Daredevil

CHAPTER XXIV

VISITORS FOR JOAN

Long after midnight Joan Sands had sat curled up on the chesterfield. Through the open window had come the thunder of the Piccadilly explosion, but she had not even gone to the window to try and find out the meaning of the noise and shouting. Something dreadful had happened, and the Triangle was in it. One didn't have to be a clairvoyant to realise that without making a personal inspection. And where the Triangle went Jimmy went—even to the gallows....

She consumed cigarette after cigarette, without tasting or enjoying a single one, and her eyes were bloodshot with the smart of straying smoke. It was a purely mechanical process, a device to assist thought or to prevent it—she was not sure which. At least the narcotic had a soothing effect on her overwrought nerves, and having something to manipulate with her fingers kept her within certain materialistic bounds. The same applied to the stiff whisky-and-soda she had mixed herself; half of it was still in the glass beside her—she had gulped half of it down, and had not touched the rest since.

A queer, hectically coloured jazz-pattern mind had this slim, fluffily beautiful girl. Now those jazz-patterns had kaleidoscoped into a medley of nightmare imaginings. The only light in the room came from the red-shaded reading lamp behind her head, and the shadows around her, with their crimson high-lights, grouped themselves into the real semblance of her dire grotesque visions. She would have sold the world for company at that hour, for the comforting presence of someone strong and calm and friendly who'd hold her in his arms and scare away the bogeys with a cheery word. Jimmy, for instance. In those last few days he'd shown a sympathy one wouldn't have suspected him of possessing and a strength of character which was the last thing on earth an ex-jailbird waster ought by rights to have trumped out. Or Storm would have done. She wished she'd made him stay—bar Jimmy, he was the only man who'd ever had a kind word for her, who'd ever treated her four-square, with no arrière-pensée. And the realisation that she no longer felt capable of standing on her own feet and facing things out alone was the hardest of all to bear—she, the ice-hearted, cool, calculating adventuress, was getting soft; while even jelly-spined sops like Jimmy were suddenly sprouting shells. The fact that Jimmy's new-found backbone had awakened in her a genuine respect—something that was tending to passionate love—didn't enter into the balance sheet for the moment. There were weaknesses and tender patches in her armour that she'd never encountered before, and the discovery of them was a salutary lesson to conceit. Joan failed to derive any enjoyment from the revelation. Shock education takes some standing up to. She preferred the Montessori system.

Anyway, all recrimination and sentiment aside, the fact remained that she felt intolerably lonely and unhappy. For the second time in her life she was utterly sincere, and she was unable to decide whether her primary reaction to this unaccustomed attitude was shame or—fright. Not, of course, that she figured the whole thing out in such a precise scientific manner. Her introspection ran on lines which combined the antics of a giant switchback and a roundabout, but the general trend of them was much simpler.

She must have dozed at last, for a stealthy movement beside her recalled her to objective thinking with a big jump. She looked up, shaking the hair out of her eyes. There was a man standing beside her couch.

"Jimmy!" she breathed. "How did you get here?"

She was getting up, but he put out a hand and gently forced her back, sitting down beside her. He looked very tired, but he was smiling.

"I couldn't stay away. I was supposed to stay till to-morrow, but I'd done my—business—and there didn't seem to be any point in sticking on. So I came back on the night train. Why're you up so late, Joan?"

"Oh—I don't know," she said petulantly. "Why can't I sit up if I feel like it? I didn't feel tired."

He was gazing fixedly at her, and then he took her face between his two hands and turned it so that the light fell full across it.

"That's not true. Something's happened—I can see it in your eyes." His finger moved and brushed two little drops of dew from her cheek. "You've been crying. Joan! What is it?"

She said nothing, pulling his hands away and bowing her head again into the darkness.

"Have the police been here, Joan?"

He was looking about the apartment, but she had replaced the rugs and furniture so that there was no trace of Storm's visit.

"The Triangle have blown up Piccadilly—my taxi driver told me about it," he said. "Is that it? Or did the men come through from the next room and—and annoy you?"

He could hear the quick hissing intake of her breath. And then, with a little gasping cry, she drooped into his arms.

"Joan"—fiercely—"Joan!"

"All right, boy." Her hands went up and passed behind his head. "I was worried—because of you. And crying—because of you. Because—because—oh, Jimmy, say it for me!"

"Because you love me," he said unevenly. "Joan ... my darling girl...."

Somehow they had both come to their feet. Never in all Mattock's flabby life, never in Joan's hard life, had either known a moment to compare with that one. She had married him to please him, and she'd never made any secret of it. But now...

He kissed her lips, her hair, her eyes, straining her to him. Heaven lay around him like a flame; the glory of it eddied through his veins like fire.

"Joan, I'm a rotten old buffer for you to fall in love with," he muttered. "But I'll try to wash that away. We'll go on a proper honeymoon—anywhere you like—out of here—give up this flat——"

"No—no!" She broke away from him almost savagely. "You've got to listen. The busies've been here to-night. Arden and Teal. They searched the place—look!"

He pulled her roughly back into his arms.

"What does that matter?" he demanded. "What does anything else in life matter besides this?"

"Nothing.... But you must look, Jimmy."

She forced him to turn so that he faced the damaged bookcase. He stared at it dumbly, and she felt him go stiff, but he shook his head.

"Have you broken it or something?"

She pulled open the hidden door, showing him the headphones and transmitter.

"This is your bookcase—you had it sent in, though I've never seen you go to it. It was always locked. Arden showed me—that's a cut-in on the telephone in the next room, and Arden said the Triangle gave orders to his men from here. There was a letter for you from the Apex. Arden showed that to me too. You left it behind. Jimmy, I know what your business was in Devonshire! What's the use of keeping up the pretence?" She looked straight at him. "What time did your train get in?"

He said nothing, and there was a long silence. His face was working strangely. She saw the old devil rousing again in his staring eyes, and ran to him in a panic.

"They may be back any time—maybe they were watching and saw you come in! I've got two bags packed. I had them ready waiting for you. We've got passports—we've got to get away! Jimmy——"

Zzzzzzing!... Zzzzzzing!...

The strident voice of the hall bell cut short the incoherent stammer of words that tumbled from her lips, and for a space of time it seemed as if her heart stopped beating. And when it moved again, it pounded like a two-stroke piston. The busies had seen Mattock come in.... They were going to arrest him.... His face went white; yet still he stood motionless as a statue, gazing at the bookcase with unseeing eyes.

Zzzzzzing!... Zzzzzzing-zing!...

"They're here! Jimmy—what's wrong with you? Why don't you do something?" She glanced frantically about her. His immobility was maddening. His brain seemed to have gone dead. "The other room—they mightn't look there——"

Zzzzzzing!... Zzzzzzing-zing!...

It was the flimsiest of flimsy hopes; but if she could stall them off for a couple of minutes he might have time to break away before the cordon closed. She must centre all their attention on the one door while he got through the other.

The bag she had packed for him stood in one corner. She thrust it into his hand, and his fingers closed on the grip mechanically. The partition door was still ajar, but she had almost to barge him through the gap. He was gone at last, and with a gasp of relief she closed and wedged the door and hastily tidied her hair. Then she went unsteadily down the hall.

"I'm sure I Beg Your Pardon," said Joe Blaythwayt politely.

So great was the shock that for a moment she just gaped blankly at him, while he came inside and wiped his shoes fastidiously on the mat.

"A most irregular hour for calling, madam," he remarked. "I trust you will Forgive the Intrusion, and—er—Feel No Alarm on account of my Presence. I am a Widower, and therefore not Impressionable. The Urgency of my Business is my excuse."

When Joe was excited the intangible Capital Letters which decorated his pompous speech multiplied exceedingly. He was clearly excited at that moment. A light which in anybody else would have been called martial shone in his eyes and his grasp on his umbrella was fidgety.

Recovering slightly she closed the door behind him and led him into the sitting-room. There had been nobody else to be seen in the corridor.

"Now what d'you want?" she asked sharply.

"I want to see Jimmy," he replied, so bluntly that she was taken aback.

"Jimmy's in Devonshire—you know that," she said.

His cherubic blue eyes wandered round the room, and came to rest at last on a felt hat which lay on the floor by the chesterfield. Before she could stop him he had picked it up and seen the name written in the lining.

"This wasn't here when I was!" he squeaked excitedly. "Jimmy's been here since we left! Where is he?"

"I brought that in to clean a stain off it," she told him calmly. "Jimmy won't be back till to-morrow. If you want to see him so badly try again to-morrow evening."

He wiggled a fat forefinger all but in her face, literally dancing in his agitation.

"Woman, Do Not Lie To Me!" His flustered effervescence resulted in speech that fairly bristled with capitals. "I Want The Truth. Jimmy Has Been Here. Jimmy Is Here! Where's he hiding? Where's he gone? What've you done with him? Answer Me!"

Question overflowed question in one delirious cataract but Joan had recovered her composure to some extent by this time.

"What's your game?" she demanded hotly. "Coming into my flat at this hour of the night and making a scene! Get out, Blaythwayt. Who d'you think you are? Who are you? Some fly cop—one of these clever busies out of a serial?"

"No, madam—my Warrant!"

With an air of a conjuror he produced from his waistcoat pocket a glittering silver and enamel badge, and she recoiled in horrified amazement from the sign of the Triangle.

It is doubtful if he observed her perturbation at all. At all events he ignored it. His blue eyes swept the room again, peering at every nook as though he expected to find Mattock concealed behind a flower-pot or cached behind a picture. He saw the closed partition door, and let out an electrifying squawk of eagerness. She saw the inspiration dawn in his brain, and made an instinctive movement to block the way—a rash step which she instantly regretted.

"Stand Aside, Madam," he commanded tremblingly; and, when she did not budge, he pulled her rudely away and kicked open the door.

She tried to hold him back, impelled by she knew not what fear, but he flung her off like a child. He dashed into the other room and she followed him to find him blinking open-mouthed at emptiness. Mattock's bag stood on the table but Mattock himself was gone and the door leading into the passage stood wide.

For some seconds they were both petrified. And then Joe Blaythwayt gave vent to one strangled yelp of apprehension and rushed across the room, and she heard him go blinding down the corridor towards the stairs.

CHAPTER XXV

MAHOMET AND THE MOUNTAIN

Susan had thought she would never have been able to sleep that night, but she managed it somehow. She had waited for an hour and a half after Morini had dashed out of the cellars, and, when he failed to return, she lay down on the mattresses and pulled a blanket over her. For a long time her thoughts gave her no rest. They milled and clamoured tumultuously through her head, whirling her through mazes of doubt and perplexity and conjuring up hideous visions to line the route. And then, in some miraculous fashion that nevertheless seemed eminently natural, the hullabaloo merged into a dull monotonous humming blackness, and with a detached, infinitely distant interest she observed herself sinking into great dark depths of fathomless quiet....

She awoke with a start, roused by the sound of someone unbarring the door, and looked at her watch. To her surprise she found that it was nearly nine o'clock.

The man who entered was not Mecklen, but Morini. She was glad of that, illogically, for, although the gentle Gat was probably as sinister a scoundrel as Lew, he was far less obtrusively so. Mecklen had never been a gentleman, and was therefore inclined to be somewhat vulgar in his villainy; Morini might be more dangerous, but he was less repulsive, and she felt more in the mood for tackling a Morini than a Mecklen.

As it happened, however, there was nothing menacing about the educated Gat that morning. He was carrying a tray which had been decorated with a clean white cloth and which was laden with much more attractive fare than Mecklen had brought her the previous night. The coffee-pot was silver, and the jug of steaming milk was spotless; there were two slices of toast in a rack, and eggs and bacon reposed on a plate that was neither chipped nor cracked; he had added an immaculate cup to replace the battered enamel mug which Mecklen had given her, and had even remembered to include a napkin.

He gave her a polite "Good morning," and smiled as he noted her puzzlement at the stainless furniture of his burden.

"These things belong to the Chief," he explained. "He isn't home for breakfast, so you're in luck."

He leaned against the door and watched her eat. She was able to muster a respectable appetite, and was especially grateful for the refreshing heat of the coffee, for the cellars were none too warm. The only other discomfort she had felt was a certain stiffness from her cramped bedding, but a little free movement would soon remedy that.

She became aware that Morini was looking at her curiously, although he never descended to the Mecklenian coarseness of a stare, and when she had finished she sat back and returned his gaze inquiringly. For answer, he smiled again and extended a gold cigarette case.

"Thank you." She helped herself, and accepted the proffered match. "The last gasper before execution, Morini?"

"It is rather like it," he admitted coolly, and glanced round the tiny room. "Condemned cell and all—except that real condemned cells are cleaner. I wonder if you will die to-day?"

He posed the contingency with a speculative air that was terrifyingly humorous.

"Last night you were cursing Mecklen for not killing me," she remarked. "Why haven't you rectified the omission?"

He twisted his mouth.

"You'd better see the Chief first, now you're here. He's due to arrive at any minute."

He was preoccupied, as though some big problem filled his mind, and she saw that it was useless to attempt to discover what plans had been made for her disposal.

He picked up the tray and left her. A strange unreality had overcast everything with a haze which prevented her from working things out collectedly. This dispassionate discussion of murder jarred against all canons of actuality. Even in a court of law there was some emotion about a death sentence—one couldn't, somehow, flurry up any panic about a threat delivered in such a matter-of-fact tone....

Morini was back in a quarter of an hour, and his face was woodenly expressionless.

"The Chief's arrived," he said. "He wants to see you. Come along, please."

As in a dream she followed him. He took her through the hall, and she saw little mounds of dry earth untidily swept up into the corners. Halfway down he opened a door, and she had a glimpse of luxurious velvet hangings which had something familiar about them: royal purple with golden arabesques. Suddenly she realised where it was she had first seen those exotic decorations—the sawmill at Billingsgate! So, somehow, the conceit of the madman had made him take the enormous risk of stealing his gorgeous trappings away from a place over which the police still kept watch. He had carted away the earth that had filled the house in Buckingham Gate, packing it in crates and removing it in lorries at dead of night, to be dumped in the deserted quarries around Purley, simply to gratify the vanity of his megalomaniac mind. The method of his accomplishing the feat, of course, she could not know, but the completed fact gave her yet another queer sidelight on his weird mentality.

Morini slipped into the room, leaving the door slightly ajar, and she heard the brief conversation which passed between him and the man who sat in the room.

"Here she is, Chief."

"Bring her in, then."

"Right.... Oh, by the way, Chief, Lew went slinking out to a coffee-stall just before dawn—the darn chaw-bacon!—and he came back through the garage. He said there was somebody skulking round in the mews, and somebody else busy doing nothing in a doorway on the street outside. I don't see how the 'tecs could've got a line on us, but Lew swears to those two rubber-necks."

"There wasn't anyone about when I came in."

"Maybe it was just a couple of hoboes, boss. Lew ought to dilute it. Just thought I'd mention it."

Morini appeared in the doorway again and beckoned the girl in. She entered with her head held high, walking as coolly as if she were strolling into a hat shop to take a look round. She only gave one glance to the furnishings of the room—enough to see that it had been fitted out into an exact replica, on a smaller scale, of the council hall in Lower Thames Street.

Another thought occupied her mind. Two men had been stalking round the mews early that morning, if Lew were to be believed.... Already Storm was on the move, though she couldn't imagine how he had managed to locate the house of her imprisonment. That was an awkward snag in the way of rescue which hadn't occurred to her until that moment, and she was glad it hadn't cropped up before it had been surmounted. She had always been blessed with nerves of ice; even before the peril of Mecklen's innuendoes she hadn't wept or gone into hysterics or lashed around the cellar beating frantically on the walls in an ecstasy of terror, and, now that the clouds looked like breaking in the near future, her heart even sang a cheery refrain.

Storm was getting busy, and Storm was no moss-harvester when the fur promised to fly.

Susan smiled in confident bravado as she turned towards the daïs she knew she would see at the far end of the room. As in the sawmill, the huge emblem of the Triangle was suspended a little to one side of the throne; and, on the throne itself, sat a big built man, shabbily clad in rough grey tweeds. She did not recognise him, for a black felt hat was pulled down over his eyes and a black silk handkerchief folded diagonally was tied round his head, hiding his features from cheek bone to chin. All she could see of his face was the pale luminous glint of his blue eyes as he gazed fixedly at her. He sat back, with his gloved hands clasped on his knees, moveless as a sculpture in tinted marble.

All those details she took in in that first fleeting glimpse. It was half a second later that she saw that the Triangle was not alone on the platform. Another man stood beside him....

It was an immaculately dressed man, tall and broad shouldered. One hand rested arrogantly on his hip, and he was smiling a trifle grimly. She recognised him with a thrill of amazement, which changed instantly to a qualm of incredulous fear....

Storm came out of the Albany swinging his stick, the inevitable cigarette lofting jauntily between his lips. To have seen him, you would have taken him for an unusually athletic specimen of the Idle Rich, and you would have jeered lustily at the mere suggestion of his having any heavier cares in the world than the selection of elegant shirtings and tasteful hosiery. In fact, an ideal model for a portrait of one of the jeunesse dorée sallying forth in quest of the matutinal cocktail.

Huh!

Well, you hit the bull with one shot—his cares lay lightly on his muscular shoulders; for, big as those cares were, he possessed one of those pigeon-holed minds in the various compartments of which the fortunate owner can always hermetically seal away anything with which he does not want to be bothered at the moment. Storm's plan of action was already mapped out and blue-printed; and, granted that the other side played up in accordance with the laws of probability, that plan was bound to succeed as far as he had designed it. True, his scheme didn't take him all the way home; but, there again, sufficient unto the hour was the worry thereof. Doubtless the god who watches over all merry fools who go pelting in where archangels would hesitate to show the tip of a wing would provide for the aftermath. Theoretically speaking, the man who can wedge his head into a lion's jaws can get it out again. A somewhat risky theory to put into practice, but Storm happened to be the sort of intrepid scapegrace who gets a kick out of fool gambles like that.

And it was all so beautifully simple. Thus far, the Mountain had shown great enthusiasm for the company of Mahomet, but Mahomet had steadfastly declined to visit the Mountain. In its eagerness, the Mountain had even detached portions of itself to go in search of Mahomet and convey him into the Presence; but Mahomet had remained obdurate—even violently obdurate—and kept his distance. And now the Mountain was more zealous than ever, with the difference that Mahomet had changed his mind and had been seized with an overpowering desire to pay a call on the Mountain. Therefore, the transition into the presence of the said Mountain should be easy....

In Piccadilly a taxi was crawling along by the kerb very conveniently. Behind it followed another, also seeking whom it might transport; and, behind that one, trailed a third. In the offing was a fourth. The ghost of a smile hovered on Storm's mouth. Verily, the anxiety of the Mountain appeared to be exceeding great....

Without hesitation, Arden waved his stick at the leading driver, and the taxi swung into a stop with commendable promptness. As Storm opened the door his keen eye detected the automatic lock which nine hundred and ninety-nine ordinary passengers out of a thousand wouldn't have noticed; he marked also the steel netting between the double panes of the window, and observed how neatly the sash had been screwed up so that nothing less than a jemmy would open it. Leaning over to give his instructions to the driver, he saw that steel shutters had been fitted inside the cab against the glass partition between the driver and passenger, so that the chauffeur would be in no danger of being stuck up with a gun smashed through the glass by a refractory prisoner.

"Number Ten, Downing Street," said Storm solemnly, and climbed in.

The driver himself, with a courtesy unwonted in taxi-drivers, got down to make sure that the door was properly shut, and Storm guessed that when the driver returned to his perch the automatic lock would also be efficiently latched.

They moved off towards Piccadilly Circus, where perspiring constables were struggling to man[oe]uvre a dense millipede of cursing traffic round the narrow gallery which was all the route that was navigable until the hordes of navvies who were even then at work had repaired some of the damage done by the last night's explosion. Kit sat back comfortably, crushed out the butt of his cigarette beneath his heel, and lighted a second. Looking through the wire-netted window at the back, he saw that another taxi, empty but with its flag down, tailed along in the rear. He could identify the chauffeur—an unsavoury-looking thug whose license had been suspended indefinitely some months ago after a curious accident which had attracted the fruitless attention of the Public Prosecutor.

Satisfied that his head was well and truly padlocked between the jaws of a particularly ferocious lion, Storm searched the interior of his own cab for any possible booby traps. A careful examination, however, disclosed nothing more deadly than a small spanner under the carpet, and the speaking tube which communicated with the driver. He did not put an agile employed of chloroform, or even some more subtle gas, beyond the resources of the Triangle, and therefore he plugged the mouthpiece of the tube with a handkerchief packed in as tightly as his strong fingers could jam it. So far everything had been admirably plain sailing, even if a shade too close to the wind to suit the nervy, and it wouldn't do to have everything messed up by sleep dope. But, now that he was sure there was no secret gas inlet, he composedly devoted himself to blowing smoke rings and wondering—the truth must be told—exactly how long it took one to get married in England. The precariousness of his present position left him unruffled. He was virtually a captive, on his way to a personal interview with the Big Triangle, and that was exactly what he had wanted; for Mahomet hadn't the foggiest notion where to find the Mountain unless he was taken there. Storm had got his ambition, and the Apex had got his—whether the Triangle would be satisfied with the one hundred and seventy pounds of consolidated Gehenna they had collected remained to be seen....

"We are now," mused Storm lightly, "fairly and squarely in the cart. It happens to be a non-stop bus, and only runs one way.... Jee-ru-sa-lem!"

He was not interested in their progress down Haymarket and into Trafalgar Square, but when the taxi cut round into the Mall he sat up and began to take notice. It occurred to him that a little realism might be introduced into the entertainment at this juncture, and he began to hammer on the steel shutters and rattle the locked doors. The taxi continued on its way unheeding. After a moment's thought he pulled his big automatic, smashed the right-hand window with the butt, and got his fingers behind the netting which intervened against the second pane. Strong as he was, he could not dislodge it, so, instead, he twisted the muzzle of his gun through the mesh and sent a bullet snarling past the chauffeur's ear. The cab swerved and then accelerated vigorously, and he sank back on the seat again with a soft laugh.

He had not fired to raise an alarm, but he saw immediately the measures which had been provided to deal with him if he had attempted to do so in earnest. The taxi which followed them drew quickly abreast, and he caught sight of Lew Mecklen leaning out of the window. He thought of pipping Lew through the neck, pour encourager les autres, but before he could put his idea into effect Mecklen swung up a syringe which resembled a chemical fire extinguisher. There was a sharp hiss, and a cloud of acrid spray billowed into the cab.

For a moment nothing happened, and then Storm reeled, gasping, into the far corner. His nostrils stung with the pungent fumes of liquid ammonia, he choked and coughed and writhed, his eyes were a streaming agony of blindness. "Yew try again, ya big cheese," taunted Lew from the other taxi. "Try again, ya big stiff, an' I'll flop yuh wit' anot'er squoit—jest fer bendin' some lead into ole Lew's leg, youse!"

"All right, ole Lew," muttered Storm, panting. "We'll argue about that later! Hully gee—that stuff's worse than slumber mixture!"

He took no more pot shots, but concentrated on getting the pain out of his eyes and regaining vision, for he badly wanted to know where they were taking him, and he had no wish at all to be helpless when they brought him into the presence of the Apex. When he could see again, he found that they were travelling down a street of imposing, austere houses, and it was only a couple of seconds before he had oriented himself. He saw Wellington Barracks on his left, and half a minute later the taxi whisked down a side street and turned into a mews, Mecklen's cab following. The second cab stopped, Lew got down and opened the door of one of the garages, and Storm was driven right in. Through the back window Kit saw the door barred behind them, and then Mecklen came round and poked the nozzle of his ammonia syringe through the broken window.

"T'row out yore gat," he commanded.

"I can't unless you open something," Storm pointed out.

This fact hadn't occurred to Lew, and after a while the door was moved a cautious three inches.

"T'row it out."

Storm obeyed, and the door was fully opened and the ammonia jet stuck into his face.

"Git down—an' no rough stuff, or I'll draown yuh wit' this."

Storm got out, smiling amusedly at the apprehensive care with which Lew trained the spray on his every movement. Storm's jaw was thrust forward, his cigarette canted almost vertically, his lips, drawn up at the corners, showed a gleam of white teeth. Everything functioned exactly as per invoice. He was in the enemy's camp, and every muscle in his body was tingling with joyous anticipation.

"Frisk 'im," snapped Mecklen.

Arden opened his arms as a habitual criminal does in the police station, and the first taxi-driver came up and searched him. The taxi-driver was not gentle or squeamish, for the bullet which had zipped past his ear had alarmed him considerably, and he made what he thought was a thorough fanning. That he found nothing was not his fault; he even prodded Storm in the small of the back, doubtless with memories of the Marlborough Street episode, but drew blank. Storm had sixteen-inch biceps, and the chain mail he wore effectively disguised the outline of his arm-holsters. At length the chauffeur stepped back and signified that he was satisfied, but Lew did not lower the squirt.

"Over thar—by thet cupboard," he ordered. "Start anyt'ing, an' I'll douse yuh!"

"You're mad as a meat-axe, Lew," said Storm commiseratingly. "I want to see the Big Triangle first. You flatter yourself! I guess I can kill you any time."

"Yah!" sneered the gunman, and Storm winced.

"You do make vulgar noises, Lew," he protested mildly.

Mecklen leaned over the syringe he still pointed at Kit's face.

"Listen, buddy. Thet heavy date o' yores is hyar, an' yew kin tell her ole Lew's sweet on her. We got the moll right hyar, an' she'll never git out again."

"That's why I came," said Storm calmly.

Mecklen scowled. As we have seen, he was not a man of high intellect, and Storm's frigid imperturbability made him uneasy. Like the armour of assurance which enveloped Snooper Brome, it was something which he couldn't deal with. It was as hopelessly out of his depth as the fourth dimension. Every way of attack he tried he came up against those invisible spikes, and bafflement filled him with futile anger.

"I was told ter kill her, but I jest brought her home an' necked her. Don't that make yuh feel glad?"

"Not half so glad as you'll feel when I shoot you through the stomach instead of through the heart!"

"Last night she gimme the air, but before I'm t'rough she'll be proud ter marry me," persisted Lew.

Storm rolled his cigarette across to the other corner of his mouth.

"Loud cheers!" he drawled. "Going to reform, are you?"

One of the chauffeurs had opened up the panel at the back of the tire cupboard, and was standing waiting by the gap. Mecklen jerked his head towards the tunnel.

"In wit' yuh!"

"Sure!"

But Storm paused before stooping in, for the glaring hate in the gunman's eyes had roused in him an irresistible temptation to add a final tab to his brief baiting of that unlovable murderer.

"You know, Lew," he murmured affably, "every day and in every way you grow more and more like an overfed dog-louse!"

Then he entered the passage, and as he went Mecklen landed out a vicious kick. Storm never stopped or looked round. Mecklen would keep a little longer. Kissed Susan, had he? Arden reckoned that that kiss would turn out to be the most expensive one in Lew's amorous career. As for the kick, that would only add extra zest to the extraction of due payment. Lew's shins were within easy reach of a smart backward hack, but Storm deemed it inadvisable to court a fresh shower of ammonia, for he knew he would need all his faculties to be at concert pitch during the next hour or two, and his eyes were still twinging from the effects of the first dose he had received.

They emerged into the cellars, and one chauffeur led the way to the stairs. Halfway across, Storm's foot brushed against something which went rattling across the stone floor, so that Lew and the other man pulled up with a start.

"Only a mouse," said Storm genially. "I'll hold your hands if you're scared."

"What was it?" demanded Mecklen sharply.

He was peering around fearfully, and presently he saw what had made the noise—a fountain pen heavily encrusted with gold work. He picked it up and looked at it suspiciously.

"Thet yores, Arden?"

"Oh, yes," said Storm boredly. "Combination turnip-slicer, gramophone, trouser-press and portable aeroplane."

He reached out a hand for it, but Mecklen thrust the pen into a pocket and pushed him away.

"Keep movin'," he growled. "Funny, ain't yuh? Mebbe yew'll be sick presently."

"I shall if I see much more of you," remarked Storm crudely.

"One day," threatened Lew sullenly, "I'm gonna make yuh wish yew'd never bin born. Yew flap yore mouth too much. I'm gonna——"

"I'll be there," yawned Storm, and Mecklen relapsed into a pugnacious silence.

As Storm climbed the steps an odd, dancing, metallic laughter glittered in his grey eyes. That fountain pen had given an entirely new twist to the situation, and as yet he was unable to gauge whether the twist was going to be big or small. For Storm knew and had recognised the ornate filigree with which the pen was embellished, and he wondered what business James Norman Mattock might have in Buckingham Gate that morning.

CHAPTER XXVI

SECONDS OUT OF THE RING

"Believe we've met before, Captain Arden," said the Apex. "Somehow I can't get into the way of calling you Kit."

"Don't bother to try," advised Storm. "Somehow, I can't get into the way of calling you father."

Ezra Surcon sat down again on his throne, taking in every detail of Storm's appearance with a keenly appreciative eye. It was a strange meeting between father and son, that. Family love is mostly a matter of long proximity, and there had been none of that between those two. No affection was in their clashing glances—Storm's interrogating, half-mirthful, accusing, dangerous, assured, level; Surcon's full of frank admiration blended with a trace of fear. Neither hate nor love was in the air, yet the atmosphere bristled with something far more potent. Circumstances had thrown them together to do battle on opposite sides of the law; battle to the death, fought out with words alone right up to the final mêlée—surely the strangest encounter in the annals of crime.

"You're like your mother, son," said Surcon slowly. "You've got that cornfield Saxon hair of hers, and her eyes. And yet you're me.... I used to stand up that way, once—that proud, reckless way...."

There was a short silence, while Storm met his father's gaze inscrutably, and Morini propped the door, an automatic swinging unobtrusively in one hand. "You're clever—like I am," said Surcon. "You found me—probably nobody else could have."

"Yeh!" agreed Storm. "But you're like Lew—you flatter yourself. You weren't so very difficult, although I grant you—every time—there was a lot of luck in it. And now the game's up. I've got you. What're you going to do about it?"

Surcon raised his eyebrows.

"Do about it?" he repeated.

"You said it! You're right where I want you. Hear me! I'll tell you a home truth you missed through not bringing me up yourself instead of slinging me into a workhouse when my mother died. And that home truth is that there's one big wad of conceit swollen up above your ears, which same has just landed you in the fishiest kettle of fish you ever dived into in your sweet life! You think you're sitting on several square miles of velvet. You've got me, you've got Miss Hawthorne, and you figure it out you've got every card in the pack neatly stacked up in your own private mitt. Guess again! Maybe you think I'm bluffing. Guess twice more! I never put up a bluff unless I've got an even chance of pulling out if it's called. That applies now. Scotland Yard have got your little dossier nicely tied up in pink ribbon, just waiting to travel along to the Public Prosecutor. And d'you know where you'll be when that dossier makes its speech? On the drop, Big Triangle, plumb on the drop! It's all sealed up, because just now this game happens to be a private one, and I don't want any policemen sitting in if I can help it. But if I don't rock into Scotland Yard by midnight—the witching hour!—the seals'll be broken, and that means the hangman'll be earning big money about eight weeks later. Which prison'd you fancy? Pentonville—Wormwood Scrubs—Holloway—Brixton? ... I expect it could be arranged."

Surcon stared as though he could not believe his ears. Here was his prisoner talking calmly about executions, and all the minor troubles that were coming to the Big Triangle, when all the time Morini had the bead on him, and would use it at a word! And, in spite of their terse, slangy phraseology, Storm's words carried conviction in every ice-flecked syllable.

"When I say I know everything, I'm understanding the case," Storm went on. "God Himself couldn't raise a longer charge sheet than I'm going to hand out to you right now. We'll take it in tabloids. All clear? Then I'll shoot. One: I know all about your treble life and your fake deaths. I know the beaver who was hoicked out of the Thames last night was no more Oscar Raegenssen than he was the King of England. There never was an Oscar Raegenssen—except you in fancy dress! I've proved that, and there's a little billet-doux from the Home Office pathologist himself to prove it twice over. Not to mention Miss Hawthorne's little piece. I know why you loved that tin can you called a safe in your office—I've slid out the shelves and opened up the dinkiest little cubby-hole any crook could want for a lie-low. Why, I've even got your photographs in your two side-line costumes. Olaf the Seabird, complete with false beard, comes into the picture gallery. Just to show you there's no ill-feeling, I'll give you a free tip which I'm afraid you'll never have a chance of using. Here it is. If you must disguise yourself like a dime-novelette detective, never get in the way of an auto. You're liable to be knocked silly, and then you forget to fake up your voice—suppose anyone's snooping around who knows both of you, that kind of lets a whole menagerie of cats out of your bag."

"I'm glad you allowed the element of luck," remarked Surcon ironically, although a certain tenseness in his voice spoilt the effect.

Storm flicked some ash from his cigarette.

"Share and share alike! If I was lucky in that, you were the most doggone lucky crook that ever went on a jag. Suppose the man detailed to look after your mischief had been anyone but me? Think he'd've let you go off smiling? You get a third free guess! Only I don't like my relatives being pushed through traps in execution sheds—it's rotten bad for the health of the genealogical tree. Besides, the papers'd make such a song about it. Apex Caught By His Son.... Captain Arden, Police Hero, Gets Father's Death Warrant.... Thanks all the same, but I don't laugh at jokes like that!"

"And what is your alternative?"

"You'll hear that all in good time," said Storm. "Wait till I've finished my speech, and don't interrupt. It's rude. Right! Item Two: I know exactly why you sent your cheap Bowery lead-slingers clinking for the men you did. I know why Cardan was killed, and Marker nearly, just like I know why Hannassay died. Why, I've seen plate glass less transparent than you! The amazing, everlasting, all-fired and brass-bound miracle is that even a mutt like old fat Teal didn't have the bracelets on you days and weeks ago. I could've done it; except that, as I've explained, it'd've been embarrassingly public. A day or two late, you decided it was time one of your incarnations faded out, and you got away with it. You kidded Teal, but you'd have to put up a bit of whole cloth big enough to cover the world before you got me guessing! And I think that tots up to about that. You never did anything particularly mysterious. I saw you stick up Moraine's, and all the world knows how you wangled the getaway from Marlborough Street Police Station. That was smart, I'll say. But it didn't matter. A few little fish don't matter when there's a whacking great whale jumping round the net. And that net is now blocked in with sheet iron and reënforced concrete tough enough to hold even you! D'you doubt me—d'you think I'm bluffing still—or shall I fire off another tankful?"

Surcon said nothing. As Storm's staccato sentences shot out their deadly burden, the Apex had receded further and further into his throne, his jaw thrust out, his pale blue eyes gleaming like pin-points of azure flame, his whole crouching position resembling the compression of a wild animal about to spring. A crackling electricity had oozed into the air. The trace of uneasiness which had been in Surcon's eyes from the first had grown now into a raging devil of fear, with hate, desperation, and fury leaping in to join forces with it and bolster up its fundamental weakness. Storm's gun-metal grey eyes, drilling without a waver into his father's blue ones, were hard and pitiless.

"The Roman father is an old cliché," continued Storm's quiet, even, compelling voice—quiet enough it was in actual physical fact, but the explosive, dominating exclamation marks stabbed everywhere, relentlessly, through the superficial placidity. "But I'm on the road with a new line of goods: the Roman son! You can't expect mercy from me. If you do, you're wasting good day-dreams. You've killed men. One man you killed with your own hands, so Prester John told me, and I'm inclined to believe him. Loonies—conceited loonies—like you, don't take much stock of a human life or two when their own hides are in danger of being tanned. I've killed men, too, but not to salve my head-swelling. Because you're a murderer you've got to die. That's the law, and in your particular case I think it's a damned sound law. So sound that I'm here to supervise, personally, the carrying out of the sentence. Maybe you thought you were one hell of a bright boy catching me first shot with that taxi gambit. Your fourth guess! A babe in arms 'd've seen that springe. It stuck out ten miles! I let myself be roped because I didn't know where to find you, and finding you happened to be the most important act in the play. You thought you'd got a sucker, and now you've got to get it into the ivory over your ears that I'm a red-hot Tartar. I'm out gunning for Triangles! Once you're off the map I'm going to bounce Lew, and anyone else who horns in on the bouncing 'll get a free passage to Hell along with him. Lew won't be the only one. I guess the world can muddle along well enough without Gat either, for that matter, and there're a few others who'll share the same cemetery."

Morini himself was erect now, and the finger which crooked round the hair-trigger of his automatic quivered eagerly. His baby blue eyes were cold. A man of good education and more than average intelligence, he was able to judge exactly how risky every second of Storm's continued life was. Morini wasn't fool enough to mistake case-hardened facts for an empty bluff.

"Say the word, Chief," he grated. "You can't keep him now. He knows too much. If he gets away we're all done, and he's so slippery you can't guarantee to hold him till he's dead."

"Yeh! You Gat!" Storm swung round. "Shoot and then get measured for a coffin! You poor damned goop! Haven't you got it into your bony coconut yet that I wouldn't have come rubing into this party without being sure I was going out again O.K.? I've told the Assistant Commissioner that if I'm not back in his office by twelve to-night he's to open the envelope I've given him and act on what he finds in it. By eight o'clock this morning there was a watch on every port in England. An armed watch, Gat, with photographs and descriptions of every big fish in the Triangle pond. You're on that list! And you're not a Big Triangle—you'd want more savvy than you're ever likely to have before you could disguise yourself so's they wouldn't recognise you. Take it from uncle! Try not to be a worse oaf than God made you, for the love of Mike! Hear me! This is the way you get out of the mulligatawny. Make your boss see the game's up. Once he's gone you stand a chance of staying. Without him there'd be no Triangle. It takes a porky slab of hot dog like he's got to run a bucket shop as big as this. And once there's no Triangle I might feel kinder and more loving towards my fellow-men. Which I don't mind telling you I don't at this moment. You've got a gun. Take your choice. Certain death or an even chance!"

Then Storm turned his back on the gunman, as though he were never in doubt of the alternative that gentleman would select, and faced Surcon once more.

"Suppose you kill me," he rapped out, "Teal'll get you—sure! Maybe you'd like to hear exactly what evidence Teal's got to hang you with? Well, take it in pills again. One: he knows now you're Oscar Raegenssen. Two: I've left him data enough to prove you're Snooper Brome too! Chew that bullet, sweetheart!"

Surcon half-rose from his chair, white to the lips. That was a shot he had never expected to hear blazed at him. The one secret he had thought he had held even against Storm's acumen had been flourished as certain knowledge with a calm assurance which staggered him. It was uncanny. Yet he did not lose hold of practical thought. Almost in the same flash his brain had seen and seized upon the only way of escape which now lay open to him, and already he was whizzing it through his imagination, moulding and developing it.

"That gave you a jolt, I'll bet!" Storm continued. "I guessed when I saw you in Raegenssen's house the night I burgled it. I was sure when I found you were the man who'd raked Mattock and Joan Sands into the Triangle. Gosh! you're so easy, I wonder you've got this far! Right. Let's get on. Three: given the first two scoops I've mentioned they can prove you were the man who directed the sticking up of Moraine's. Four: they won't be bothered much with proving you ordered Miss Hawthorne to be killed by Morini after she'd seen you that night in Hamilton Place and your Raegenssen costume. Five: Raegenssen was the registered owner of the Billingsgate sawmill. Bad break of yours, by the way, forgetting to sign the Deed of Sale in the Raegenssen handwriting. I suppose you bought the place before you'd fixed up what handwriting Oscar was to have. Six: Prester John's evidence that you murdered, with typhus bugs, a man who wanted to know too much about you. Seven: having proved you are the Big Triangle, you're therefore responsible for the deaths of several people in the Piccadilly Circus beanfeast. I guess that little bunch'll weigh heavy enough in the scales to send you to Hell express, as soon as they can get you convicted and string you up. Now crow!"

Storm paused and reached for his cigarette case. He gave one glance at Morini, and saw that the gunman was leaning against the door again with his automatic directed straight at his, Storm's, heart.

Storm lighted a cigarette and splintered the match between his fingers, watching Surcon intently for every sign of the effect his incisive sentences had had. Surcon's head was bent forward, so that he looked at Storm from under the rim of his prominent brows.

"Understand me?" asked Storm softly. "Got that little mouthful under your hat? Is it walking around squeaking at you? ... It's your cue. Do you kill me and Miss Hawthorne—and hang? Do you lock us up and try making a bolt for it—and hang? Or do you walk out into the next room and shoot yourself without any fuss? Once upon a time your family name must've meant something to you. D'you want the initials on a prison wall, just over an inconspicuous grave, and your own life history minutely recorded in every book on crime that's written from now onwards? Or have you got a spark of decency left in you? Have you got guts enough to stay dead like a gentleman? It's your shout. Pay up, and nobody'll ever see the bill. Don't square it my way, and you go to Tophet through a mud bath."

It seemed for a moment as if Surcon was searching his son's face for any trace of relenting, but Storm's features were set in a granite, ruthless, inexorable mask. And then the burning rage crept back into Surcon's eyes.

"Are you much better than a parricide?" demanded Surcon fiercely, literally shaking with passion. "Isn't your idea just to shelve the responsibility for the act—and be the cause of it just the same?"

"Put it that way, if you like," returned Storm icily. "It happens to satisfy what conscience I've got. And since I hold the whip hand, what I say goes!"

The effrontery of his manner passed over the heads of his hearers. They were becoming inured to it. His crisp, self-possessed manner had ladled them out such a succession of incredible blows that their senses were growing numb. He coolly usurped the position of dictator, when all the time he was at their mercy—domineered, bullied, insulted, mocked them until their wrath towered over him in great boiling waves. And through it all he smiled serenely, punching home the facts he had to deliver with the efficient force of a piledriver. He didn't play his part as by rights an unarmed prisoner should have played it—didn't give a hoot for the superiority of their position—didn't give a damn for their spleen. One might have thought he had the entire British Army drawn up in a hollow square round the house in Buckingham Gate, just waiting to rush in if anybody started rough-housing. Storm was his nickname, and now they had some idea how he had earned it. He was Storm. It didn't count with him that several unpleasantly large hornet's nests were jazzing round his ears. He played out his lone hand with a blithe confidence they couldn't cope with.

And he had got under Morini's skin.

"You've got to give him his, Chief," snapped Gat. "He said the instructions to the bulls won't be opened till midnight—that gives us more than twelve hours to make our getaway. We can go down to one of the Channel seaside places and go off in small boats. We ought to be able to make the French coast. It's risky, but it's been done before. He may be your son, but you needn't see him shot. I'll do it. You can't cling on to that stunt of locking him away—he knows too much."

"You said it!" murmured Storm. "And I know a whole lot more than I've spilled this morning. Shall I go on? If you'd like another dose, you're welcome! You moron! Hear me, Gat! Don't you think I'd seen that getaway scheme years before it ever penetrated your maggoty skull? Keep on hoping! Why, you cheap C₃ cretin, by this time the whole Channel Squadron and the North Sea Fleet are ranging up and down looking for just such an easy getaway. Think again, Gat, and think fast!"

"I'll give you my answer, Captain Arden," said Surcon. "Morini, bring Miss Hawthorne here."

As the door closed, Storm sized up his father. Surcon seemed to bulk bigger than ever, huddled up in that ornate throne; and Storm knew that, immensely strong as he was, he would stand no chance against such a giant of a man. Surcon must have read his thoughts, for a bitter smile touched the thin lips.

"No hope that way, Captain Arden. You get your strength from me, and the tree is bigger than the branch."

Storm smiled back, and for a second a ray of humanity relieved the stern set of his face.

"Sometimes you appeal to me—your nerve's nearly as good as mine," he said.

Nevertheless, Surcon's action gave him furiously to think. The Apex hadn't reacted according to schedule. Somewhere up that enigmatic sleeve was a trump card, and Storm had an uneasy suspicion that he could guess what it was without much chance of error. As he had said, he never put up a bluff without having an even chance of pulling through if it crashed. That even chance had suddenly tumbled down the market to about three to one against. And yet, for all that momentary misgiving, he never changed his calm, arrogant poise. No need to show your bluff till all the other cards are on the table, if you can avoid it...

Surcon had put on a black silk handkerchief by way of a mask, and was pulling his hat down over his eyes.

"A slight precaution, though I doubt its necessity," he explained, and then Susan was outside the door.

Storm recognised her footsteps, but Morini came in alone. Affecting lack of interest, Storm heard every word of conversation which passed between Morini and his Chief, and Kit's brow furrowed for a second as he endeavoured to account for what Mecklen had seen.

And then Susan was in the room, and a little of Storm's grimness relaxed as he heard her gasp of surprise.

"Hullo, kid," he drawled cheerfully. "Sleep well? I hear Lew was a naughty boy last night. Don't worry—I'm going to strafe ole Lew very soon!"

"How did you get here?" She had taken her cue from him, and was smiling, playing up gloriously to him. "Don't say they got you after all?"

"I think not," Storm said carefully. "The general impression at the moment is that I've got them!"

Surcon's smile distorted his tight mouth into a cryptic grimace.

"Morini—fetch all the men who are in the building. Make sure Mecklen comes."

Once again Gat departed.

Storm stepped off the daïs and went to Susan. His back was to Surcon, which fact gave him an opportunity to wink encouragingly at her. His grin was cheerfulness itself, but she did not like the metallic light which lay behind his expressive eyes. He took her arm and led her back to the platform, and she thrilled to the cool steadiness of his hand.

Men began to file into the room, taking their places at the benches without speaking. Clearly the vanity of the Triangle had made him summon such portentous assemblies before, for the men moved like a well-trained company of soldiers at Church Parade. Storm had time to be amused.

"Mecklen!"

All the men were in their seats, and the Apex spoke out resonantly. Lew came forward sheepishly.

"Take that girl!"

Two men in the front jumped up and caught Susan by the arms. They hurried her on to the platform, against the huge silver triangle, and began to tie her wrists to two of the corners, so that the base ran across her back. She fought desperately, striking out at their faces with her clenched fists, but with a couple of sulphurous ejaculations as the first blows got home they closed in and gripped her arms, holding her helpless.

Morini was standing beside Storm, his automatic swinging ostentatiously at the "ready" in case of any attempt to go to the girl's assistance. But Storm made no move to attack. He stepped back, folding his arms so that the hands came in the armholes of his coat, and under cover of the cloth he was working away at the sleeves of his bullet-proof vest.

And all the time he cursed silently, although his face never betrayed his kindling fury. He'd been caught! His precious plot had had a link in it so weak it wouldn't have carried an emaciated guinea-pig, and he'd never seen the flaw. He'd plumbed the uttermost profundities of multitude; he'd attained dizzy pinnacles of boobery; he'd wallowed in oceans of sublime insanity. To Bill Kennedy that morning he had confessed that in the past he'd been a mug, and he'd sworn he was going to atone for it—instead of which he'd rolled out of an ordinary frying-pan into a fire that was more like a roaring blast furnace....

Susan was bound, now, and the two who had done it were back in their pews, rubbing bruised shins and muttering luridly.

"You have a gun, Mecklen," said the Apex. "You were told to kill Miss Hawthorne, and you disobeyed. There is still time."

Lew took his revolver from his pocket and looked from it to his leader. Brute as he was, there was something ghastly about such a cold-blooded murder which he found hard to stomach, and he frowned doubtfully, as though unwilling to comprehend. Surcon returned the look with a remorseless determination gleaming in his blue eyes. Slowly Mecklen raised the gun....

"One moment!" The Apex turned to Storm, and that deep, sonorous intonation filled the room like a chant of doom. "You may be less sure of yourself now, Captain Arden. It is now my turn to offer you a choice.... Take Miss Hawthorne and go free to report at Scotland Yard. Resign. And then go abroad for three months and forget all about the Alpha Triangle. Refuse those terms——"

"And——?" prompted Storm, very quietly.

"And Mecklen will not be disobedient a second time."

Storm looked at the girl. She was standing quite still now, her head erect, and a light of proud defiance in her eyes.

"Tell him to go to blazes!"

Her voice rang out with bell-like clarity, and there was not a hint of faltering in it. Storm swallowed a lump that had come into his throat. His head bowed, as if in the agony of making his decision, but all the while his hands fumbled away swiftly and surely at his arms. Another second....

At last he raised his head and his cold eyes swept from Mecklen to Morini, from Morini to Ezra Surcon, alias Bulsaid.

"Sure thing—you great little wonderful kid!" he cried, and his hands leapt into view with lightning-like rapidity.

Three shots reverberated as one. The men in their chairs, watching, spell-bound, saw Mecklen clutch his chest, sway, and sag to the floor with a long sighing groan. They saw Morini reel back, clawing convulsively at a jaw which Storm's heavy-calibre bullet had smashed and all but torn from its sockets. They saw Storm himself, struck over the breast-bone by Morini's fractional-second-late shot, stagger and then, miraculously recover himself....

And then Storm was on the daïs, shielding Susan with his body. One gun-laden hand, resting on his hip, roved from face to face of the men still sitting as though paralysed, in the body of the room; the other focused on the Apex.

"There's my answer! Now crow, you second-hand Gorgonzolas!" he mocked them.