Daredevil

CHAPTER XI

EZRA SURCON DIGS

There was a man named Ezra Surcon who owned much land in London. He did not court publicity; there were no paragraphs about him in the gossip columns of the newspapers, and as a matter of fact his name was never mentioned, even in whispers, among the Real Estate Kings of the metropolis. He made his purchases quickly and without ostentation, and the fact remains that in the space of three days he acquired the freehold of no less than seven properties. There was a gloomy house in Buckingham Gate, and another, equally gloomy, in College Street. For a large sum he secured a vacant building in Great Windmill Street; the imposing mansion in Queen's Gate cost him less; and a modest erection in Orange Street was comparatively cheap. He paid reasonable prices for No. 94, Carter Lane and No. 53, Montague Street. In all, he must have expended five considerable figures of hard cash, but since he transacted his business under seven different aliases no one was startled by the magnitude of his investments.

He was a tall loose-limbed man of rising sixty, yet the elasticity of his gait as he walked down Constitution Hill that evening showed that the years had made only superficial inroads on his physique. The benevolence of his expression was emphasised by the large horn-rimmed spectacles he wore, and contradicted by the tightness of his mouth and the angularity of his jaw. A studious stoop took some inches off his height and the shabbiness of his clothes gave no indication of the wealth to which his lavish expenditures in other directions testified.

He passed behind the Victoria Memorial and entered Buckingham Gate. The residence of which he was the proud landlord stood only a short distance down the road—a gaunt and grimy affair having about it that indescribable air of forbidding unkemptness which is a seal upon the seats of the mighty. The blinds in all the downstairs windows were drawn, and there was no sign of life about the place.

For a moment he stood at the foot of the steps, and if the suggestion had not been so palpably incongruous one would have said he was listening intently for a sound he half expected to come from beneath his feet. Then he inserted his latchkey in the lock and passed inside.

The panelled hall was in twilight, and his footsteps rang out hollowly on the uncarpeted parquet. The soles of his shoes gritted on strewn earth, and sporadic cakes of dirt disfigured the rest of the floor. Peering into one room, he found it filled almost to the ceiling with a great mound of soil and clay.

A door at the back opened suddenly, and he was confronted by a burly man, stripped to the waist.

"Getting on, Torino?" queried Mr. Surcon shortly, and the giant nodded.

"Very well, signor."

From head to foot the man was stippled and plastered with mud, and the streaming perspiration had cut eccentric patterns in the mess.

He led the way through the kitchen and opened a second door. Before them yawned a flight of stairs which led down into the earth, shrouded in a half-light in which danced the beam of the Italian's flashlight as he guided his employer towards the cellars. The steps themselves were inches deep in trodden clay, and down one side ran two heavy insulated cables. From below them came a muffled thud and clatter.

Presently they met another man, half-naked like the guide, who bore on his shoulders a huge basket of earth, and almost on his heels came a second. Surcon passed them with a brief word of greeting.

They reached the cellars and made their way with difficulty across the layer of soil which cloyed their feet. At the far end of the vault yawned a circular hole, and it was from this that the sounds they heard came.

"We have done eighty yards," said Torino. "Another twenty will be sufficient. That engine is a marvel. To-night we finish."

"There's been no difficulty?"

"None, signor. We have many men, and they are relieved before they tire. There are no complaints, for the pay is good."

They stumbled down the tunnel towards the bobbing light that showed in the distance. The roof was low, and they had to bow their heads; even so, Surcon cracked his head once on a buttress and swore softly. A third man, similarly laden with a muddy basket, passed them, and they caught the heavy tread of the two they had passed on the stairs returning.

At length they reached the end.

A powerful electric bulb swung from a stake driven into the earthen roof, making the tunnel almost as light as day. Right up against the ultimate wall was a thing of shining metal on a wheeled truck. The power cables connected with two large terminals on its outer casing, and over it hovered a wizened man with a rag and an oilcan. It thrummed and thudded with the quiet-efficiency of its compressed strength, and from its stern a stream of earth poured down an iron channel into the waiting baskets. Other men, stripped to the waist and sweating, snatched away the baskets as they were filled and rushed them away. From time to time the engineer slewed the truck round so that the machine attacked a fresh area, and once he adjusted a winch that raised it bodily on the truck to burrow at the height of the passage.

Surcon tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned drawing a greasy hand across his forehead.

"It gives no trouble?" he asked in German, and the man shook his head.

"Nein, Herr."

"The dynamo runs well?"

"Recht wohl, Herr."

"Sehr gut!"

Accompanied by Torino, he retraced his steps laboriously, for the tunnel had a distinct upward gradient from the point where the engine was working. He was glad to return to the comparative freshness of the hall, for the atmosphere below was close and almost insufferable.

They entered a room at the back of the house which had once been a beautiful dining-room. Now the polished mahogany table was scarred and stained, and the remains of a meal were congealing on the chipped plates. A pack of cards was spread on the seat of one chair, and a dozen empty beer bottles stood by the wall.

With a gesture of distaste Surcon swept the debris from one end of the table, dusted a chair with his handkerchief, and sat down delicately. His companion followed suit without these precautions.

"Where are the others?" asked Ezra.

"They sleep upstairs, signor. In an hour they relieve those who are working now."

"There is enough room for the earth?"

"Barely, signor. Much will have to be spread on the floor of the tunnel and in the cellars. A little will go in the upstairs room where the relief are resting."

They spoke in Italian, for Mr. Surcon was a linguist.

He took out a bulging wallet and counted out a large sum, and passed the notes across the table.

"There is the pay," he said, "and there is a hundred per cent. bonus for finishing so soon. You will go from here to the other foremen, and tell them to promise their men the same if they complete their work at the time I have ordered."

"Grazie, signor—subito."

"When they finish, they will return to headquarters. Only two need remain—yourself and one other. It is understood?"

"Perfettamento."

The reason of his visit disposed of, the whim seized him to make a second tour of inspection below. This time he did not penetrate the tunnel, but sat on an up-ended packing-case in the cellar, gazing down towards the winking luminance that showed where his machine ploughed on tirelessly. The clamour and purr of it hypnotised him. He realised then, as for the first time, the colossal daring of his plot, and its immense simplicity. The shaft which faced him was paralleled by six others, in various stages of progress, that were being driven to his command at that moment, by similar machinery. He had a stabbing comprehension of the immensity of the Power he was moulding to his hand....

The man Torino, breaking out of the gloom with one of the waste-baskets on his back, paused at the look of intentness on his master's face.

"It is the plan of a genius," he said softly. "So simple—and so unbeatable! It will mean wealth for all."

Surcon nodded.

"Wealth.... But this little hole will be used last. It is our safety-valve—our trump card. While this remains unused and a secret, there can be no danger."

He followed his foreman back to the sty of a living-room and sat down with his chin in his palms, staring into vacancy. The Italian lighted a rank cigarette and searched among the bottles for an unopened one, which he failed to find. Neither spoke, for each was busy with his own thoughts, and the rap-clang of the brass knocker on the front door made them both start.

"See who it is," ordered Surcon, and Torino nodded and tip-toed from the room.

He was back in a moment with a small innocent-looking man whose china-blue eyes swept round the dining-room in one wary all-embracing glance.

"Morini!" snapped Surcon. "Why the devil have you come here? Fool! Would you lead the police——"

"The bulls aren't after me," said Morini calmly. "Arden was on the spot as usual—damn him!—but your idea of having two cars was a brain-wave. He smashed his car into the Carillon, just as I expected, and I jumped from the Navarre. Gee!—I've never seen a man look so sick! He started gunning from the wreckage—plumb in the middle of West Cromwell Road—but we were round the next corner too quick for him."

He spoke without Mecklen's nasal twang, for "Gat" Morini had once been a gentleman—notwithstanding which fact he was infinitely the more dangerous of the two.

"Did you get Marker?"

"Not fatally, though he may die. I always know to a fraction of an inch where my shots go. Arden was so much on the premises he worried me a little, and I misjudged the speed of the car."

Surcon shrugged.

"It doesn't matter," he remarked. "Gunning is crude—I have a better plan now. A few days——"

"A few days, in which Arden may put you behind bars." Morini leaned against the door and began to pour flake tobacco into a curled slip of paper. "You underrate that man, Chief. He's cool—so cool he nearly gives me cold feet. And tough—he's just a slab of Bessemer on two legs." He fixed his cigarette with one deft twist and lighted it in the same movement. "I've met him before, and it was too even a chance between us to make me feel comfortable!"

"Are you scared?" demanded Surcon malignantly. "Because, if so——"

"Scared," said Morini equably, "is a word folks who know old Gat just don't use when I'm around. But I don't mind 'em knowing that a coffin isn't my idea of a good time."

Surcon regarded his subordinate in silence, his big hands locked together on the table, his heavy brows lowered.

"Well?"

"Let me go gunning for him, Chief," begged Morini. "I tell you, I won't feel comfortable in this game till Arden's riding in a black buggy. He'd be easy—he takes any risk. He got Lew, but Lew always was too nervy to be much good at close work. I shouldn't have missed him that night."

Surcon shook his head—reluctantly, one might have thought, but none the less definitely. His fingers untwined, and he flattened his palms slowly on the mahogany in a simple gesture that conveyed better than words the utter finality of his decision.

"No. I'll deal with him. He needn't be killed. We can hold him until the Government have paid up, and then he can go."

"You seem to have a soft spot in your heart for that guy." Morini flicked up an interrogative eyebrow. "Is he your long-lost brother or something?"

Surcon ignored the question.

"How's Rodriguez?"

"Nearly dead. He'll go out to-night for a certainty. Trouble is, we can't have a doc. in with that place looking like a cross between an arsenal and a barracks."

"I'll give instructions about him by telephone."

Surcon rose and buttoned his coat. He picked up his hat, and Morini stood aside to give him passage.

Surcon paused in the doorway, and his eyes fixed the gunman with a cold warning in them that was more acidly menacing than his words.

"You understand?" he said. "Leave Arden to me. If you kill him, you will die. That's all."

Morini showed his teeth.

"Is he your brother, Chief?" he taunted, and then the flame of concentrated venom that licked out of the big man's eyes made him shrink back. In that moment, with that one level gaze, Surcon, unarmed in the presence of a professional killer, showed who was master.

"No—he is my son," he said simply, and was gone.

An hour later he sat at ease in an armchair, reading over the proclamation that was to appear in every London newspaper the next morning. It was a notice absolutely without precedent in the history of crime—an ultimatum set out with all the cold-blooded arrogant effrontery of a Note from an unscrupulous Great Power to an insignificant Power—a manifesto that was staggering in its presumptuous authoritativeness, before which the imagination reeled away with uneasy incredulity.

CHAPTER XII

TOURS IN BILLINGSGATE

Respectable young ladies of gentle nurture do not as a rule haunt the obscure purlieus which lie east of London Bridge, down towards the river, at one o'clock in the morning; but then, although Susan Hawthorne might have pleaded guilty to the gentle nurture part of the clause, it is doubtful whether she would have admitted her respectability. Respectability and old Smiler, her beloved father, tutor, friend, and companion in the all-important years between fourteen and twenty, were two factors which in the eyes of the initiated were about as likely to merge successfully as oil and water. Certainly, when Adventure loomed ahead, the teaching of old Smiler took no stock of convention.

"If there's Trouble with a big T at the end of anything," was his oft-inculcated maxim, "life isn't worth living unless you're making a bee-line for it. And if, on the way, you come up against something you know you CAN'T do, and it's in the way, well—DO IT, and hell to the consequences."

A pernicious doctrine by almost any ethical standard, but one which by frequent repetition had become as much a part of Susan's life as old Hawthorne himself. Which goes to explain why she sauntered down Lower Thames Street on a certain evening on felony bent. There was no hesitation in her lissom stride—she even hummed a little tune. Nerves? You don't know her! Susan Hawthorne, who on one occasion had stuck up His Excellency the President of Olvidada at the end of a six-shooter, in his own Illustrious Palace, for six measured hours, what time she—er—persuaded him to issue divers orders anent the constitution of that misruled Republic—orders which made His Excellency shudder and gasp and fume impotently—Susan Hawthorne, I say, and nerves? Not in your sweet natural, stranger! Nothing so amateurish as taut muscles, quivering ganglions, and a disconcerting void in the gastric regions—nothing more tremulous than a faint pleasurable tingling of anticipation.

To the casual eye she was simply a weedy youth trudging towards his favourite pub. A moist and melancholy-looking cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth; her face and hands were convincingly grimed; her shoulders slouched. The corduroy trousers were artistically torn, the ill-fitting coat dusty and clumsily patched, the tweed cap pulled down over her eyes in the approved rakish manner. There were only two things about her attire to distinguish her from the original of the part she was playing, and neither of these obtruded itself. One was her shoes—light black pumps with soles as thin and flexible as rubber wafers, which made no sound as they plodded lightly over the cobbles—-the second was a little instrument of blued steel which nestled against her hip, for Susan Hawthorne had spent most of her unusual adolescence in those parts of the world where, the wise go heeled and the foolish are all dead.

So Storm had decided that she wasn't to be in the Triangle picnic, had he? Well, he'd got another guess coming, she reflected grimly. Keep her out of it, when in her time she'd been through more hair-raising adventures, in company with old Smiler and Kit Arden, than she could remember in detail? Not much!

She was swift on the uptake, was this slim girl. Storm had rambled on unsuspectingly about the mysterious warehouse in Billingsgate, and Uncle Joe had spoken sombrely of the mysterious Mr. Raegenssen. The faculty of adding two and two, and unfailingly producing a tentative dozen, was hers in a marked degree, and a few discreet investigations had done the rest. Oscar Raegenssen himself, that eccentric gentleman, was the worthy burgess who numbered that curious "saw-mill" among his goods and chattels, and the coincidence required closer scrutiny. There had remained only the minor problem of the escape from the watchful eye of Terry Mannering, and from the even more intent care of the plain-clothes watch-dog whom Storm had set over her.... To one of her breed, that difficulty was exceeding small. She chuckled reminiscently as she recalled the simple ruse she had employed to circumvent it.

The Sud-Scandinavia Sawmill stood a little way back from the narrow street, occupying a whole block, and fronted by a wide stretch of pavement, not a hundred miles from Nicholson's Wharf—a gaunt sooty building from which by night and by day issued the muffled swoosh and clang of a tireless plant. A forbidden place—glancing up as she approached, she took in its massive dullness; the intangible air of secrecy; the barred and shuttered windows placed high up in the walls; the single narrow rat-hole-like entrance with its steel-mounted door. The demesne of Sud-Scandinavian Wood was going to be difficult.

But it took a lot to daunt Susan, once she had definitely embarked on an enterprise. In one lightning summary of the situation she laid hold of the fact that nothing short of dynamite could force an entrance into that building, if so be the occupants earnestly desired to prevent ingress. Dynamite, or low cunning. Dynamite being clearly out of the question, stealth became the order of the day.

All this she had grasped and docketed in the couple of dozen paces it took her to reach the place, and she never paused as she approached the small door. Under the light of the lone flare which guttered over the lintel, she studied the masonry on either side and located a bell. Her finger pressed it with a firm touch.

A while she waited, and when no response came she pressed again. Straining her ears, she caught the tread of heavy feet coming towards her. There was something threatening about their slow progress which would have alarmed most people—it was as if the janitor knew that the one outside was no regular visitor, and was suspicious. Came the gentle slither of bolts in well-oiled grooves—she counted four of them—and then the protesting snap of a big lock. The door swung back a couple of inches, and part of a scowling face appeared in the gap.

"Vat ees?"

"An urgent message. Hurry up and let me in, you fool!"

As the man perceived her slightness and the fact that she was alone, the door creaked open a further six inches.

"Hom from?"

"The Chief."

"I know no Cheef," said the man, and began to close the door again, but Susan already had her foot in the jamb.

"The Triangle, you infernal idiot," she hissed.

"Vich Triangle?"

She played her trump card. Something silvery glittered in her open palm as she thrust it towards the man's eyes—Joe Blaythwayt had begged it from Mr. Teal as a memento, and Susan had abstracted it from Uncle Joe's treasury without that formality, in preparation for just such a contingency. The charm worked. The door opened wide enough for her to pass.

"Com."

She entered, and heard the door close and the bolts snick back into place. The darkness closed down inkily, and then the shuffling of the janitor's feet stopped and a switch clicked. Over her head a frosted bulb broke into a dim radiance.

Without embarrassment she crushed out the stump of her fag on the dusty floor and took another from a gaudy packet. She knew that she was being inspected closely, but, secure in the efficiency of her disguise, this fact troubled her not at all.

At length the man seemed satisfied.

"Vid hom do you vish to spik?" he queried deferentially.

This was a development which she had not had time to reckon with, but her brain moved fast, and she covered up her slight hesitation by striking a match and lighting her cigarette before replying.

"Is Prester John here?" she asked.

She was bluffing desperately on the fragmentary and secondhand knowledge of Joe Blaythwayt, and prayed that Prester John might be absent. Even if he was there, however, she had her plan mapped out by this time, and she knew her escape was certain—which it assuredly was not if Prester John were away and she went on with her attempt as she had planned.

"I vill see," said the man, and she braced herself up to the knowledge that it was now a case of no retreat, no retreat.... "You haf not been 'ere before?"

"No. I'm always with the Chief."

"Ze Cheef, hein? A graate man, but he hass not enof time for ze ladies, non?"

He leered at her, and for a moment she dreaded that he might have penetrated her make-up. And then she realised that he took her for a lad of his own type and leanings, and she smiled. What was more, she entered her part so thoroughly and she permitted herself a coarse reply which would have sent the simple Joe, had he been there to hear, purple to the ears.

"In zat room"—-he jerked his thumb—"you vill find friends. I vill present you."

"Right you are," she agreed gruffly. "Oh, listen. If John isn't here, you needn't bother to tell me. Just send him along as soon as he arrives. The Chief wants him in a hurry. If he doesn't turn up in half an hour I'll have to leave a message and go along and try to find him somewhere else."

He nodded, and turned to her as though an idea had struck him.

"Zere is somzing beeg an' secret—-'ow you say?—in ze air to-night, n'est-ce-pas? You air ze second urgent messenger ve 'ave 'ad. Not ten meenits ago zere com a beeg man viz 'urry call for Morini, but Morini is not yet arrive, so 'e attend him."

"There is something in the wind," Susan said easily. "But the Chief doesn't like questions."

The man shook his head.

"Somtimes I 'ave fear of 'is secrets. Even ve do not know quite 'ow beeg are 'is plans. Zere is zis tunnel, now. Even zose 'oo work do not know vhy for eet ees mak'. Zere ees a new ingénieur down zere now 'oo mak' inspection. Ze Cheef send 'im wizout varning—a clevaire Espagnol 'e 'as recruit. Mais que faire? 'Y'a du pèse—nous sommes ses esclaves."

The Latin's halting speech broke into a torrent of grumbling French, accompanied by much head-shaking and gesticulation. He was still babbling on volubly as he opened the door he had indicated and waved her in.

She found herself in a broad, low-ceilinged room that looked as if it had been rigged up as a doss-house at short notice—which was the fact. Around the walls ran a double tier of bunks on which men slept or smoked or read according to temperament, while others carried on a low conversation. In the centre of the room, under the hanging oil lamp, stood a greasy table about which sat a dozen toughs gambling. The air was thick with smoke and heavy with the nauseating reek of stale beer. It seemed as if no window had ever been opened upon it. Few of the men spared her a second glance. The alert silence which had succeeded her entry dissolved into a murmur of talk.

She crossed the room to a row of barrels which seemed to do duty for chairs, and sat down, blinking through the smoke which wreathed before her eyes from the dangling fag-end in her mouth. Her hand came in contact with a bottle. She picked it up by the neck and drained the small quantity of bitter fluid there was left in the bottom, and set it down again with a clatter, wiping her lips on the back of her hand.

After a while she strolled over to the table.

She recognised the game they were playing, and was amazed that they should know it, for thugs of that class do not as a rule patronise Monte Carlo, and yet they were undoubtedly on familiar terms with chemin-de-fer. While she watched, a burly ruffian in blue jeans swung round and caught her arm.

"Comin' in on this yer game, cuddy?" he asked.

"Don't know it," she answered, playing her part smoothly.

"Come on!" he insisted boisterously. "Yer c'n learn, same as I 'ad to. It ain't much of a game, but there's dam' few Britishers 'ere an' it soots these bloomin' furriners."

She understood then that the cosmopolitan crowd who provided the majority of the gathering in the room were the cause of the departure from the time-honoured gambles of the Englishman, and to save trouble she took the place the patriotic tough made for her.

It was getting her no farther in her quest, however, except that it gave her time to deduce that the French janitor had not found Prester John. In a few minutes the gamblers were deep in a hated wrangle about the destination of certain stakes, and, taking advantage of the diversion, she slipped from the bench and sidled unostentatiously to the door.

The passage outside was in darkness, but in a moment a thin pencil of light flicked out from her hand, roving across the walls. The man who had admitted her had not entered the doss-room, so she gathered that other rooms were similarly equipped. It would be necessary to proceed warily. Directly across the corridor her torch revealed a door like the one through which she had just passed, and, stealing forward, she heard through it a subdued hum of talk. That, at least, was a spot to avoid. Turning to her right, the beam showed that the far end of the passage twisted abruptly to the left, and she crept towards the bend, using the flashlight sparingly.

Round the corner the corridor widened out into a spacious hall. To one side a flight of stone stairs ran upwards; opposite these, another flight ran down into blackness. On each side were two doors, and a fifth door faced her—an incongruously elegant portal of polished oak adorned with grotesque carvings and half masked by rich velvet hangings. The soles of her supple shoes made no more than a soft slithering sound on the concrete floor as she moved forward. At the end she paused undecidedly. That fifth door was intriguing; intriguing also, after the janitor's vague references to a tunnel, was the flight of stairs that disappeared in the direction of the vaults. Susan solved the problem in a reckless way that would have earned the admiration of Smiler: she took a coin from her pocket and held it between her palms.

"Heads the stairs, tails the door," she murmured, and opened her eyes....

Heads.

A whiff of dank, clammy air met her as she felt her way over the first step. Luckily, the stairs were concrete, as was the upward flight, and there was no danger of creaking boards or a rotten tread. Her light showed her a small landing where the direction reversed. She took the corner and continued downwards.

The cellars seemed to extend over the whole ground space of the building, most of the weight of which appeared to be taken by a number of massive pillars. She could only guess at the actual area, for little but the ceiling was visible. Every available cubic inch of space was filled from the floor with great mounds of earth, tightly packed. There must have been tons of it, piled and compressed into stacks. All the thoroughfare that remained was a narrow lane which wound between the huge dumps, and these had been buttressed up on either side of the path so that the last fraction of volume might be utilised. Down this lane danger lay, for in that insignificant width there was not much chance of avoiding anyone who happened to be coming towards her. Moreover, the path was lighted at intervals by electric bulbs fixed to the side boarding. Switching off her torch, she transferred her automatic from her hip to her jacket pocket, where it would be quicker to reach, and went on.

There was a silence in that weird cavern, which was accentuated rather than relieved by the dull rumble of the plant overhead. That the true purpose of this plant was to provide power she gathered from the insulated cables which snaked along on each side.

Presently a yawning hole, fitfully lighted by bulbs suspended from its earthen roof, confronted her. So this was the tunnel of which the Keeper of the Door had spoken. She entered it resolutely. The quality of the air had altered subtly: it had taken on a puzzling, faint, acid tang, which she could not account for until she came to the exit. She must have travelled three hundred yards before that, and then she noticed that there was only darkness in front, and the bulbs no longer hung from above. She switched on her flash again, and a moment later she left the tunnel.

A blank, tile-faced wall was before her, and she looked from right to left in surprise. She was in a second tunnel which ran almost at right angles to the one she had left, and at distances lights hung on the walls. She bent the rays of her torch downwards, and they were reflected by three parallel ribbons of gleaming metal.

And then she understood. She was in the Tube!

CHAPTER XIII

INTEREST IN "H"

Making a closer examination with the aid of her flash, she realised her good fortune, for a heavy circular door hung back against the tiling of the tube tunnel. Swinging it cautiously, she found that when closed it fitted snugly into the round gap where the Sud-Scandinavia burrow debouched into the City and South London Railway, so that without a minute study of the surface it was impossible to know that a door existed at all. Remembering that between the hours of two and five ack emma, when the Tube is closed, there are repair gangs moving about its subterranean ways, she realised the necessity for some such camouflage, and guessed that the door had only been left open by an oversight. Scrutinising the inside of it, she found that it was fitted with a strong iron bolt.

There was nothing to be gained by remaining, and she retraced her steps with all speed. On the return journey she noticed that two irregular ruts ran on either side of the earthen floor of the boarded lane. Some heavy-wheeled vehicle had made that trip frequently, but what it might be she had no notion.

As she went, her head was whirling like a ball-race. A clean-cut tunnel down which ran power cables, which came to a dead end in the Tube! The enigma was to her temporarily insoluble, and she had no time to sit down and make a calm, collected study of the facts from all their angles. All she knew was that she had stumbled on the trail of something big, and the most imperative thing at that moment was to get clear with her knowledge and pass it on to more brilliant and capable heads. At least, she would have a short laugh over Storm—he would have to admit that even in circumstances of the magnitude of the Alpha Triangle she had her uses. But, after that brief period of exasperation on the one side and self-congratulation on the other, she had no doubt that Storm was the one man to deal with the situation accurately and efficiently. The steel-keen precision of his mind, no less than the steel-strong virility of his physique, brooked no uneasiness on that score. If she got out, of course, and when....

At the top of the stairs she paused, but it was only a momentary hesitation.

There remained still that intriguing door, and, anyway, she was fairly and squarely in the swim by now. "When you're in the soup, get all the nourishment out of it you can," was another of Smiler's adages, and on it she acted. Having commenced the reconnaissance in such style, one might as well conclude it thoroughly.

The door opened so lightly to her touch that for a second she was suspicious. An instant later she was reproving herself in no uncertain terms for this tentative sign of waning determination, and, taking a grip on the butt of her little automatic, she pushed the door wide and entered. And then she had her work cut out to suppress an exclamation.

The room in which she stood was spacious and roughly square. The walls were hung from ceiling to floor with luxurious curtains of royal purple velvet embroidered with golden arabesques. The orange carpet underfoot had a wealth of soft pile that was indescribably pleasant to tread upon. A double rank of cushioned chairs ran the length of the room, and a broad gangway paved with costly furs led between them towards the far end. The restful half-light which showed her all these things was supplied by three magnificent chandeliers ranged overhead. It was a room like nothing she had ever seen or even imagined, something that in its splendour suggested a mingling of the essentials of a temple and of an Oriental palace. It was an outrage at the same time—an outrage against all preconceived standards, against all logic and all norms. It was a concrete paradox that mocked comprehension and yet was fascinating by sheer daring originality. Its gorgeous simplicity—its ascetic voluptuousness—its Philistine reverence—these were contradictions which numbed understanding and defied criticism.

Dumb with wonder, she simply stared. Her awed gaze travelled again and again over every detail, and then she looked at the opposite wall—the one facing the door—towards which she had not yet looked. And there she saw something which harmonised so perfectly with the atmosphere that it was evident that the room had been designed and decorated to house it, and which at the same time explained the perplexing counter-impressions.

At that end of the room, facing the banks of seats, was a daïs hung with black, and in the centre of it stood a huge gilded throne. And to the right of this throne was the keystone which held the whole architectural monstrosity together and gave its reason and its justification.

It was a gigantic equilateral triangle of silver which seemed to be suspended in vacancy without material support, being probably braced by brackets concealed behind the hangings. It must have been fully five feet of base, and in the centre of it was a Greek alpha, similarly made of silver.

She was in the council chamber of the Triangle—that exotic room which nothing but the brain of a madman could have visualised and brought to substance—the cathedral of a megalomaniac....

And then she saw something else, which up to then had not caught her eye, for the shadows at that end of the room were deeper and the interior of the throne itself was shrouded in gloom. But he moved, and she saw him—the man who lounged on the throne—and then he spoke.

"Hullo, Susan—what do you want?"

Her eyes dilated, for although the figure and face of the man were the figure and face of the tousled scoundrel who had invited her to play chemin-de-fer, the voice was the voice of Joe Blaythwayt.

"Uncle—Joe?" she breathed.

He lumbered ponderously off the daïs and came towards her.

"I recognised you in that other room," he said, "and I've been looking for you. What on earth did you want to come here for?"

"What did you want to come for?" she parried.

He waved a hand.

"Men are Different," he said grandly. "How did you get in? Oh, I suppose you were the little devil who pinched my badge?" He wagged a fat forefinger at her. "Naughty! I had no end of a job getting in without it."

"Have you seen the tunnel?" she asked.

"Only a bit of it. I was exploring down there when I heard someone padding towards me, and beat it back. It must have been you. Tunnel? That's interesting. Where does it go to?"

"I haven't the foggiest." Her amazement abated, she took command of the situation automatically. "What we've got to do is to get out of here quick, and talk afterwards. Rustle! Storm's got to hear of this at once."

"And Teal," put in Blaythwayt loyally.

"And Teal, if you like. Come along—behind me," she directed impatiently, and the docile Joe followed her.

They were nearing the door when there came heavy footsteps behind them, and the light of a hand lamp swept the corridor just behind them. There were men talking, also, in a language she did not understand. Blaythwayt stopped in his tracks, apparently frozen with terror, and she gripped his arm.

"Into that room!" she whispered. "They know us there."

She was opening the door when the approaching rays veered upwards and fell full on herself and the trembling Joe. A hoarse challenge echoed down the passage. Unconcernedly the girl took her yellow packet of gaspers from her pocket and began to light one as she waited for the men to come up with them. And then, as they arrived and grouped themselves about the door, she returned the box of matches to her right-hand jacket pocket—and kept her hand there.

The bright light searched their faces.

"Who are you?" demanded a cultured voice with only a slight accent. "I don't know you."

"I know 'em," said another, and added a few words she could not interpret.

The frosted bulb overhead woke to life, and they were relieved of the merciless glare of the interrogator's spotlight. She looked about for the one who had claimed to know them, but none of that dishevelled dozen seemed likely to possess so smooth a voice. And then he spoke again—a man clad only in his trousers and a greasy singlet, who stood half a head above the rest.

"They are special messengers of the Apex. Who admitted them?"

"I did." It was the janitor, whom she had not recognised through the smears of engine oil which disfigured his face, who spoke. "Zat was 'ow zey zemselves called. Ze beeg one 'ave ask for Morini, and ze mignon for Prestaire Jean."

"That's in order. John and Morini won't be here to-night—I know where to find them. You'd better go."

It was a miracle to Susan, for the man's face was unknown to her. And yet there was something vaguely familiar about the cast of it. Just that indefinable carriage of the broad shoulders, the lithe swing of the powerful arms—and yet the lank, oily black hair struck no chord in her memory. She looked at his eyes more closely ... gun-metal grey....

Surely only one man in the world had eyes of the curious tint, and, taken with the other resemblances in poise of head and general bearing....

He met her gaze calmly, and she could have sworn that the flicker of a smile feinted at the corners of his mouth.

"I'll go with you, if you like to wait a minute," he said. "I'll just get my coat."

A few seconds later he was back, folding a scarf round his bare throat and buttoning his coat tightly around it. Only one man returned with him, as if receiving his final instructions, and now that she had caught an answering "Si señor," she gathered that they were speaking in Spanish.

The man unbarred the front door for them, and they passed out, Storm going last. A curt exchange of "Buenos noches," and the bolts slithered home on the inside.

Storm led them briskly to the corner of the block and halted.

"Now," he ordered, "you can get in a taxi and go home, and thank your gods you're going to bed alive!"

"There's a tunnel," Joe began excitedly, but Storm cut him short.

"I know all about the tunnel, and about the synthetic mosque, and about the power plant, and about the doss-house crew, and about the arsenal," was his categorical retort. "I also know that there isn't going to be a second Battle of Sidney Street if I can help it. Our separate bluffs may be shown up at any moment, and then there'll be Hell to pay! I've got to get busy, and you'll hinder me. Step on it!"

"But can't I stay and see the——"

"Nope! Vamos!"

Joe looked hurt.

"This is the first time I've ever been near any excitement," he protested weakly.

"Get—in—a—taxi—and—beat it," snarled Storm, and Blaythwayt moved aggrievedly away.

The girl had watched this brief encounter in amusement blended with annoyance. After all, it was only luck that had put Storm on the spot at the same time as herself, and it wasn't fair. She had taken exactly the same risks as if he had been a hundred miles away, and she wasn't going to be cheated out of her reward.

"All right—we'll beat it," she said defiantly. "But we'll come back!"

"Let me see you, and you'll spend the night in a police station!" Storm flung at them over his shoulder as he strode away.

From the Custom House he phoned the nearest Division and rapped out his requirements in terse, staccato sentences. Then he got through to the Yard, and tried to get Inspector Teal, but Teal, tired of waiting, had gone home to bed. Storm called a third number, and presently the detective's drowsy grumble answered him.

"Come right down to the Sud-Scandinavia Sawmill in Lower Thames Street," he directed. "There's going to be fun!"

"Is that Raegenssen's place?" Teal's voice took on a more alert note.

"Yeh! I've sent a man round to take him, though I doubt if Olaf's still rooted in Finchley. Flying Squad and all divisional reserves are on their way. Bring a gun. The mill's like a fort, and there's over a hundred roughnecks inside. Now burn the roads!"

In less than half an hour the first detachment of urgently summoned men had arrived, and thereafter reinforcements kept coming in batches—broad-shouldered, phlegmatic men who took the unusual circumstances with great philosophy, as though it were merely a slight deviation from routine. Some were in uniform—these had been hurriedly called in from minor duties—the rest were in plain clothes. All were armed, in accordance with Storm's telephoned warning.

Knowing that precipitancy might be fatal, he waited until he had mustered a hundred men. Seventy of these he told off to draw an inconspicuous cordon round the whole block, and thirty he sent down to cover the Tube bolt-hole at London Bridge Station. A batch of twenty of the Flying Squad arriving in a van at that moment, he sent them on to occupy a similar position at Bank Station. The mention of the word flashed a blaze of inspiration across his mind.

"Bank!" he repeated to himself. "Jerusalem, what a man!"

It would be some time before the men could take up their stations, and he filled in the period of inaction by smoking a cigarette with calm enjoyment, and discussing the probable result of a local bye-election with a night watchman.

On the stroke of 3.45 he trod out his cigarette end, bade the watchman a cheery good-night, and made a supplementary disposition of the men who had reached the Custom House in the meanwhile. He was just leaving when Inspector Teal dashed up in a taxi, the disarray of his attire testifying to the haste of his start.

"In time?" queried that officer swiftly, and Storm nodded.

"To the tick. We are now going into action."

They walked together to Raegenssen's block. It was just getting light.

Storm paused before the door and lighted another cigarette. Then he jerked back the jacket of his automatic, slipped the safety catch, and pushed Teal to one side.

"No use both of us being shot up," he said, and pressed the bell.

This time there was little delay. The muffled foot-steps of the French janitor came down the passage; the three-inch bars swished back in their steel grooves; the lock clicked. As before, the door swung back a bare, suspicious two inches.

Storm moved so that the light from the gas jet overhead fell across his face, and the door opened wider as the man recognised him.

Storm pushed into the gap, blocking the door open with his foot. The surprised janitor felt a sinewy hand grasp his windpipe caressingly, and a menace he understood equally well glinted before his eyes.

"Sois sage—et vis!" hissed Storm in his ear, and the man signified his acceptance of this advice.

He was handed back to Mr. Teal, who in turn passed him on to a bulky shadow which rose from the ground.

Storm, with Teal hard on his heels, led the way into the building, and a number of dim shapes materialised from the adjoining alley and followed them. So far, all had been admirably plain sailing, but luck was not with them that night. Storm was groping round for the switch which controlled the corridor light, when an over-eager constable tripped over the doorstep and crashed down among his fellows. The thud sounded like a detonation in the silence, and Teal turned and cursed the offender in pregnant whispers. Storm found the lever he sought, and pulled it down.

"Teal—left-hand door," he called. "This way, some of you boys!"

He himself turned the handle of the right-hand door and kicked it open. The men were pouring into the passage behind him.

He saw how much that fall had cost them, and sprang into the room. There was another door to it, and most of the roughnecks had already passed through it. Scarcely half a dozen were left, scrambling to get through. Storm caught the hindmost and tripped him. A couple of burly forms promptly sat on the prostrate one.

The next instant something banged close to Storm's head, and he felt the wind of the bullet and jumped back, drawing as he did so.

The panic had stopped suddenly. The half-dozen who had been fighting to get through the second door were now filing out in an orderly manner, and every one of them was armed. The men behind Storm hesitated for a second, for the London bobby is not anxious to use firearms, and it seemed to be the only course left open. They were waiting for orders, and Storm, having none of their scruples, roared them on.

"Feet—first round—don't hit 'em!" he snapped, and a volley rang out.

The retreating men retaliated on the echo, shooting in deadly earnest, and Storm heard the cries of the stricken men behind him. He fired back himself, gunning now to wound, and saw a man drop with a scream. But the retaliatory salvo had done its work; and in the momentary consternation, before the officers could return the fire, those who were left of the half-dozen won through the door.

Storm reached it a second late, and it slammed in his face. On the other side a bar thudded home.

"The table—smash it in!" he ordered.

While they battered at the thick wood he left the room and crossed the passage to see how Inspector Teal was faring. Teal had been more, and at the same time less, fortunate. He had no casualties, but the reason was that those who had occupied the room had escaped too swiftly for him, and the way of pursuit was barred by a door on which his men were already working.

"Heaven knows where these let out," said Storm. "It may be the tunnel, of course. Here—bring three of your men and we'll go and see."

They sprinted down the corridor, and so bore the brunt of the flank attack which the Triangle, with amazing daring and presence of mind, had organised. Just as they turned the angle of the passage an armed mob streamed from a side door and let fly at them on sight.

The five dodged back behind the bend, and, leaning over each other, fired from cover. The police were shooting to kill now, and in the face of that withering hurricane of death the assault faltered and broke.

The survivors retreated to the door through which they had come, and Storm caught Teal by the arm.

"Great stuff! Go back and get the others; just leave a few on guard in the rooms. Oh, and whistle more men in from the outside."

Teal departed obediently, and Storm coolly reloaded. He was breathing evenly, and there was hardly a flush on his face. On an impulse he decided to reconnoitre upstairs, and thereby saved his life.

He was half-way up when the door below him opened and a man appeared. In a moment the apparition had vanished again, but Storm had seen the round black object that had been flung towards the angle he had just quitted. He yelled a warning, and at the same time fired through the door. He heard a bellow of pain, and gathered that his random shot had found a billet. Then the bomb exploded.

Lying flat on the stairs, he blazed between the banisters at the second mass which crowded out to attack, until his automatic clicked on an empty magazine. By this time a fresh contingent had arrived under Inspector Teal, and once again the onslaught was repulsed with losses on each side. But now, instead of retiring to their door, most of the party broke for the stairs, running the gauntlet of the police fire.

Storm leapt up ahead of them, for there was no hope of resistance: there must have been fully eighty men in that solid pack. He had hoped for a single door which he could have held against them, but a long passage fronted him as he reached the top. A side door which was ajar showed a bare room, and he dodged into it, barring the door behind him, and heard the mob go pounding past. Reloading at speed, he opened the door again and fired low as the last of them disappeared through another opening, and two fell to his shooting. Then Teal and a number of men arrived, and he led them in a rush to the door and tried the handle. It was locked.

"There may be another bomb coming, so look out!" he warned, and promptly disregarded his own advice.

The lock burst out under the impact of a bullet, and they charged in.

The place was beautifully empty.

"This is annoying," said Teal with staggering restraint, and walked to the only window.

Hanging out, he looked to his left and saw that the wall continued over to the next block, with an archway below at the street level. He pointed this fact out to Storm, thereby annoying that young man considerably.

"The place is marked as an island site on the surveyor's plans," he said. "They must have sent me an old set. You can see the bridge is newer than either building. I suppose there's a secret panel somewhere, but we needn't waste time looking for it now. What about the birds who didn't get away?"

"The boys have got 'em—thirteen. They were unlucky, all right."

"And eighty-odd have slipped the cordon, you long-tailed land-ape!" snarled Storm with pardonable heat. "Your sense of proportion makes me want to scream!"

His first thought was for the men under him, but he found that an ambulance had been sent along by a thoughtful authority, and Red Cross men were already tending the casualties. Six of the constables were killed, and a number were more or less seriously wounded. Then he went along to the room where the thirteen unlucky ones were under guard awaiting the arrival of a van. Their spirit left nothing to be desired.

"You might as well let us go, guvnor," said one hefty specimen. "It'll only mean trouble if you take us to the station."

"Yeh!" agreed Storm ironically. "And the trouble will be right up under your hats!"

The man looked at him queerly.

"D'you really think you'll get us to the station?" he asked, and Storm showed his teeth.

"I'll think more than that, for your benefit," he said unpleasantly. "I think in about two months' time you will all hang by your necks until you are dead!"

Teal, on a round of inspection, stopped Storm to air a theory. The detective was taking the set-back with great patience. He stripped the wrapping from a wafer of chewing-gum and inserted the sweet in his mouth with care.

"Has it occurred to you," he said, "that even a lot of thugs like that bunch wouldn't be armed to the teeth, every man of 'em, in the ordinary way, if they'd thought they were all snug and chummy?"

This was a far-fetched suggestion, Storm opined, but Teal's confidence was undamped. He went to the telephone in the hall and called Exchange.

"Central-Inspector Teal," he introduced himself. "Has this number been called in the last hour? ... Thank you.... Ah! ... public call box at Monument Station you said? ... Thanks."

"Three bluffs were put over in this shack to-night," Storm murmured thoughtfully as Teal replaced the receiver. "I don't think it matters which one that call gave away." He looked at the detective sombrely. "Teal! This is Hell's own song and dance act! They were waiting for us, and they guessed they could make a slick enough getaway when the time came; they just stayed on to liven things up a bit for us. That's nerve! I wish the swine didn't seem so damned sure of themselves."

"You surprise me—after that speech of yours at the Enquiry," Teal said drily.

Shortly afterwards one of the Flying Squad's vans arrived with the detachment which had guarded the Bank Station. The officers were unloaded, and the captured members of the Triangle shipped instead, with two armed men for company. A third armed man rode beside the driver.

Huge drays with their attendant school of porters were already about, blocking the narrow street, and the van made slow progress. Storm watched it go with a frown, for the confident words of one of the prisoners stuck in his head. A second van arriving at that moment, he sent it on the trail of the first for additional security, but by that time there was a thick jam of slow traffic between the two, and in those circumstances he had some doubts of the efficiency of his precaution.

"If they do get away, I'll believe I'm dreaming a detective story," he told himself.

Nevertheless, the prisoners did escape, and by a ruse so simple that it was almost certain to succeed.

The leading van made for Headquarters via Tower Hill and Eastcheap, to avoid the obstructions of Lower Thames Street as much as possible—a move which the strategist would have foreseen. At the turn into Tower Street it encountered a lorry laden with men, who to the casual eye were navvies on their way to work, but who must almost certainly have been a section of the crowd which had made its getaway through the secret door in the upper storey of the sawmill. As the van containing the prisoners took the bend, its escort being still held up in the wedge of Billingsgate traffic, the lorry seemed to get out of hand, and swerved across the road. It caught the Flying Squad van squarely across the bonnet, throwing the whole vehicle round in a complete circle which fetched up in a smash against a lamp-post. The driver of the police van and the man who sat beside him were thrown out and dangerously injured; the two armed men inside, half-stunned by the shock, were quickly overpowered by the "navvies" who swarmed from the lorry. The rescue party and their friends then reëntered the lorry, which in the meantime had been backed out of the wreckage, and which by reason of its superior weight and the angle of impact had suffered no great damage, and were driven off. The rescue was conducted with such well-organised speed that it was obvious that some such contingency had been feared and prepared for, and the proceedings rehearsed beforehand. From start to finish the incident took no longer than three minutes, and the lorry was rushing away through the deserted streets before any of the few spectators could recover from their astonishment. The lorry was driven round the Tower and across Tower Bridge, and later in the day was found abandoned outside a builder's yard in Bermondsey.

All this, of course, neither Storm nor Inspector Teal heard until some time afterwards.

"There's two more bits of news for you," Teal said in his homeward taxi. "One is that Miss Hawthorne's slipped her man and disappeared."

"I knew that," said Storm, although for the first time since the opening of that brief, hectic battle he remembered Susan's threat to return. "What else?"

"This." Teal fished in his pocket and brought out a grubby scrap of paper on which a message was typewritten. "Birdie tried to get this put in the Era agony column. The clerk smelt rats and phoned us."

Storm read:

Allay contemptible inanity. Groan in it ping, correct, a a a, ping, a a a. Attaboy consuming, brass band ping, a, loving wine. Cry alas, glory me, ping. Alone. Weeping, days are long, 2. Try again, a ping, presumably futility. A ping a ping. It is hope, frustrated, pong sadly, ping, drying tears. Inside, to see pong ping, a, come and be blest.

"Has Birdie taken to free verse," he asked mildly, when he had perused the amazing document a second time, "or are we both mad?"

Teal shook his head.

"Nor is Birdie in love, as far as I can make out," he said.

At the Albany, Storm invited the detective upstairs, for he felt like anything but endeavouring to put in a few hours' sleep before commencing the next day's work.

"You may as well wait a bit and have breakfast with me," he said as they went in. "Has anyone else been getting busy on this little puzzle?"

"It's a code, of course," said Teal unnecessarily, and Storm stopped in the hall to wring his hand in mute admiration.

"You're a genius!" he declared brokenly when he had found his voice.

Comfortably ensconced in a deep armchair, with one of Storm's cigars between his teeth, the somnambulous Mr. Teal became less trite.

"Our tame expert's on the job, but he's nowhere near it yet. Said it was like nothing in his experience. It's something absolutely new. I suppose it's simple enough really, but these experts have such conventionally eccentric minds that the obvious always gets by them."

"Thank God I'm not an expert," said Storm fervently.

He mixed himself a drink, carried the cigarette box over to the centre table, lighted a smoke, and began to work.

He was silent for a long time, and then he leaned back, staring at the ceiling. The pencil in his hand drummed against his teeth, began to beat out a meditative tattoo. The sound interested him, apparently, to the exclusion of everything else, and then suddenly he brought his chair back to the vertical and permitted himself a soft "Jerusalem!" of satisfaction. He wrote swiftly for a few moments, and then turned to the expectant Teal.

"Who are the H's we know in this case?" he asked.

Teal pondered.

"There's Harry the Toff—I think he's in. And Horring, the hold-up man—he's reformed lately, which always makes me think of Triangles these days. Oh, and Hannassay; but Hannassay's dead and buried. That's all I can remember off-hand."

"I can add one to that list," said Storm, and crossed to the telephone.

There was a short silence, and then he was speaking into the instrument.

"Hullo—Terry? What on earth are you up for at this hour? ... Oh, I see.... Yes, I'll bet there was some vertical breeze! Got home all right, though? ... Mmm—alone? ... Not even Uncle Joe? ... Lazy piker! Look here, can I speak to her? Is she up still? ... Right." He covered the transmitter with his hand while he waited, and addressed Teal. "This is the H you couldn't remember off-hand," he remarked. "I want another man to watch her, and I'll have the coats off their backs if she slips 'em again!"