Daredevil

CHAPTER VIII

ANNOYANCE OF OSCAR

Nothing but credit can attach to Captain Arden, who is in charge of the case. Immediately he heard of the display of jewels, he ordered fifty officers in plain clothes to be armed and dispatched to Moraine's. The hold-up, however, was staged in a manner so unprecedented and so completely unforseen that, hampered as they were by a considerable number of sightseers, Captain Arden and his men were helpless. As it was, his prompt action in attacking the member of the gang who was left behind to ensure the getaway of the others was as courageous a deed as that which won him the D.S.O. at Mons during the Great War. It was not his fault that he failed to prevent the escape of the gang. Captain Arden also deserves special praise for the way in which he quelled the subsequent panic. A gentleman who was present has written us a strongly worded letter abusing the methods used by Captain Arden in doing this. Our correspondent apparently fails to realise that you cannot argue politely with a terrified mob, and that Captain Arden's vigorous measures probably saved several people from, at least, serious injury.

So spoke the Daily Record, after the first profitable crime of the Triangle.

The trouble about sensational crime, from the journalist's point of view, is that once the public has ceased to be interested in its committal, the news value falls several degrees below par. The Triangle mystery, however, suffered from no such disadvantages. The definite threat of further crimes effectively maintained popular interest at fever heat. The Triangle was the topic of conversation wherever two or three were gathered together, and those who at the first announcement had dismissed it as a hoax, prayed that their indiscretion might be forgotten.

Joe Blaythwayt was confidently pessimistic.

"I Know Criminals," he would say darkly, to the few doubters that remained.

Another man, personally concerned with the fate of the plot, was belligerently smug.

"I shall nod bay," he repeated with liturgical monotony.

He sat opposite Joe Blaythwayt in the Lombard Street office. It was not his usual day for calling, but his reason was costly enough to justify this departure from routine.

"Ter day afder to-morrow," he said, "I shall a cheque traw vor fifty tousand bounds. I shall require to pe baid in one bound notes. Led berbarations pe mate."

"Certainly, sir," said Joe Blaythwayt briskly, and made a note on his pad. "The money will be ready for you. In the morning?"

"Yess!" Raegenssen nodded violently. "That iss all. Thang you."

He rose.

"If I might mention something, sir," Blaythwayt stopped him. "That man Snooper—you want to be careful of him."

Raegenssen wrinkled.

"Snoober?"

"That Brome fellow—Edward Brome he calls himself. I saw him driving through the City in your car yesterday morning. Of course, it's really no business of mine if you give your acquaintance a lift, but Brome isn't—ah—desirable. He's a well-known fence."

"Fence?"

"'Fence,'" explained Mr. Blaythwayt with unction, "is the cant term among criminals for a man who buys stolen property. A receiver. Brome is a receiver."

Raegenssen stroked his chin.

"Tear me! That iss most disdressing—yess! Hof you seen him before? How do you know?"

"I Know Criminals," said Joe with an air.

"When you again meed him," said Raegenssen seriously, "dell him nod to gall on me again. I shall pe gross—yess! A griminal! I shall eggsdinguish him! He shall hof ter fire out!"

Blaythwayt was surprised at the man's vehemence.

"There's no actual evidence against him," he explained erroneously, "but the police know him for a criminal and they're anxious to get a conviction." In this he was nearer the truth. "It'd be unpleasant for you to be known as a friend of Snooper's. I thought I'd take the liberty of warning you."

The Swede nodded.

"I am gradeful. Thang you. Goot-pye!"

He left in his usual abrupt manner, and Joe Blaythwayt returned to his desk with a comfortable feeling of having at last found an opportunity of giving a practical demonstration of his knowledge of the criminal classes.

So escaped Snooper Brome, with three car-loads of detectives all but on his heels and four hundred thousand pounds' worth of gems in a shabby leather bag. And the armed men who prowled the streets of London searched in vain.

That evening, Oscar Raegenssen summoned his portly butler and his chauffeur to his study. He took the cocktail the butler shook for him, and threw two buff scraps of paper on the table.

"To-night," he ordered, "you will go to der theadrigal enderdainments. Your tiggets! I do not wiss to disturbed pe!"

His servants accepted the tickets with murmured thanks, and exchanged a covert wink, for they were used to their master's eccentricities. Without warning or explanation he would disappear for weeks, and return, as though he had only been absent for a day, expecting to find everything running smoothly for him to drop back into. Often he sent them away for the night, with some such instructions as he gave them now. They put their own constructions on these habits of his, and they were quite wrong.

Raegenssen saw them out of the house, and then fetched a hat and stick and himself left. He dined economically at a small restaurant in Soho, and from there he went on to the Orpheum Theatre, where that bright entertainment Bronx or Manhattan played nightly to crowded houses. Not that Oscar Raegenssen was interested in snappy back-chat, negroid music, or chorus girls' legs; but the box of a theatre is a convenient place for meeting those whom you wish to see and speak with in private. There Storm, who was in the stalls, saw him dozing boredly during the first part of the show, for Oscar Raegenssen's friend was not due to arrive until ten.

Storm left in the interval, and strolled leisurely to the garage where his car was kept. He drove north and west—along Oxford Street and up Orchard Street, and when the gates of Regent's Park loomed before him he veered half left and went on up the Finchley Road. After a distance he turned right, drove on for about three hundred yards, and suddenly swung left into an unlighted track. The car bumped and jolted as he nursed it over the uneven ground.

At length he stopped, switched off all his lights, got down, and stretched himself.

The moon was new and feeble, and the sky black with hurrying clouds. Somewhere to the north rumbled the mutter of distant thunder, A summer storm was brewing.

He disappeared among the shadows. The darkness was almost complete, yet he picked his way over the rough path unerringly. On either side of him rose ghostly polyliths which resembled ruins in that faint light, and once he climbed over a wall in the interstices of which the cement was still soft. He was on a plot of land where a block of flats was being erected.

Presently he stopped and took a black silk handkerchief from his pocket, and this he pinned to the lapels of his dinner jacket. It erased the white blur of his shirt and made him practically invisible. A second black silk handkerchief, folded diagonally, he tied about the lower part of his face.

A six-foot wall barred his way. He scaled it like a cat, and dropped nimbly on the springy turf on the other side.

The house stood back from the road, in darkness. Storm was in the back garden, the high walls that enclosed it screening him effectively from the view of any possible outside watchers. He stole along in the shadow they cast. A car passed with a hoot and a blare as the latch of a window clicked open under his expert manipulation, and as the splutter of the car died away he raised the sash soundlessly and slipped over the sill.

Inside, the blackness was intense, with a tangible quality to it that was numbing to the senses. Myriads of silver specks whirled before the eyes in protest against the strain of attempted vision. The utter opacity was tactile, half fluid, like a fog. He crept through the room with a feline assurance, uncannily avoiding chairs and tables, crossed the hall, and opened a door on the far side, closing it behind him. Then he went over to the window and passed his sensitive fingers delicately over every inch of it, even as he had done to that by which he had entered—a touch light enough to stroke a butterfly's wing unfelt. Satisfied that there were no alarms fitted, he pressed back the catch and opened the window to its fullest extent, after which he drew the heavy curtains.

A beam of light stabbed the darkness, flickered over every part of the room, and rested at length on a Sheraton cabinet.

Unhurriedly he made his preparations. From an inside pocket he took a paper bag from which he scattered a coarse powder over the exposed parquet by the door, so that anyone attempting to enter would be bound to step on it. Next came a slim wallet of morocco leather which, laid open on the floor beside the cabinet, gleamed with the silvery sheen of fine steel tools. Lastly, he drew from his hip pocket an automatic pistol, and this he also laid on the floor beside him.

The cabinet hid a small safe of the most modern type, built like a battleship, yet he tackled it confidently. Patiently and skillfully he worked, and at last he had a rubber cup fixed securely to the metal about the lock. Into this he poured a viscid liquid from a rubber bottle, which he handled gingerly. Then he sat back on his heels, while the concentrated acid bubbled against the steel and gave off a heavy, pungent vapour.

Exactly three hours after he had entered the house the door of the safe hung open, disclosing rows and rows of documents tied in bundles of various sizes, neatly arranged on the metal shelves.

Holding the electric lamp between his knees so that its rays fell towards the floor, he ran through the packets rapidly.

It was then that he heard the snap of potassium chlorate—the safety powder he had sprinkled around the door detonated under foot like the tiny explosions of "cap" pistols. He caught up his automatic and spun around, just as a switch clicked over and the room was flooded with a blinding glare.

For a space of seconds there was a strung, pulsating silence. Then:

"Hullo, Snooper," said Storm, in a voice that was not his own. "How are things?"

It was a deadlock. Snooper Brome's big hand held an ugly revolver which covered Storm, and Storm's little automatic was steadily focused on Mr. Brome's rainbow waistcoat. So they stood without movement, with every nerve keyed and strained to humming pitch, while their eyes never swerved a fraction of a millimetre from each other's trigger finger. Moments passed with the glittering clarity of crystal drops falling in a bottomless pit....

"What are you doing?" asked Mr. Brome, though the question was rather unnecessary.

He looked pale, and his mane of black hair was more unruly than usual.

"I might ask the same question," remarked Storm.

Their eyes met over the blue-black gleam of their weapons—Storm's glinting metallically over his improvised mask, Snooper's blue ones cold and level. And Storm saw Snooper's first finger whiten over the knuckle ... saw the slight backward tremble of the hammer of his revolver.

"Don't be a fool!" he snapped tensely. "An automatic's quicker than an uncocked revolver. I can shoot a fraction of a second before you can, and I never miss!"

Snooper's finger relaxed, and the masked man rose slowly from his crouching position.

"That's why you'll drop that gat," went on Storm's monotonous, unrecognisable voice. It was perfectly level, and yet he was playing the most terrific gamble of nerve in his career. He was banking, betting, coldly and unruffledly threatening on the infinitesimal margin of time's advantage the difference of weapons gave him. "You're poaching, Snooper. Your business is to fence, not to crack cribs yourself ... taking the bread out of the poor burglar's mouth.... I shall have to report you to the Larcenists' Union, Snooper, really I shall...."

His voice trailed away.

Brome slackened the muscles of his forearm preparatory to making his own gamble, for he knew how desperate was his position. And yet he need not have been afraid, for Storm had taken one of those swift, inspirational, entirely characteristic decisions of his. But, not knowing this, Eddie Brome watched keenly for the faintest wavering of the gun-metal grey eyes.... He stirred slightly, and the crack! of another speck of potassium chlorate under his foot was like a gunshot in the stillness.

For a decimal of a split second it distracted his attention.

A fine tongue of flame licked out from the muzzle of Storm's automatic, and the roar of the explosion was shattering. The bullet struck Brome's revolver from his hand, and it clattered to the floor while his arm fell limply to his side, suddenly paralysed by the shock.

Storm dropped his gun into his pocket and leapt. His fist crashed into Snooper's face, and the big man slid limply to the ground.

Storm had his back to the drawn curtains, and behind him he heard, quite distinctly, a stifled gasp. In one lightning spring he was beside the window, his back flattened against the wall, watching and listening. No one entered, and he drew back the edge of the curtain a centimetre. There was nothing to be seen, but as he let the cloth fall back he caught the gentle crunch of stealthy footsteps on gravel.

He was across the room in a flash, had turned out the lights, and was back at the window. He slipped between the curtains and swung himself out, dropping to the path with hardly a sound. At the corner of the building a dim grey shape moved suddenly and vanished.

Storm jumped the path and raced along the turf to where he had seen the figure. There was no sign of it, but he could glimpse the small area in front of the house, and he saw the two black burly forms which pounded up the tiled approach, their lanterns dancing as they ran.

"Damn these police.... But it's no use getting rattled, Horace!" he murmured.

With which sound piece of philosophy he doubled back to the window and returned to the room he had left. His one shot had already raised the alarm, and he had much to do, yet he moved without flurry. On the floor in front of the safe he continued his interrupted task by the light of his torch. It was finished in a few moments, and then he closed the safe and replaced the wallet of tools in his pocket. As he crossed to the door he saw that Snooper had vanished and, on the strength of his decision, was glad that he had not hit the fence harder.

There was, however, small time for these reflections, for the constables outside were already thundering on the front door. He flitted upstairs like a shadow, temporarily unperturbed by the problem of how he was to escape, and made a speedy, methodical search of all the upstairs rooms. The door of one remained shut when he turned the handle noiselessly, and from within came a faint sound of cautious movement.

Coolly he twisted into the next room, and, looking out and down, he saw the policemen climb in through the window he had left open for his own bolt-hole.

"Jerusalem!" he breathed. "They've both gone in—the poor, damned boobs! I ought to take their numbers, really, and report them for incompetence.... However...."

He flung a leg over the sill and looked up, for although his way of escape was temporarily clear he was anxious to see the man in the adjoining room. Above his head ran a stout gutter, and, testing it with his weight, he decided that it would hold. He swung out into space and risked his way along the side of the building. In a few hair-raising seconds he could see into one corner of the lighted room, and then a loose section of pipe rattled in his hand, and the blind whirred down almost in his face.

Without hesitation he turned and made his way as swiftly as he dared back to the window he had left. He got his legs inside, and then grabbed the top of the sash and wrenched his body down and inwards with all his strength. Even as he did so, the shot he had feared and sought thus to dodge rang out, and something seared across his shoulder.

"Here—none of that, sir!" commanded a voice, and the next instant the lights went up.

Raegenssen stood on the threshold, cold murder flaming in his eyes. Behind him were the two constables, holding him back, and one of them was clutching the Swede's wrist to prevent him firing the second round he was wrestling and straining to loose off. He was in evening dress, with his mane of fair hair dishevelled and his Viking beard awry with the struggle.

"Take that man!" he screamed, and one of the constables released his hold and came towards Storm.

"Dear me," murmured Storm. "Siegfried, my Pelican, you seem annoyed!"

His hand went to his pocket, and whipped into view again immediately with a vision of snarling death. He fired in between the men until the magazine was exhausted, and for a moment they recoiled instinctively. It gave him his chance. With a light laugh he leapt for the little group in the doorway.

Raegenssen staggered back from the sideways smash of Storm's elbow, and in the same movement Storm hit one of the policemen regretfully but scientifically on the point of the jaw. An instant later he was sprinting down the passage.

He sprang to the banisters, and went whirling down, as the Swede fired again. The bullet sang harmlessly past Storm's head, and a whistle shrilled urgently. The three men came stumbling down in his wake, but he had the start of them, and he had ducked back into the shadows of the hall and vanished into the library before they could switch on the downstairs lights. They were still groping about when he passed through the still open window and scudded across the back lawn the way he had come.

He found his car, stripped off his disguise, and had his hand on the door when he noticed that there was someone huddled up in the front seat. He glanced keenly around him, and then kept his right hand on the gun in his pocket as he turned his electric flash on the face of the intruder.

"Hullo, Kit," said Susan calmly,

When he had disposed of the police Raegenssen collected the papers from his safe and studied each one of them closely. Then he replaced them and went to the kitchen at the back of the house, where he brewed himself some coffee, and, armed with this, returned to the library and lighted a cigar.

Half-way through the smoke he discarded the stump fastidiously and rose. At one end of the room was a small writing-desk, which he unlocked, drawing down the folding front. Then he took off his coat and white waistcoat and began to work.

A tiny reading-lamp on the top of the desk was all the light in the room. He looked a grotesque figure, his leonine head stooped over his work, his glasses perched precariously on the end of his nose, his protruding tongue following the movements of his hands, with the direct light bringing out his angular face in high relief.

It was two hours later that he heard the sound—the creak of a board under a wary foot. He laid down his stylo carefully and switched out the reading-lamp. On the threshold of the library he halted. The hall was in darkness. Facing him, though he could not see them, were three doors, and he had left each one of them slightly ajar. Almost certainly his study would be the goal of this new trespasser, he decided, and passed over the heavy carpet without sound. He was just outside the study door when he heard a curious noise—three deliberate claps. It was so obviously designed to attract attention that another man would have paused, but Raegenssen was a man without fear. He slid through the opening and stood with his back to the wall, every sense on the alert.

"Who iss that?" he demanded.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" boomed back a mocking voice.

It was disguised, yet there was something familiar in it which he could not place. His searching fingers located the electric light switch, but he flicked the lever over and back without results. The wires were cut—he found the loose ends hanging free a foot further down.

"What is...?" he said.

And then came a rollicking chuckle that, unemotional as he was, seemed to set a fine thread of ice vibrating in his spine.

"Maddock!" he roared uncertainly, and then he saw a shadow move, and stumbled forward.

He touched cloth, and with a deep-throated grunt he closed. The unknown struck at him with something that whistled as it fell, but Raegenssen bowed his head and the life-preserver thudded agonisingly into his shoulder instead of into his skull. He grabbed the striker's hand, and for a short while they swayed and panted in the darkness. His opponent was heavy and strong above the average, but he was no match for the giant Swede. Presently they fell together, and Raegenssen heaved himself astride the writhing man and sought to gather in the arms that struck viciously at him.

"Now we shall see," he growled, and then a chance blow crashed into his solar plexus and he rolled limply away, gasping in a torment of nausea.

It was some minutes before he could rise, his great chest heaving painfully, and by that time he knew that the unknown had gone. He reeled across the hall, bent almost double, and snapped on the lights in his library. Every drawer and cupboard had been hurriedly rifled, and their contents strewn on the floor, but he gave the damage scarcely a glance. From among the wreckage he retrieved a flashlight and went back to the study, switching on the lights in the hall on his way. He went over every inch of the room in search of anything his late visitor might have lost in the struggle, and it was quite early in his hunt that he saw something winking up at him from the carpet.

It was a little silver triangle.

CHAPTER IX

SPECIMENS OF JOURNALESE

Storm trod on the self-starter. The powerful engine woke to life with no more than a whispering purr. Like a long shadow the Hirondel slid out of the cart track and down the deserted road between ghostly files of street lamps.

He switched on his lights as he turned into the Finchley Road.

It had been a merry evening, and not without those thrilling moments after which his heart yearned; and it had left him with things to ponder. He wanted to know the reason for Snooper Brome's appearance in the home of Oscar Raegenssen, and he wanted to know what the hurriedly lowered blind in an upstairs room had hidden from him, but it was typical of the man that he accepted Susan's arrival as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Lucky you found me," he remarked. "Now I can take you along to the Elysion, and we can consume bacon and eggs."

He made no effort to discover the reason for her presence, but she enlightened him of her own accord.

"It's all Uncle Joe's fault," she explained. "I'd been to dinner with him, and—you've had some experience of him—you know what a bloodthirsty little man he is, and this Triangle business is meat and strong drink to him. He was lecturing me about it for hours after I ought to have gone home, and he kept dragging Raegenssen into the discussion and then forgetting what he was going to say about him. Then he told me Raegenssen lived near by, and promptly added that women shouldn't get mixed up with crime. So, of course, I had to butt in. Did you kill Snooper?"

She asked the question so dispassionately that Storm laughed.

"No," he said mildly. "Not to-night. It wasn't—er—expedient. One of these days I shall probably have to, but that'll keep. How much did you see?"

"You saw me."

"And," said Storm in pained accents, "you saw the police charging up the garden, and you didn't rally round to assist the getaway? Susan, you're going off!"

She smiled, and laid a cool hand on his.

"Old chap," she said, "that would have been unpardonable. You knew what you were doing, and you don't need lessons in looking after yourself. If I'd thought you wanted help, I'd have come——"

"Like old times," said Storm, and raised her hand to his lips.

He felt curiously exhilarated that night. It may have been due to the fresh food for thought which he had gathered from his adventurous and wholly illegal visit, or to the sudden bracing rush of swift action he had enjoyed to the full after overmuch peace and quiet. Or, on the other hand, it may have been due to the presence of the girl at his side.... Storm felt happily incompetent to judge. He knew, at least, that the old, gay recklessness had returned to him in all its reawakened daredevilry. The cool night air was grateful on his face: he drew deep breaths of it contentedly, and it went to his head like wine. He moved his arms ecstatically, for the pure sensuous joy of feeling the rippling suppleness of them. He laughed softly, irresponsible and proud, throwing back his head—a splendid animal glorying in its magnificent manhood.

"Oh, Susan, this is the life!" he said. "No dull safety for me! I only hope it doesn't end too soon."

"You get all the fun," she complained. "All I can do is to mooch around waiting to be shot up, and fill in the intervals lunching with Uncle Joe."

"Damn Uncle Joe!" exploded Storm, but this time without jealousy. "I'm sick of hearing about Uncle Joe! Forget him, kid, and listen to me. Susan, when this jaunt's over, and the Alpha Triangle's done the six-foot drop, you're coming away with me—I don't care where, so long as it's some place where you can still go gunning for people who annoy you. London's all right when there's a Triangle livening things up, but one day the Triangle'll toe the T in a whitewashed shed, and I hate stagnation! We'll start a young war somewhere, if you like. Any old thing suits me, so long as it's disreputable and dangerous.... Is that a bet?"

"I don't know," she said demurely. "You're so very unconventional...." And thereafter he only had one hand for the steering-wheel.

Storm breakfasted next morning with his usual litter of newspapers scattered on the floor all around him, but he was chiefly amused by the alarm of the Daily Record. To his mind, the crime reports in which the Record specialised were far more interesting than fiction, for that paper had a reputation for chewing more meat from tropical bones than any of its contemporaries.

WHERE ARE THE POLICE?
LONDON AT MERCY OF GANG OF MURDERERS.
GOVERNMENT MUST NOT SURRENDER.
FURTHER OUTRAGES ANTICIPATED.
LATEST NEWS OF GIGANTIC CONSPIRACY.

—and a lot more. The police, one gathered, were either incapable or afraid; the Government were meditating incontinent surrender; England was to be plunged into anarchy; neither life nor property would be safe.... Only the policy of the Daily Record was stemming the tide of disaster.

"These people aren't helpful," murmured Storm. "Stampeding sheep! Bring me some more toast."

"Yessir," said Cork.

Cork, Storm's valet, was a man with aggrieved eyebrows and a disapproving mouth. He had the expression of one who has looked on the wine when it was sour, and who has never quite succeeded in getting rid of the taste. But, at least, he went about his work with the efficiency of a superman whose head would be bloody but unbowed despite plague, pestilence, famine, riot, civil commotion, the fall of the Conservative Party, the dissolution of the British Empire, Act of God, or the agitation of the Daily Record.

"There is a man downstairs who wishes to speak to you, sir," he said, returning with reinforcements of coffee.

Sorrow was in every line of his pessimistic face, and he laid a faint emphasis on the word "man." Storm had never quite induced his servant to accept Inspector Teal as a human being.

"What's the matter with him, Cork?" asked Storm. "Leper?"

"I'm afraid not, sir," replied Cork gloomily. "It's the policeman who calls sometimes."

"Show him up," said Storm and returned to his newspapers.

Mr. Teal glutinated through the door.

"Good morning, sir."

"Morn'n," said Storm without looking up. "Sit down, Teal. English or Colonial breakfast?"

Inspector Teal frowned suspiciously.

"What's a Colonial breakfast?" he inquired.

"Oh, a horse's neck, a mutton chop, and a small dog."

"What's the small dog for?" queried Mr. Teal innocently. "And why a horse's neck?"

"The dog eats the mutton chop, and a horse's neck's a brandy and ginger ale——"

"Coffee—thank you, sir," said the shocked Mr. Teal. "Fat men didn't ought——"

Over a steaming cup he surveyed the cheery, comfortable room. There were well-filled bookcases, a grand piano, and an open secretaire strewn with scraps of paper and writing materials. On the walls were fencing foils, boxing gloves, an oar, and over the mantelpiece hung a couple of sporting rifles.

"Nice little place you've got here," he remarked. "I've always liked it."

"Not so bad! Listen, Teal. The papers say, the police are believed to have a clue. Why don't we contradict such wicked slanders?"

"It's better than Finchley," pursued Mr. Teal without emotion.

"And this: A sensational arrest is expected at every moment. Je-rusalem. My dear soul, how can even a great man like yourself make a sensational arrest at every moment? There aren't enough sensational people in London to maintain the supply. Besides, blokes'd start getting peeved."

"Raegenssen was peeved," said Mr. Teal sleepily.

Storm slewed his chair round so that he faced the detective, and searched for a cigarette. His gun-metal grey eyes were alight with mischief.

"Teal!" he protested. "Why must you be inconsequent?"

"Why must you burgle Raegenssen?" asked Mr. Teal.

That quick, flickering smile played about Storm's lips.

"How do you know?" he asked calmly.

"Your tire tracks were all over that bit of building ground. And I called at your garage on my way here and found dry mud caked all over your wheels. You don't collect that sort of mud in the streets." Mr. Teal blinked twice and yawned. He became almost awake, "Mr. Arden, why can't you and me work together?"

"That accusative makes me go all goosey!" complained Storm.

"You and I," Mr. Teal corrected himself. "Why not? We'd get on much better."

Storm exhaled a thin feather of smoke from the corner of his mouth.

"You might," he said. "But then, you're only a detective."

Inspector Teal accepted the proffered cigar. His mouth widened half an inch momentarily.

"I shouldn't compromise you," he pleaded.

Storm walked over to the window.

"How did you come to visit Raegenssen at all?" he asked.

"I was called early this morning," said Teal. "I haven't been to bed yet. So I heard all about the masked man and the fancy shooting, and then I remembered you'd promised to commit a few felonies. Besides, you can recognise a Hirondel's tracks—they've got a very wide wheel-base, and you can only fit Veloris tires."

"Bit off your beat, wasn't it?"

"No." The detective rummaged in his pocket and produced something that was familiar to Storm without a closer inspection. "Anything to do with Triangles is on my beat."

Storm took the trinket and stared at it. Then he paced quickly up and down the room, his eyes half-closed and his cigarette tightened up in his lips. He raised his shoulders and shoved his hands deep into his pockets, and then he stopped in his stride abruptly and turned.

"Did you get that from Raegenssen?"

Teal nodded.

"The burglar came back, and the second time he left that. He and Raegenssen had a fight, but the Swede stopped one in the tummy."

"Do you think I'm the Triangle?" asked Storm directly.

Inspector Teal jerked the ash from his cigar.

"No, I don't. But you know too much about it, and I wish you'd come across. There's an inquiry about that Moraine's stunt scheduled for this afternoon, and the Commissioner 'll be curious."

"I want the whole yarn," Storm said after a short pause. "As heard from Raegenssen."

"I can do better," said Teal. "A reporter who lives out that way was there even before I was. It was just ten when I came along Piccadilly, so I brought you in the midday edition of the Evening Record."

Storm took the sheet and grinned.

"You're an old cynic, Teal!" he reproved.

He lounged over to the table and rested on the edge of it while he read with interest the brief account of the happenings in North London of the small hours of that morning.

"An air of mystery surrounds the two attempts to burgle the house of Mr. Oscar Raegenssen, the well-known Swedish merchant, which took place last night.

"How does a house take place, Teal?

"Mr. Raegenssen had been to a theatre, and had thence proceeded to a night club—

"How shocking," murmured Storm.

"—from which he returned to his house in Marchmont Avenue at about 1 a.m. He went upstairs immediately and was undressing when he heard a suspicious sound in his study. A moment later a shot rang out. Stopping only to pull on a dressing-gown, Mr. Raegenssen hastened downstairs and found the window wide open and his safe broken open. Finding that the telephone wires had been cut, Mr. Raegenssen returned to his bedroom in order to don some clothes before summoning the police."

"Decency before duty," Storm drawled.

"Two constables who had heard the shot, however, had already arrived, and had entered the building by way of the window which the burglar had left open in his flight. Mr. Raegenssen, meanwhile, had heard a noise in the room adjoining his bedroom which led him to suspect that the burglar was perhaps still in the house. This, indeed, proved to be the case, and the two officers, assisted by Mr. Raegenssen, attempted to apprehend the man. The burglar, however, who was masked and evidently a dangerous character, drew a pistol and fired several times at his would-be captors without hitting them, after which he made a desperate and successful bid for safety.

"About two and a half hours later, when Mr. Raegenssen who had been too disturbed by the thrilling incident to return immediately to his bed, was working in his library, he heard a suspicious sound in his study and attempted to investigate it. He was promptly attacked with great ferocity by the desperado, who again contrived to make his escape, but who this time left behind him a silver triangle of a type which is by now familiar to readers of the Evening Record. During the time it took Mr. Raegenssen to recover sufficiently to rise, the library was in its turn the subject of the burglar's attentions.

"The extraordinary feature of the affair, however—

"That's three 'howevers.'

"—is the fact that in neither case—

"That's two cases.

"—was any attempt—

"That's four attempts, Teal. Beaver! ... Fifteen love.

"—made to abstract anything of value. The only things interfered with were the safe and a number of drawers and filing cabinets in which Mr. Raegenssen kept private papers concerning his business.

"Inspector Teal, who is working on the Triangle Mystery in conjunction with Captain Arden, has been called in, and he is said to have made an important discovery, which is at present being kept a strict secret."

"How much did you lend this reporter, Teal?" asked Storm accusingly.

"It will be remembered that Mr. Raegenssen had already been the recipient of one of the warnings of the Alpha Triangle.

"Good old Snooper!" said Storm cryptically. "I knew he'd get away with it somehow!" He pitched the paper into a corner and swung himself off the table. "And an inquiry. Well, I'll deal with the inquiry! But I wish I knew who Oscar's second friend was."

"It wasn't you?" Inspector Teal was incredulous.

"It was not. If you're really interested, I can prove an alibi; I was inhaling bacon and eggs at the Elysion, or beer chez Mannering—where Miss Hawthorne's staying—at the time."

Teal wrinkled his brow.

"Didn't I hear you mention Snooper?" he prompted, and Storm nodded.

"Snooper was at Raegenssen's last night. And I let him go—you can tell that to your Board of Inquiry! And now, if you don't mind, we'll leave the subject until this afternoon."

The Board assembled in the Chief Commissioner's room at two o'clock, and Storm took his place at one end of the table without a trace of embarrassment. Teal, who sat on his right, was less self-confident, for Inspector Teal was a conventional detective with a proper awe for the majesty of Higher Command. Bill Kennedy, the Assistant Commissioner, shook hands with Storm as he passed, although his usual cheeriness was singularly half-hearted. The Chief, Sir Brodie Smethurst, was the last to arrive, and with him came a man whom no one present with the exception of Storm had expected to see.

"What's the Home Secretary doing in this picnic?" demanded Teal in a hoarse whisper, and Storm shrugged.

"I asked him to come," he stated shortly.

The preliminary business was soon over, for in theory the Board had assembled to make an inquiry into Storm's failure to prevent the robbery at Moraine's; and then Storm rose to give an account of his progress with the main problem.

"I have no excuses to make for the Moraine's affair," he said. "On that score you may take what action you like. The second point is the double burglary at Raegenssen's early this morning. I was the first burglar, but I don't know who the second was—although I could name the man, with certainty, in two guesses. And I'll make you a prophecy: within the next forty-eight hours the man known as Raegenssen will either have disappeared or been killed! ... I have no excuses for the burglary either. It merely happened to be necessary. By swearing information I might conceivably have got a search warrant, but I decided that that course would be both risky and futile, because the issue of the warrant would alarm the man I was anxious to trap; futile, because it might have been necessary to repeat the search without the man being aware that an official search had been made. I was both lucky and unlucky. I found what I expected, to a certain extent, but the arrival of the police gave me no time to find out all that I wanted to. To this moment Raegenssen does not know that his visitor was not a common thief, and therefore he will be killed. If I had revealed my identity to the police, he would have recognised me, and I should have been killed. It was, you see, a matter of my life or—his."

They listened without comprehending.

"You suspect Raegenssen of having some connection with the Alpha Triangle?" suggested Smethurst.

"I know," said Storm carefully, "that the evidence I have secured from Raegenssen, together with what I have obtained from another man, will kill the Alpha Triangle. I could arrest the Apex to-day—but I won't!"

He heard the suppressed gasp that went up, and smiled faintly at Inspector Teal's muffled "Good God!"

"No one but myself," he went on simply, "has anything like the evidence necessary to secure a conviction—I even doubt very much if I could get one myself. You can be satisfied that it is a moral certainty, even if it would fail to convince a Grand Jury. But, at the instance of the late Lord Hannassay, and with the consent of Sir John Marker, I was given carte blanche in this case, and you must continue that support."

"Must is a strong word, Captain Arden," said the Home Secretary mildly.

"I am a strong man," said Storm.

He spoke quietly, not as a boaster, but as one who states a fact, and his cool assurance staggered the Board. Whereas before they had been scowling or incredulous, according to temperament, they were united in indignation.

"P-please make yourself p-p-plain," stammered Smethurst harshly.

"It's rather obvious already," said Storm calmly. "The Alpha Triangle is my father. You needn't think I'm giving away my secret, because I'm not! If you took the trouble to trace my father, you'd come up against a dead end. You'd laugh at the idea—just as you'd laugh if I told you openly now. But, anyway, I don't want you to try and trace him. I don't want this case messed up with a lot of flat-footed half-wits trying to take my place! You're at my mercy. Do what you like. Sack me. Keep me on under supervision. It won't help you, because in a few hours I shall be the only man who can hope to catch the Alpha Triangle. In time, I mean. Of course, I suppose there are plenty of other men who could mug along till they got him—but by that time the Triangle will have cost the country hundreds of thousands of pounds and many lives. You can take your choice...."

He had them stymied. Their world was reeling about their ears. Never within living memory had a man dared to address a Board of Inquiry in such an arrogant manner. Storm set at naught their authority, he was coldly indifferent to the fact that he laid himself open to prosecution, he had given them an ultimatum with all the casualness of a man to whom acceptance or rejection means nothing to speak of—and the chilled insolence of it dazed them. And Storm, while they strove to collect their wits, was leisurely lighting a cigarette and smiling as affably as if he had merely made some commonplace remark about the weather, instead of handing out to Their Augustnesses the starkest slice of sheer frozen case-hardened nerve in their experience....

The atmosphere was electric. It seemed to have temporarily hypnotised all but two of them—Bill Kennedy—who was leaning back in his chair with a grin of pure delight on his ugly face, and Sir John Marker, who was tapping his teeth reflectively with a pencil and apparently considering Storm's proposition as seriously as he would have considered a question in the House.

"It is an extraordinary situation, Captain Arden," he admitted. "I can see your point—up to a point. But if, as you say, your father is involved, hadn't you better pass the case over to someone else?"

"No," said Storm steadily.

"Can't you be a little more explicit, then?"

"I can tell you this: I first suspected my man on a day when I had a slight accident." Storm spoke slowly and evenly, ignoring the stunned faces of the Board and addressing his remarks to the Home Secretary. He was standing erect, with the tips of his fingers resting on the table in front of him, completely at ease. "I was driving down Cockspur Street, and my car skidded and knocked Raegenssen down. There were present Mr. Blaythwayt, manager of the Lombard Street City and Continental; Mattock, a convict on licence employed by Raegenssen; and Miss Hawthorne, Lord Hannassay's secretary. Of those people, two were in a position to note the same thing as I did—the first piece of evidence against my father." He smiled again at their perplexity. "Acting on this, I burgled Raegenssen last night, and learnt something of the next coup planned by the Triangle. I also acquired a fresh suspicion, which I hope to verify soon. But that's all speculation. The solid fact," he said, watching them with a glimmer of amusement in his eyes, "is that one is always interested in a saw-mill which has recently received a consignment of machinery and materials that have nothing whatever to do with the sawing of wood!"

"Do we have to play at Sexton Blake when there aren't any reporters with us?" drawled Bill Kennedy.

Storm grinned.

"I must have notice of that question," he murmured, and sat down.

Then the bottled-up feelings of the Police Chiefs had their vent, and a hum of argument broke out like the snarl of numerous irritated bees. Marker remained aloof, taking no part in the discussion, but listening shrewdly to what his neighbours had to say. Bill Kennedy waved a hand to Storm and lighted a cigar, seemingly bored with the whole business.

Inspector Teal was shaking his head.

"Never," he muttered breathlessly, "never, never did I hope to see this day.... Kent Road's nothin'—he's knocked 'em on the old Embankment and he's got away with it...." His vast form vibrated with Titanic ecstasy.... "'Flat-footed half-wits ... you can take your choice!' ... Oh, Boy!... Oh, BOY!..."

"Teal!" whispered Storm reprovingly. "This mirth is nearly indecent!"

He himself was sublimely unconcerned, for he knew exactly where he had the Great Ones of Scotland Yard. He had them right where he wanted them, gently but firmly held down under his brogues, and he wasn't of the type to indulge in gloating on that account. It had simply been, in his opinion, necessary for him to stand on their necks, and he had done it. That was all. It never occurred to him to crow about it, any more than he gave a snide halfpenny for the consequences.

He finished his cigarette and extinguished it, and selected a second. The drone of dispute died away.

"Will you answer some questions?" asked Sir John Marker.

"Within limits—yes," Storm gave back without hesitation.

"Are you convinced that you know the Triangle?"

"Yes,"

"You based your conclusion entirely on two scraps of evidence?"

"Yes."

"Solely?"

"No. Only a born fool forms a theory on the basis of two scraps of evidence without applying the known facts to that theory and finding out how it wears."

"And you think your theory stands the test?"

"Beautifully."

"What chance would you give your theory in a court of law?"

"About as much chance as a very small icicle in a burning fiery furnace," said Storm carefully—"depending, of course, on the precise grade of imbeciles you chose your jury from."

The Home Secretary conferred in an undertone with Smethurst.

"Then you think," he said, his lips twitching at the corners, "that if you are allowed to go on in your own way. without question, you will be able to raise your theory to the standard of obviousness demanded by a jury of average imbeciles?"

"It's possible."

"And what about the crimes which may be committed by the Triangle while you are attempting to do this?"

"They will be fewer than if you took the case out of my hands."

"Then what are your immediate plans?"

"I'm going to confirm my theory to my own satisfaction, and—by way of an impartial witness—to the satisfaction of Inspector Teal; and then I shall find the Triangle, and——"

"And?"

"He will die," said Storm simply. "But it will not be on the gallows."

His even, unemotional tone held them all rapt. In spite of themselves, his personality had gripped them. His slim straight figure stood out above them; his level confident voice commanded their unwilling attention; he dominated the scene as surely as if he had sat in the Chief Commissioner's chair with all the authority of Parliament behind him.

"That," he said, "is the only reason why I do not intend to conduct this case in the normal way." He looked around him searchingly, and then his eyes returned to the Home Secretary. "I will now make my demands." They gasped again at that—his unassuming presumption was a paradox they needed time to digest. "You will permit me to go on with the case as I wish, with the assistance of Inspector Teal. You will ask for no information, nor will you follow up the hints I have given you this afternoon. You will keep secret my real name, which is now known to you, until I wish the fact to be published. You will allow me to take what counter-measures I think fit to meet the offensive of the Triangle. That may seem arrogant," he continued after a short silence, as though the possibility had just occurred to him. "As a matter of fact, it's only to emphasise my determination. Anyway, you wouldn't all mess about with the case, so my reticence won't hinder you. Mr. Kennedy and Inspector Teal will vouch for my competence. In a fortnight the Triangle will have ceased to be—I can guarantee that..."

He paused, while Bill Kennedy and the for-once-completely-awake Mr. Teal nodded their answers to the unspoken question of the rest of the Board.

"Finally," said Storm, "if Sir John Marker would like to come into a private room with me, I will tell him the name of the Apex of the Triangle."

The Home Secretary deliberated for a moment, and then led the way. They were absent for fully half an hour, during which time Bill Kennedy appeared to go to sleep and Inspector Teal stolidly shook his head and refused to answer the questions that were showered upon him.

When Sir John Marker returned his face was white and he seemed to be shivering.

"Captain Arden continues with the case, on his own terms," he instructed curtly. "I may say that I agree with his attitude in every way. But keep it dark ... I don't want trouble in the House."

The other members of the Board stared at him blankly, for they had anticipated nothing so decisive. There was an eerie chill in the air, born of Sir John Marker's ghostly pallor, that would have shaken less matter-of-fact men. The hint of something vast and menacing and incomprehensible loomed over them ... something bigger than even the Daily Record had ever dreamed of....

They broke up into little groups which converged on the placid Storm and the now weary Teal, while Sir Brodie Smethurst escorted the Home Secretary from the room.

As the Minister was taking his leave, the Chief Commissioner stopped him.

"There's been a lot of talk about that man Raegenssen," he said. "I've heard other things about him which make him interesting in a general way, apart from the Triangle. Can't I have that one question?"

The Home Secretary moistened his dry lips as he shook his head, and smiled crookedly.

"Oscar Raegenssen must have been reincarnated," he said flatly. "He's been dead two days..."

CHAPTER X

RETURN OF AN EXILE

There was a thin yellow envelope which was familiar to the members of the Alpha Triangle, for it was in such envelopes that they received their weekly general orders, and in similar envelopes the lieutenants of the Apex communicated with their Chief, under one or another of his various aliases. It was one of these which caught the eye of Joan Sands on a certain morning when she entered the living-room for her belated breakfast. It lay beside her husband's plate unopened, for James Mattock was absorbed in the latest news about the Alpha Triangle, as purveyed by the Daily Mercury, and seemed to be unattached for the moment by the more intimate news which awaited his scrutiny.

He glanced up as she came in, gave her a perfunctory smile, and went on with his reading.

Joan took her seat and poured herself out some coffee. There were unbecoming shadows under her eyes; and, not yet rouged and powdered, she was unhealthily pale. The girl had altered during the past week, and Mattock had noticed the change without understanding it. There had never been any love between them—the old sophisticated Joan would have scoffed at the idea—but there had been Mattock's infatuation and the girl's readiness to accept anything that offered in the shape of easy money and a good time. He had done much for her—had served a term of imprisonment to save her life—and she was grateful. But love ... no. She was a gold-digger, and she was honest about it; she played the game by him, because her own peculiar code commanded her to. She would have given him what he wanted without the formality of marriage, because she was fond of him in a cynical way, and he had been very good to her in his unworldly, altruistic manner. Not that she was in any sense promiscuous; that was about the only form of gold-digging she barred, and that fact, perhaps, constituted her only virtue in the eyes of her victims.

It is difficult to analyse her mind. A child of the people, she had risen to the fringe of Society by reason of her beauty, wit, vivacity, and a certain acquired refinement, while her less gifted brother remained in the ranks of the petty in-and-out-of-"stir" sneak-thieves. She kept up her position because she was unscrupulous where money was concerned. And yet, incredible as it may seem, for all the wealth her foolish middle-aged admirers had offered her, she had come to James Mattock a virgin. So ill-assorted a couple were they—James Mattock, Oxford graduate and gentleman by birth, who had in his headlong course down-hill tasted all but the ultimate dregs of dissipation, unselfishly in love with a woman of the criminal classes whose chastity had been her only claim to his consideration....

He was at a loss, now, to interpret her changed attitude towards him. Ordinarily, she had been the ideal of a good comrade to him—not demonstratively affectionate, yet kindly sympathetic, loyal and trustworthy. Of late she had become rather distant. There was an awkwardness between them which exasperated Mattock and perplexed the girl herself.

"You've forgotten your letter," she reminded him as he drained his cup and rose to go.

"Oh, yes."

He was preoccupied. She could see the lines of worry on his face. He had been past middle age when he had met her, and prison had aged him; he had aged even more during the last few days. His unspoken trouble awakened the old companionship—shook for a moment the strange barrier of reserve which had separated them so incomprehensibly.

She fetched his hat and umbrella for him, and then put her hands on his shoulders.

"What is it, Jimmy?" she prompted. "You're so quiet lately."

"Am I? Oh, yes, dear, perhaps I am a bit. I'm not feeling quite myself." His voice was expressionless. "This—the whole thing's rather getting on my nerves, I think."

He had forgotten the yellow envelope in spite of her reminder, and she went back for it and placed it in his hands.

"Do you have to go on?" she said wistfully. "I wish—I wish you'd drop it, Jimmy."

"You wouldn't have this flat, then," he said innocently.

"D'you think that's everything in my life?" she broke out resentfully. "Didn't I marry you when you hadn't a bean—when you had to—to steal for me? Have we always got to have this life, with everyone's hand against us, and nothing in the future ... nothing ... unless it's Aylesbury for me and the Awful Place for you?" The wall was down now. "This silly feud of yours is going to cost us everything! That's the only idea you've got in your head—to satisfy your rotten vanity, and get your paltry revenge—and you'll go on slogging at it, and risking on it, and wasting your whole life on it! You've set it up as your god, and you'll sacrifice everything to it—sacrifice yourself—sacrifice me! ... You've kidded yourself that heaven's at the end of this road you're going, and you'll sweat for your worm-eaten heaven—you'll slave and slink and cringe and break your heart to feed this bloody thing that's gnawing away inside you—and what good'll it do you?"

"We've had all this before," said Mattock tonelessly. "I've got to go on. I'm sorry, Joan.... But you can get out of it—it nearly broke me up when I found you were in the Triangle, but it's been on my mind ever since. Get out of it, Joan, and don't fret. We'll pull through somehow."

She faced him accusingly, unshed tears in her eyes.

"If it costs you everything—in spite of all I've said, you're going on?" she flared.

He nodded.

"Even if you lose ... me?"

He stared at her.

"You, Joan? Why, how does it touch you? You can go—I've told you I'd prefer you to—and then, when it's all over——"

"Yes, when!" she blazed back. "And when that happens you'll be dead—dead! Don't you know that? You're playing skittles with dynamite, James Mattock—you're screwing your head into the mouth of a howitzer with a wild horse harnessed to the lanyard! You're mad!" She clung to him convulsively, her head buried in his shabby coat. "Jimmy, give it up ... don't go on asking for death!"

Instinctive actress though she was, her passionate outburst was desperately sincere, and Mattock passed a shaking hand across his forehead as if to brush away a veil that clouded his eyes. And yet, when he took her gently by the shoulders and set her from him, the dull blankness of his eyes had given place only to the glimmer of a fanatical light.

"There was Sylvia," he said. "I must go on.... She suffered cruelly ... I must...."

He spoke as one who repeats a prayer, and as she drew away from him it seemed as if the old insurmountable wall slid into the space between them. She must have realised it, for she made a last fierce effort to break through his armour.

"Are you blind?" she whispered tremblingly. "The strain's getting too much for me—and it's not myself I'm worrying about.... I've been blind too, and I've just realised it.... Jim"—a wonderful light was born suddenly in her eyes—"oh, Jimmy"—breathlessly—"Jimmy——"

And then, in the old caprice of Fate, the clock struck. The sharp chime of it perked Mattock from his throbbing expectancy, wiped the dawning comprehension from his face, lashed and wrenched and hammered and tortured him back behind the reef that had all but crumbled away—beat him back to the cold matter-of-fact reality of things and his madness.... Flung back into his brain the madness that had come to him one drizzling afternoon when he had sworn to set a Goal above all Prizes.... Gave him back the Ambition—the One Idea....

"I must be going," he said unevenly, for the hurt showed in his voice. "Can't afford to lose my job. Cheer up, Joan."

He kissed her—not perfunctorily now, but with all the frustrated longing of his heart. And then he strode swiftly from the place.

He saw little of Raegenssen that morning, for the Swede marched straight through the outer office without his customary "Goot morning!" to his clerk, and gave no instructions for the day's work.

Raegenssen locked himself in the inner office and lighted a cigar. He opened the big safe and took down from it a number of ledgers and a bundle of miscellaneous papers bound up with tape. Each one of the books and papers he went through carefully three times, as though memorising their contents, and then he tore out the pages which bore his scrawling handwriting, added the other papers to the pile, and carried the whole over to the fireplace. He watched them burn until every least scrap was reduced to brittle black flakes, and then with the poker he stirred and powdered the ash to a fine dust. Even this, to make doubly sure, he swept up into the shovel and threw from the window.

He was left with three photographs, and these he placed in the wallet he carried in an inside pocket.

Then he resumed his seat and sat through the time it took him to smoke another cigar, motionless except for the regular monotonous twisting of the pencil in his strong hands. It was nearing eleven-thirty when with a sudden movement of decision he snapped the pencil in half, pitched it into the waste-paper basket and rose. He picked up his battered hat, unlocked the door, and passed again through the outer office without a word or a glance to either side, and Mattock watched his departure with a puzzled frown.

He went to the City and Continental, drew some money, and made certain arrangements.

"I see you've had a burglar," remarked Blaythwayt when they had concluded their business.

"Yess. He debarted away!" The Swede's voice was lifeless.

"So the police haven't caught him yet?"

Raegenssen glowered.

"No!" he snapped. "Der bolice are fools! Why hof they nod ter Driangle abbrehented?"

He usually stayed for a short chat with his bank manager, but this morning he seemed curiously disinclined to be conversational. Joe Blaythwayt himself opened the door to his customer, and that simple soul was almost personally apologetic, for Raegenssen's comments on the Force seemed a direct slight on the lethargic officer who was wont on occasion to brighten the Finchley Nights Entertainments.