripped Connor by the
arm. “Listen, listen!” he whispered fiercely.

Old George threw up his head again and stared blandly at the stranger.

“A perfect gentleman,” he said with pathetic insolence, “invariably
addressing me as the ‘professor’--a most delicate and gentlemanly thing
to do.”

He pointed a triumphant finger to the stranger.

“I know you!” he cried shrilly, and his cracked laugh rang through
the room. “Spedding, that’s your name! Lawyer, too. I saw you in the
carriage of my patron.”

“The book, the book!” gasped Spedding. “What was the name of your book?”

Old George’s voice had dropped to its normal level when he replied with
extravagant courtesy--

“That is the one thing, sir, I can never remember.”

CHAPTER IX

THE GREAT ATTEMPT

There are supercilious critics who sneer at Scotland Yard. They are
quite unofficial critics, of course, writers of stories wherein figure
amateur detectives of abnormal perspicuity, unraveling mysteries with
consummate ease which have baffled the police for years. As a matter of
fact, Scotland Yard stands for the finest police organization in the
world. People who speak glibly of “police blunders” might remember one
curious fact: in this last quarter of a century only one man has ever
stood in the dock at the Old Bailey under the capital charge who has
escaped the dread sentence of the law.

Scotland Yard is patiently slow and terribly sure.

Angel in his little room received a letter written in a sprawling,
uneducated hand; it was incoherent and stained with tears and
underlined from end to end. He read it through and examined the date
stamp, then rang his bell.

The messenger who answered him found him examining a map of London. “Go
to the Record Office, and get E.B. 93,” he said, and in five minutes
the messenger came back with a thick folder bulging with papers.

There were newspaper cuttings and plans and dreadful photographs, the
like of which the outside world do not see, and there was a little
key ticketed with an inscription. Angel looked through the _dossier_
carefully, then read the woman’s letter again....

Vinnis, the man with the dead-white face, finishing his late breakfast,
and with the pleasurable rustle of new banknotes in his trouser pocket,
strolled forth into Commercial Road, E. An acquaintance leaning against
a public-house gave him a curt nod of recognition; a bedraggled girl
hurrying homeward with her man’s breakfast in her apron shrank on one
side, knowing Vinnis to her sorrow; a stray cur cringed up to him, as
he stood for a moment at the edge of the road, and was kicked for its
pains.

Vinnis was entirely without sentiment, and besides, even though the
money in his pocket compensated for most things, the memory of old
George and his babbling talk worried him.

Somebody on the other side of the road attracted his attention. It was
a woman, and he knew her very well, therefore he ignored her beckoning
hand. Two days ago he had occasion to reprove her, and he had seized
the opportunity to summarily dissolve the informal union that had kept
them together for five years. So he made no sign when the woman with
the bruised face called him, but turned abruptly and walked towards
Aldgate.

He did not look round, but by and by he heard the patter of her feet
behind, and once his name called hoarsely. He struck off into a side
street with a raging devil inside him, then when they reached an
unfrequented part of the road he turned on her.

She saw the demon in his eyes, and tried to speak. She was a penitent
woman at that moment, and hysterically ripe for confession, but the
savage menace of the man froze her lips.

“So,” he said, his thin mouth askew, “so after what I’ve said an’ what
I’ve done you follow me, do you. Showing me up in the street, eh!”

He edged closer to her, his fist doubled, and she, poor drab,
fascinated by the snakelike glare of his dull eyes, stood rooted to
the spot. Then with a snarl he struck her--once, twice--and she fell a
huddled, moaning heap on the pavement.

You may do things in Commercial Road, E., after “lighting-up time”
that are not permissible in the broad light of the day, unless it be
Saturday, and the few people who had been attracted by the promise of a
row were indignant but passive, after the manner of all London crowds.
Not so one quiet, middle-aged man, who confronted Vinnis as he began to
walk away.

“That was a particularly brutal thing to do,” said the quiet man.

Vinnis measured him with his eye, and decided that this was not a man
to be trifled with.

“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” he said roughly, and tried to push
past, but an iron grip was on his arm.

“Wait a moment, my friend,” said the other steadily, “not so fast; you
cannot commit a brutal assault in the open street like that without
punishment. I must ask you to walk with me to the station.”

“Suppose I won’t go?” demanded Vinnis.

“I shall take you,” said the other. “I am Detective-Sergeant Jarvis
from Scotland Yard.”

Vinnis thought rapidly. There wasn’t much chance of escape; the street
they were in was a cul-de-sac, and at the open end two policemen had
made their appearance. After all, a “wife” assault was not a serious
business, and the woman--well, she would swear it was an accident. He
resolved to go quietly; at the worst it would be a month, so with a
shrug of his shoulders he accompanied the detective. A small crowd
followed them to the station.

In the little steel dock he stood in his stockinged feet whilst a deft
jailer ran his hands over him. With a stifled oath, he remembered the
money in his possession; it was only ten pounds, for he had secreted
the other, but ten pounds is a lot of money to be found on a person
of his class, and generally leads to embarrassing inquiries. To his
astonishment, the jailer who relieved him of the notes seemed in no
whit surprised, and the inspector at the desk took the discovery
as a matter of course. Vinnis remarked on the surprising number of
constables there were on duty in the charge room. Then--

“What is the charge?” asked the inspector, dipping his pen.

“Wilful murder!” said a voice, and Angel Esquire crossed the room from
the inspector’s office. “I charge this man with having on the night of
the 17th of February....”

Vinnis, dumb with terror and rage, listened to the crisp tones of
the detective as he detailed the particulars of an almost forgotten
crime. It was the story of a country house burglary, a man-servant who
surprised the thief, a fight in the dark, a shot and a dead man lying
in the big drawing-room. It was an ordinary little tragedy, forgotten
by everybody save Scotland Yard; but year by year unknown men had
pieced together the scraps of evidence that had come to them; strand
by strand had the rope been woven that was to hang a cold-blooded
murderer; last of all came the incoherent letter from a jealous
woman--Scotland Yard waits always for a jealous woman--and the evidence
was complete.

“Put him in No. 14,” said the inspector. Then Vinnis woke up, and the
six men on duty in the charge room found their time fully occupied.

   *    *    *    *    *

Vinnis was arrested, as Angel Esquire put it, “in the ordinary way of
business.” Hundreds of little things happen daily at Scotland Yard
in the ordinary way of business which, apparently unconnected one
with the other, have an extraordinary knack of being in some remote
fashion related. A burglary at Clapham was remarkable for the fact
that a cumbersome mechanical toy was carried away in addition to other
booty. A street accident in the Kingsland Road led to the arrest of a
drunken carman. In the excitement of the moment a sneak-thief purloined
a parcel from the van, was chased and captured. A weeping wife at
the police station gave him a good character as husband and father.
“Only last week he brought my boy a fine performin’ donkey.” An alert
detective went home with her, recognized the mechanical toy from the
description, and laid by the heels the notorious “Kingsland Road Lot.”

The arrest of Vinnis was totally unconnected with Angel’s
investigations into the mystery of Reale’s millions. He knew him as a
“Borough man,” but did not associate him with the search for the word.

None the less, there are certain formalities attached to the arrest of
all bad criminals. Angel Esquire placed one or two minor matters in the
hands of subordinates, and in two days one of these waited upon him in
his office.

“The notes, sir,” said the man, “were issued to Mr. Spedding on his
private account last Monday morning. Mr. Spedding is a lawyer, of the
firm of Spedding, Mortimer and Larach.”

“Have you seen Mr. Spedding?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. Mr. Spedding remembers drawing the money and paying it away
to a gentleman who was sailing to America.”

“A client?”

“So far as I can gather,” said the subordinate, “the money was paid on
behalf of a client for services. Mr. Spedding would not particularize.”

Angel Esquire made a little grimace.

“Lawyers certainly do queer things,” he said dryly.

“Does Mr. Spedding offer any suggestion as to how the money came into
this man’s possession?”

“No, sir. He thinks he might have obtained it quite honestly. I
understand that the man who received the money was a shady sort of
customer.”

“So I should imagine,” said Angel Esquire.

Left alone, he sat in deep thought drawing faces on his blotting-pad.

Then he touched a bell.

“Send Mr. Carter to me,” he directed, and in a few minutes a
bright-faced youth, fingering an elementary mustache, was awaiting his
orders.

“Carter,” said Angel cautiously, “it must be very dull work in the
finger-print department.”

“I don’t know, sir,” said the other, a fairly enthusiastic ethnologist,
“we’ve got----”

“Carter,” said Angel more cautiously still, “are you on for a lark?”

“Like a bird, sir,” said Carter, unconsciously humorous.

“I want a dozen men, the sort of men who won’t talk to reporters, and
will remain ‘unofficial’ so long as I want them to be,” said Angel, and
he unfolded his plan.

When the younger man had gone Angel drew a triangle on the blotting-pad.

“Spedding is in with the ‘Borough Lot,’” he put a cross against one
angle. “Spedding knows I know,” he put a cross at the apex. “I know
that Spedding knows I know,” he marked the remaining angle. “It’s
Spedding’s move, and he’ll move damn quick.”

The Assistant-Commissioner came into the room at that moment.

“Hullo, Angel!” he said, glancing at the figures on the pad. “What’s
this, a new game?”

“It’s an old game,” said Angel truthfully, “but played in an entirely
new way.”

   *    *    *    *    *

Angel was not far wrong when he surmised that Spedding’s move would be
immediate, and although the detective had reckoned without an unknown
factor, in the person of old George, yet a variety of circumstances
combined to precipitate the act that Angel anticipated.

Not least of these was the arrest of Vinnis. After his interview with
old George, Spedding had decided on a waiting policy. The old man had
been taken to the house at Clapham. Spedding had been prepared to wait
patiently until some freak of mind brought back the memory to the form
of cryptogram he had advised. A dozen times a day he asked the old man--

“What is your name?”

“Old George, only old George,” was the invariable reply, with many
grins and noddings.

“But your real name, the name you had when you were a--professor.”

But this would only start the old man off on a rambling reminiscence of
his “munificent patron.”

Connor came secretly to Clapham for orders. It was the night after
Vinnis had been arrested.

“We’ve got to move at once, Mr. Connor,” said the lawyer. Connor sat
in the chair that had held Jimmy a few nights previous. “It is no use
waiting for the old man to talk, the earlier plan was best.”

“Has anything happened?” asked Connor. His one-time awe of the lawyer
had merged in the familiarity of conspiratorship.

“There was a detective at my office to-day inquiring about some notes
that were found on Vinnis. Angel Esquire will draw his own conclusions,
and we have no time to lose.”

“We are ready,” said Connor.

“Then let it be to-morrow night. I will withdraw the guard of
commissionaires at the safe. I can easily justify myself afterwards.”

An idea struck Connor.

“Why not send another lot of men to relieve them? I can fix up some of
the boys so that they’ll look like commissionaires.”

Spedding’s eyes narrowed.

“Yes,” he said slowly, “it could be arranged--an excellent idea.”

He paced the room with long, swinging strides, his forehead puckered.

“There are two reliefs,” he said, “one in the morning and one in the
evening. I could send a note to the sergeant of the morning relief
telling him that I had arranged for a new set of night men--I have
changed them twice already, one cannot be too careful--and I could give
you the necessary authority to take over charge.”

“Better still,” said Connor, “instruct him to withdraw, leaving the
place empty, then our arrival will attract no notice. Lombard Street
must be used to the commissionaires going on guard.”

“That is an idea,” said Spedding, and sat down to write the letter.

   *    *    *    *    *

The night of the great project turned out miserably wet.

“So much the better,” muttered Connor, viewing the world from his
Kensington fastness. The room dedicated to the use of the master of
the house was plainly furnished, and on the bare deal table Connor had
set his whisky down whilst he peered through the rain-blurred windows
at the streaming streets.

“England for work and Egypt for pleasure,” he muttered; “and if I get
my share of the money, and it will be a bigger share than my friend
Spedding imagines, it’s little this cursed country will see of Mr.
Patrick Connor.”

He drained off his whisky at a gulp, rubbed the steam from the windows,
and looked down into the deserted street. Two men were walking toward
the house. One, well covered by a heavy mackintosh cloak, moved with
a long stride; the other, wrapped in a new overcoat, shuffled by his
side, quickening his steps to keep up with his more energetic companion.

“Spedding,” said Connor, “and old George. What is he bringing him here
for?”

He hurried downstairs to let them in.

“Well?” asked Spedding, throwing his reeking coat off.

“All’s ready,” answered Connor. “Why have you brought the old man?”

“Oh, for company,” the lawyer answered carelessly.

If the truth be told, Spedding still hoped that the old man would
remember. That day old George had been exceedingly garrulous, almost
lucidly so at times. Mr. Spedding still held on to the faint hope that
the old man’s revelations would obviate the necessity for employing the
“Borough Lot,” and what was more important, for sharing the contents of
the safe with them.

As to this latter part of the program, Mr. Spedding had plans which
would have astonished Connor had he but known.

But old George’s loquacity stopped short at the all-important point
of instructing the lawyer on the question of the cryptogram. He had
brought him along in the hope that at the eleventh hour the old man
would reveal his identity.

Unconscious of the responsibility that lay upon his foolish head, the
old man sat in the upstairs room communing with himself.

“We will leave him here,” said the lawyer, “he will be safe.”

“Safe enough. I know him of old. He’ll sit here for hours amusing
himself.”

“And now, what about the men?” asked the lawyer. “Where do we meet
them?”

“We shall pick them up at the corner of Lombard Street, and they’ll
follow me to the Safe Deposit.”

“Ah!”

They turned swiftly on old George, who with his chin raised and with
face alert was staring at them.

“Safe Deposit, Lombard Street,” he mumbled. “And a most excellent plan
too--a most excellent plan.”

The two men held their breath.

“And quite an ingenious idea, sir. Did you say Lombard Street--a
safe?” he muttered. “A safe with a word? And how to conceal the word,
that’s the question. I am a man of honor, you may trust me.” He made
a sweeping bow to some invisible presence. “Why not conceal your word
thus?”

Old George stabbed the palm of his hand with a grimy forefinger.

“Why not? Have you read my book? It is only a little book, but
useful, sir, remarkably useful. The drawings and the signs are most
accurate. An eminent gentleman at the British Museum assisted me in its
preparation. It is called--it is called----” He passed his hand wearily
over his head, and slid down into his chair again, a miserable old man
muttering foolishly.

Spedding wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

“Nearly, nearly!” he said huskily. “By Heavens! he nearly told us.”

Connor looked at him with suspicion.

“What’s all this about the book?” he demanded. “This is the second time
old George has spoken like this. It’s to do with old Reale, isn’t it?”

Spedding nodded.

“Come,” said Connor, looking at his watch, “it’s time we were moving.
We’ll leave the old man to look after the house. Here, George.”

Old George looked up.

“You’ll stay here, and not leave till we return. D’ye hear?”

“I hear, Mr. Connor, sir,” said old George, with his curious assumption
of dignity, “and hearing, obey.”

As the two men turned into the night the rain pelted down and a gusty
northwesterly wind blew into their faces.

“George,” said Connor, answering a question, “oh, we’ve had him for
years. One of the boys found him wandering about Limehouse with hardly
any clothes to his back, and brought him to us. That was before I knew
the ‘Borough Lot,’ but they used him as a blind. He was worth the money
it cost to keep him in food.”

Spedding kept the other waiting whilst he dispatched a long telegram
from the Westbourne Grove Post Office. It was addressed to the master
of the _Polecat_ lying at Cardiff, and was reasonably unintelligible to
the clerk.

They found a hansom at the corner of Queen’s Road, and drove to the
Bank; here they alighted and crossed to the Royal Exchange. Some men
in uniform overcoats who were standing about exchanged glances with
Connor, and as the two leaders doubled back to Lombard Street, followed
them at a distance.

“The guard left at four o’clock,” said Spedding, fitting the key of the
heavy outer door. He waited a few minutes in the inky black darkness
of the vestibule whilst Connor admitted the six uniformed men who had
followed them.

“Are we all here?” said Connor in a low voice. “Bat? Here! Goyle? Here!
Lamby? Here!”

One by one he called them by their names and they answered.

“We may as well have a light,” said Spedding, and felt for the switch.

The gleam of the electric lamps showed Spedding as pure a collection of
scoundrels as ever disgraced the uniform of a gallant corps.

“Now,” said Spedding in level tones, “are all the necessary tools here?”

Bat’s grin was the answer.

“If we can get an electric connection,” he said, “we’ll burn out the
lock of the safe in half----”

Spedding had walked to the inner door that led to the great hall, and
was fumbling with the keys. Suddenly he started back.

“Hark!” he whispered. “I heard a step in the hall.”

Connor listened.

“I hear nothing,” he began, when the inner door was thrown open, and a
commissionaire, revolver in hand, stepped out.

“Stand!” he cried. Then, recognizing Spedding, dropped the muzzle of
his pistol.

White with rage, Spedding stood amidst his ill-assorted bodyguard. In
the searching white light of the electric lamps there was no mistaking
their character. He saw the commissionaire eying them curiously.

“I understood,” he said slowly, “that the guard had been relieved.”

“No, sir,” said the man, and the cluster of uniformed men at the door
of the inner hall confirmed this.

“I sent orders this afternoon,” said Spedding between his teeth.

“No orders have been received, sir,” and the lawyer saw the
scrutinizing eye of the soldierly sentry pass over his confederates.

“Is this the relief?” asked the guard, not attempting to conceal the
contempt in his tone.

“Yes,” said the lawyer.

As the sentry saluted and disappeared into the hall Spedding drew
Connor aside.

“This is ruin,” he said quickly. “The safe must be cleared to-night.
To-morrow London will not hold me.”

The sentry reappeared at the doorway and beckoned them in. They
shuffled into the great hall, where in the half darkness the safe
loomed up from its rocky pedestal, an eerie, mysterious thing. He saw
Bat Sands glancing uncomfortably around the dim spaces of the building,
and felt the impression of the loneliness.

A man who wore the stripes of a sergeant came up.

“Are we to withdraw, sir?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Spedding shortly.

“Will you give us a written order?” asked the man.

Spedding hesitated, then drew out a pocketbook and wrote a few hasty
words on a sheet, tore it out, and handed it to the man.

The sergeant looked at it carefully.

“You haven’t signed it or dated it either,” he said respectfully, and
handed it back.

Spedding cursed him under his breath and rectified the omissions.

“Now you may go.”

In the half-light, for only one solitary electrolier illuminated the
vast hall, he thought the man was smiling. It might have been a trick
of the shadows, for he could not see his face.

“And am I to leave you alone?” said the sergeant.

“Yes.”

“Is it safe?” the non-commissioned officer asked quietly.

“Curse you, what do you mean?” cried the lawyer.

“Well,” said the other easily, “I see you have Connor with you, a
notorious thief and blackmailer.”

The lawyer was dumb.

“And Bat Sands. How d’ye do, Bat? How did they treat you in Borstal, or
was it Parkhurst?” drawled the sergeant. “And there’s the gentle Lamby
trying hard to look military in an overcoat too large for him. That’s
not the uniform you’re used to wearing, Lamby, eh?”

From the group of men at the door came a genuinely amused laugh.

“Guard the outer door, one of you chaps,” said the sergeant, and
turning again to Spedding’s men, “Here we have our respected friend
Curt Goyle.”

He stooped and picked up a bag that Bat had placed gingerly on the
floor.

“What a bag of tricks,” the sergeant cooed, “diamond bits and dynamite
cartridges and--what’s this little thing, Bat--an ark? It is. By Jove,
I congratulate you on the swag.”

Spedding had recovered his nerve and strode forward. He was playing for
the greatest stake in the world.

“You shall be punished for this insolence,” he stormed.

“Not at all,” said the imperturbable sergeant.

Somebody at the door spoke.

“Here’s another one, sergeant,” and pushed a queer old figure into the
hall, a figure that blinked and peered from face to face.

He espied Spedding, and ran up to him almost fawning.

“The Safe Deposit--in Lombard Street,” he cackled joyously. “You see, I
remembered, dear friend; and I’ve come to tell you about the book--my
book, you know. My munificent patron who desired a puzzle word----”

The sergeant started forward.

“My God!” he cried, “the professor.”

“Yes, yes,” chuckled the old man, “that’s what he called me. He bought
a copy of my book--two sovereigns, four sovereigns he gave me. The
book--what was it called?”

The old man paused and clasped both hands to his head.

“_A Study--a Study_” he said painfully, “_on the Origin of--the
Alphabet._ Ah!”

Another of the commissionaires had come forward as the old man began
speaking, and to him the sergeant turned.

“Make a note of that, Jimmy,” the sergeant said.

Spedding reeled back as though he had been struck.

“Angel!” he gasped.

“That’s me,” was the ungrammatical reply.

Crushed, cowed, beaten and powerless, Spedding awaited judgment. What
form it would take he could not guess, that it would effectively ruin
him he did not doubt. The trusted lawyer stood self-condemned; there
was no explaining away his companions, there could be no mistaking the
meaning of their presence.

“Send your men away,” said Angel.

A wild hope seized the lawyer. The men were not to be arrested, there
was a chance for him.

The “Borough Lot” needed no second ordering; they trooped through the
doorway, anxious to reach the open air before Angel changed his mind.

“You may go,” said Angel to Connor, who still lingered.

“If the safe is to be opened, I’m in it,” was the sullen reply.

“You may go,” said Angel; “the safe will not be opened to-night.”

“I----”

“Go!” thundered the detective, and Connor slunk away.

Angel beckoned the commissionaire who had first interrogated Spedding.

“Take charge of that bag, Carter. There are all sorts of things in it
that go off.” Then he turned to the lawyer.

“Mr. Spedding, there is a great deal that I have to say to you, but
it would be better to defer our conversation; the genuine guard will
return in a few minutes. I told them to return at 10 o’clock.”

“By what authority?” blustered Spedding.

“Tush!” said Angel wearily. “Surely we have got altogether beyond that
stage. Your order for withdrawal was expected by me. I waited upon the
sergeant of the guard with another order.”

“A forged order, I gather?” said Spedding, recovering his balance.
“Now I see why you have allowed my men to go. I overrated your
generosity.”

“The order,” said Angel soberly, “was signed by His Majesty’s Secretary
of State for Home Affairs”--he tapped the astonished lawyer on the
shoulder--“and if it would interest you to know, I have a warrant in my
pocket for the arrest of every man jack of you. That I do not put it
into execution is a matter of policy.”

The lawyer scanned the calm face of the detective in bewilderment.

“What do you want of me?” he asked at length.

“Your presence at Jimmy’s flat at ten o’clock to-morrow morning,”
replied Angel.

“I will be there,” said the other, and turned to go.

“And, Mr. Spedding,” called Jimmy, as the lawyer reached the door, “in
regard to a boat you have chartered from Cardiff, I think you need not
go any further in the matter. One of my men is at present interviewing
the captain, and pointing out to him the enormity of the offense of
carrying fugitives from justice to Spanish-American ports.”

“Damn you!” said Spedding, and slammed the door.

Jimmy removed the commissionaire’s cap from his head and grinned.

“One of these fine days, Angel, you’ll lose your job, introducing the
Home Secretary’s name. Phew!”

“It had to be done,” said Angel sadly. “It hurts me to lie, but
I couldn’t very well tell Spedding that the sergeant of the
commissionaires had been one of my own men all along, could I?”

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