Upstairs, after an unavailing assault on the door of Hannassay's bedroom, Storm went around to the adjoining bathroom, climbed out of the window, and edged his way perilously along a two-inch ledge with the assistance of a rickety drainpipe. He came back to report that the room was empty.
"He must be out," Susan said. "It never occurred to me, though—he generally tells me where and when he's going so that any important messages can be sent on."
"Did he always lock his bedroom?" asked Storm, and she nodded.
"He had a safe there with all his private papers. The room's always locked as soon as his valet has swept it out to make the bed."
"Let's hope it wasn't burgled," said Teal. "Didn't you say there were two men at the back door?"
They went round to the back, and the detective made an inspection with the aid of his pocket torch. The door had been burst open with a jemmy of a peculiar pattern, and Inspector Teal examined the marks with a professional eye.
"That's Prester John's work," he declared. "I know that jemmy of his—he invented it himself, and it's guaranteed to make a safe look like a sardine tin."
"Get back to the Yard and send an all-station call for Morini and John," instructed Storm. "Send Henderson up here for the rest of the night, and tell Rankin to be ready to relieve him at eight to-morrow. Find out where they took Mecklen, and ring me here. I'll wait till Henderson arrives.... There mayn't be another attempt to-night, but if there are any strategists on the staff of the Triangle there may be. Oh, and tell Henderson to bring some burglarious gadgets along with him—I want to see if that safe's all right. I can't get in through the window—there's a patent fastening inside, and not enough handhold outside for an athletic fly."
When the detective had gone, he made a careful round of the room, but found nothing. Then he turned to the girl.
"I don't know what it is you're supposed to have discovered," he said, "but there's a bad hombre in the background who seems to think you spoil the view! Can you remember anything unusual you've come across in Hannassay's papers?"
She thought for a moment.
"No.... Well, yes, a few days ago he made me search his files for something about a man named Mattock. Somebody who forged a cheque with Lord Hannassay's signature and was caught and sent to prison."
"Did you mention that to anyone?"
"I did, as a matter of fact, though I suppose I shouldn't have. It was an uncle of mine on my mother's side—I didn't know where he was, but in the City the other day I ran into Uncle Joe and he made me have lunch with him. He always was interested in crime, and of course he started talking about it almost immediately. Then I happened to mention Mattock's dossier, and he seemed awfully interested—but Uncle Joe's interested in the weirdest things."
"Uncle Joe who?" Storm asked.
"Blaythwayt. He's got a job as manager——"
"Of the City and Continental Bank, Lombard Street, which same firm is honoured with the account of Olaf the Seabird. Je-rusalem! Things do run in circles! Why isn't this Regent's Park?"
Just before Henderson arrived a call came through on the upstairs telephone, and Storm learned that Lew Mecklen had been taken to St. George's Hospital suffering from nothing more serious than a flesh wound in the thigh, and that a detective was already guarding him. So far he had refused to make any statement.
"I'll see him first thing to-morrow," said Storm. "Get hold of the Assistant Commissioner. Lew must be charged to-morrow morning."
He shook hands with Henderson and led the way upstairs. From the detective he received a small leather wallet of fine steel tools and reviewed them critically.
"Anyone might think I was going to smash a strongroom," he murmured. "Gather round for a demonstration of expert yeggship!"
It took him only a couple of minutes to manipulate the lock, and then he straightened himself and pushed open the door.
The safe was untouched, and nothing appeared to have been disturbed.
"This is not exciting," he remarked, and re-locked the door on the outside with his instruments.
They returned to the library, and he gave Henderson his instructions.
"Of course, it's all wrong," he concluded. "The Triangle are so keen on broadcasting their visiting cards—why haven't we got a memento of their call?"
While Henderson talked to the girl, Storm embarked on a fresh search of the house. He combed every inch of every room and corridor, and was raking the study upstairs when Lord Hannassay himself arrived. Storm heard the voices downstairs, and came down with the irritating belief that he had overlooked something. As a matter of fact, he had, for as he descended the stairs he saw something gleaming at the edge of the rug in the hall.
It was a silver triangle similar to the one Inspector Teal had showed him, and had obviously been kicked out of sight when they charged in—it was barely visible except when it caught the light in a certain way.
Susan was just telling Lord Hannassay her story when Storm stroked in.
"Look for the trade mark on every genuine article," he said. "I hate these anonymous presents!"
He held out the token in one triumphant palm as he spoke, and the peer turned to greet him with a smile.
"Oh, Captain Arden——"
His voice trailed away, and they saw him suddenly go white. Henderson was just in time to catch him as he fell.
Inspector Teal stood on the threshold, a burly figure, hat in hand.
"I just dropped in——" he was starting to explain, and then he caught sight of the limp form in Henderson's arms and his jaw dropped.
Storm put an arm around Hannassay and brushed Henderson aside. Then he jerked the unconscious man from the floor and, heavy as he was, carried him without any apparent effort to the chesterfield.
He left the two detectives to apply restoratives, and led the girl over to the window.
Storm was the last man on earth she would ever have associated with nerves. He was too essentially virile—dynamic—and there was too much grim strength in every line of his lean, tanned face. His eyes were as cold and steady as chilled granite, and his every least movement showed the supple grace of the born fighting man. And yet the hand he laid on her arm trembled, and when he spoke she was amazed to detect the faintest unevenness in his voice.
"Hannassay fainted as though he'd seen a ghost, didn't he?" he said. "And I know the ghost. My God!—— Life's queer!"
"Was it the Triangle you showed him?" she asked.
He shook his head, and his white teeth gleamed in a mirthless smile.
"The Triangle brought it, but the ghost's name was Mattock!" said Storm.
CHAPTER V
BLAYTHWAYT ON CLUES
In spite of the hour, the nucleus of a crowd had already gathered outside, with that peculiar instinct for the morbid which is the gift of crowds; and Storm had to fight his way to a taxi through the first batch of eager reporters.
He found the vanguard of another contingent sitting patiently on his doorstep when he got back to the Albany, and was instantly deluged with questions.
"I can give you no information at present," he repeated for the umteenth time. "Also, I want to get a couple of hours' rest before breakfast. Try your luck later."
Fifteen minutes afterwards he rolled into bed and fell at once into a calm, untroubled sleep.
He breakfasted at seven-thirty in his dressing-gown, already bathed and shaved, and he was looking as cool and fresh as if he had had nine hours' healthy slumber instead of two. The table was littered with newspapers, and folded sheets were propped up against every available support in front of him. He read while he ate. In spite of his own reticence, someone at the Yard had evidently talked unguardedly, for the stop-press columns were full of sensational hints in small closely set type.
"This will be all over the world in three hours," he said resignedly, and Inspector Teal, who had dropped in for a cup of coffee, nodded.
"I don't know that it matters much. The real point of advertising a crime is to call up the noses, and I doubt if there'll be much nosing the Triangle. Do you know, when they searched Lew he had five hundred pounds on him? You can't nose a gang who can pay that well."
Storm drove down to the hospital after breakfast to see the injured gunman, and found him confidently defiant.
"Ef yew think yew're gonna git a squeak outer me, yew sure gotten another guess comin', Cap."
Storm sat down by the side of the bed and lighted a cigarette. He had already surmised that it would be difficult to make Lew Mecklen talk, and he had the disadvantage of being on the right side of the law, which put the more obvious methods of securing information out of the question.
"I don't know what the law is in the States," he said, "and I don't know if you know what it is over here. Anyway, in England we have a thing called King's Evidence, and it's saved one or two people's necks before now."
Lew shook his head.
"Quit kiddin', son," he advised. "Yew cain't hang me fer doin' a bit of fancy shootin' around yore haid. Yew weren't injured any. All yew bulls c'n do is ter lock me up fer a time—an' then I've gotten yew all skinned a mile!"
The thought seemed to amuse him, for his big chest heaved with silent guffaws.
"You can get your sentence reduced by helping us to round up the rest of the gang," Storm pointed out. "And I can get you a longer stretch if you're obstinate."
"Yew c'n go ter hell any time," said Mecklen, and chuckled again. "Aw—mother! Take 'im outside an' tie a halo round 'is baby braow. Tell me good-bye, buddy, an' go home, or yew'll make me die laughin'! Put ole Lew in jail?" he scoffed. "I'm an Amurrican cidizen, bo, an' don't yew fergit it."
"Since when has America been using the slums of Leipzig as a breeding-ground?" inquired Storm mildly. "Mecklen, you synthetic Americans make me tired! In case you're interested, I'll say you're nothing more than a fourth-rate Hun thug, and your pal Morini's about as American as you are—which means he's a plain ornery Dago!"
He held a consultation with the house-surgeon, and was unaccountably annoyed at the report he received.
"Of course, if you insist, Captain Arden, I can do nothing; but I strongly advise against moving him."
"How long is it likely to be before we can take him away?" Storm asked, and the doctor spread out his hands.
"It may be any time," was his unsatisfactory answer. "I'll do my best to get him patched up as soon as possible—you can be sure of that. But if you move him now, you may be sued for damages later, and that wouldn't do you any good."
As Storm drove back along Piccadilly he saw that nearly every poster advertising the early editions of the evening papers bore an enlarged reproduction of the Alpha Triangle. He bought a copy of the Evening Record and found the latest Fleet Street conjectures stunted across four columns and crowned with bloodcurdling headlines.
He rang up Susan from Scotland Yard, and had the disappointment of hearing that she was already engaged for lunch.
"Lord Hannassay leaves for a holiday the day after to-morrow," she added. "He's going down through Spain, then to Teneriffe, and finishing up with a tour down the West African coast."
This was news to Storm, and, incidentally, an unexpected blessing for with Lord Hannassay out of the way a responsibility would be off his hands.
"Who are you lunching with?" he demanded jealously.
"Uncle Joe."
"Damn Uncle Joe!" snarled Storm, and her soft, amused laughter reached his ears before he hung up the receiver.
Joe Blaythwayt had come into his own. Few of the callers he interviewed that morning failed to make some remarks about the Triangle, and Joe made the best of the secondhand scraps of out-of-the-way knowledge he had acquired from Inspector Teal.
"I know criminals," he would say to the scoffers, with morbid satisfaction.
Nevertheless, the Joe Blaythwayt who discussed evil-doers and evil deeds with a Central Detective-Inspector in his leisure moments was a very different man from the Joe Blaythwayt who conducted the business of the Lombard Street branch of the City and Continental Bank. Still alert, eyes still ready to twinkle, frequent of laughter—yes. But eminently practical and business-like.
He was business-like when he held his usual weekly interview with Raegenssen in the snug little office to which the roar of traffic came but faintly.
It was a highly business-like occasion—one of those colossal moments during which the most unassuming man is justified in donning horn-rimmed spectacles and a cigar, sticking his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, and generally adopting the accent and demeanour of the Man of Big Business. For Raegenssen was augmenting his account by a sum which exceeded even his ordinary weekly contributions—and they would have represented Blaythwayt's income for a year.
He dropped a wad of hundred-pound notes on the table as carelessly as a merely rich man might have paid in a handful of fivers. The manager counted them with a similar dispassionate air, and passed them over to the cashier as if they were so much waste paper; for Joe Blaythwayt was a stickler for the etiquette of his profession.
But, business over, he degenerated into a human being.
"Of course, you've seen the papers," he remarked.
The Swede nodded.
"It is ter pig bluff," he said.
He glared at the inoffensive Joe as though he suspected him of being in league with the gang.
"Plackmail!" he declared violently. "Ant I shall nod bay!"
Blaythwayt watched the departure of the huge Viking figure in its ill-fitting clothes thoughtfully.
Oscar Raegenssen drove back to Cockspur Street, where he occupied a palatial suite of offices in Scandinavia House. He sat over his desk for a long time, his big, capable hands toying with a ridiculously small pencil. Crag-like jaw outthrust, he stared truculently into space. His leonine head was set at an arrogant angle—he looked by no means an easy man to intimidate.
Presently he pressed the bell at his side, and there was a knock on the door.
"Gom!" he commanded curtly, and Mattock entered.
Raegenssen took the little bundle of pink slips from his clerk's hand and spread them out on the blotting-paper in front of him. With ponderous deliberation he scrawled his thick untidy signature in the bottom right-hand corner of each; and when he had finished he gathered them up, counted them, and studied every one minutely.
"Two are missing!"
"I have them here," Mattock said. "I've written nothing on them—they're for large sums."
"Why?"
Mattock showed his teeth.
"You forget my reputation, sir," he said gently.
Raegenssen regarded his clerk inscrutably. Mattock met the stare boldly—almost insolently. Then, without a word, Raegenssen wrote out the cheques, blotted them, and handed them back.
Although Raegenssen's were vaguely described in the directory as "Agents," the City knew them very little. It was rumoured that the Swede was a gigantic speculator in foreign exchanges, and certainly large sums of exotic currencies passed through the Scandinavia House offices and between London and the firm's correspondents in Marseilles, Lisbon, Amsterdam and Genoa.
"Next week ter will pe ingoming monies. You will nodify Amstertam as usual. That iss all. Go!"
"There was something I wanted to mention, sir, if you'll excuse me," Mattock said.
"Gondinue—yess?"
"The safe you have in the office is of an old pattern. It would be child's play to an expert safe-breaker."
"Gondinue—yess?"
"Mightn't it be wiser, sir, to get a new safe—or, better still, keep the papers at the bank? If anything should happen, the police would be after me at once. Once a man's made a break, they never let him go."
"Gondinue—yess?"
"They are rather private papers, sir?"
Cold blue eyes bored mercilessly into insolent brown ones.
"Hof you seen ter babers?"
"No, sir, but—"
"What mages you tink we hof anydings to gonceal?"
"Nothing, sir, but the private correspondence of any business—"
"Gondinue—yess?"
"That's all, sir," Mattock concluded lamely.
"Thang you. Go!"
Towards three o'clock Raegenssen rose, tidied his desk, picked up his battered felt hat.
The safe to which Mattock had taken exception stood in one corner of the room—a great massive affair that seemed to occupy half the office. It was eight feet high by three feet wide by three feet deep, and it was Oscar Raegenssen's especial joy. There was a glitter of amusement in his eyes as he comprehended its imposing bulk.
He locked the door of his sanctum and passed through the outer office where his two clerks and Mattock worked. Only Mattock was left, and he was at that moment drawing on his waterproof preparatory to departure, for Raegenssen's closed early.
"It's come on to rain, sir," he remarked. "Have you your car outside, or shall I fetch a taxi?"
"Ter gar is in St. James's Square. You will blease summon it."
Storm, endeavouring to appear interested in Inspector Teal's lengthy monologue on the psychology of the criminal, had been suddenly seized with what struck him as being an exceptionally brilliant idea. He took up the telephone and gave a number in the City.
"I want to speak to Mr. Blaythwayt, please.... Captain Arden of the Criminal Investigation Department."
He was unpleasantly conscious of Mr. Teal's curious gaze, and fervently wished that he had delayed putting his idea into practice until that portly sleuth had taken his leave.
"Hullo ... yes.... Can you see me almost immediately, Mr. Blaythwayt? This Triangle affair—it's an awful nuisance, I know; but it can't be helped.... You're just going out to lunch? ... No, I'm afraid I can't—I've got a lot of other things to attend to this afternoon. Look here, if I shan't intrude, will you lunch with me? ... Susan Hawthorne? Je-ru-salem, that's funny! ... Yes—known her for years! I remember now; you're her uncle, aren't you? ... No, I'm sure she won't mind. I'd tell you over the 'phone, but I hate invisible backchatters! ... I'll pick you up at the Record office in under ten minutes. So long!"
"She's a nice kid, that Miss Hawthorne," observed the somniloquent Mr. Teal, as Storm put down the instrument.
Storm was not inclined to be conversational on the subject.
"M'm. You know, sir, I always say a young man ought to get married. It kind of puts a kick into his work. And if there's kids, it gives him something to work for. Now, I was married when I was a youngster of twenty-two, walking my beat like any cub copper. Well, believe me, sir, it made a new man of me, and when we had our First—that was four months after——"
"Teal," said Storm awfully, "you're shocking me. Go away and blow froth."
He collected Blaythwayt at the bank, and they parked the car in Salisbury Square and proceeded on foot to the Fleet Street restaurant where Joe had arranged to meet his niece. She was surprised to see Storm, and, in his state of exaggerated self-consciousness, he thought she was a trifle displeased. Thinking things over, he realised the painful transparency of his ruse.
"I'm sorry to butt in on you like this," he said. "Fact is, it's important for me to see your uncle, and I shan't have ten consecutive free seconds this afternoon."
Joe Blaythwayt tucked his napkin into his waistcoat and beamed at them both impartially.
"Anything I can do for you, Captain Arden——"
This placed Storm in a quandary, for he hadn't the foggiest notion of an excuse for his presence. The timely arrival of an overworked waiter gave him a few minutes' respite, during which time his brain seethed frantically, and at the end of it he was prepared to be fluently plausible.
"Teal is always talking about you, Mr. Blaythwayt. He says you're a great criminologist."
"Well, I've read a bit about it," admitted Joe modestly. "It's difficult, of course, to do much as an amateur. Now, this Triangle, Captain Arden, is the very first time I've ever been mixed up in anything of the sort personally. I shall put it in my book—I'm writing a book, you know. Did Teal tell you that?"
Storm nodded. He glanced at Susan and then exerted himself not to meet her eye, for her initial annoyance had given place to quiet amusement. He felt her eyes upon him, and went hot and cold.
"And you absolutely can't remember a thing about Harchester that you could associate with the Triangle?" he asked.
"Not a thing," said Blaythwayt with a vigorous shake of his head. "Of course, some people must have been jealous—I was jolly good at Rugger in my time, and Harchester thinks more of brawn than of brains, so I became captain of the school rather out of my turn. But that's all so long ago I can't remember details. Certainly nobody disliked me to my face, whatever they may have thought."
"Who was the bird you cut out?"
Blaythwayt wrinkled his brow.
"I can remember him a bit. A big fellow, no good at games—he was so gawky everyone used to rag him about it. Bull-something ... Bull ... Bulsaid—that's it! He was brilliantly clever, I remember that. I often wonder what happened to him. He ought to have become a great scientist. But, bless you, Bulsaid never kicked. He was too quiet. One of the most easy-going fellows I've ever met."
Susan turned to Storm with a smile.
"Is Uncle's school life so terrifically important?" she asked sweetly.
"Fearfully," Storm assured her gravely.
She shook her head, and all mischief was in her eyes.
"You're forgiven," she said, and the simple Joe blinked uncomprehendingly at the laughter that followed.
The rest of the meal was delightful, and Storm listened soberly to the account of Blaythwayt's literary aspirations, interspersing the recital at intervals with the most innocent expressions of admiration.
"About this Triangle, though—seriously!" he said later. "There's going to be trouble, and it's going to be tough! You've heard what they've done already—tried to poison me, shot me up, and sent the gentle Gat gunning for Susan. And that's before they've committed a single crime against the men they've threatened. I say 'threatened,' although no threats have been put on paper in so many words. But I guess if I got one of those little valentines I'd look under my bed before I got into it, whether they said, 'This is where you get yours,' or not! What do you make of it?"
"Crime on a big scale," said Blaythwayt impressively. "It's a solid possibility, as a commercial investment, to a man with capital and genius."
Joe's simplicity was his great charm.
"As I see it, Captain Arden, criminals would never be caught if they didn't leave Clues. Consequently, in order to be a successful criminal, all you have to do is to master the art of not leaving Clues. And, as a detective, you will only run the Triangle to earth by looking for and following up Clues. The ordinary police methods of searching for Clues are inadequate. There are too many hindrances—you should be able to enter houses without search warrants, take people into custody and interrogate them on the slightest provocation, and adopt any means you choose in order to accumulate evidence. The Detective should be above the Law."
Storm shook his head.
"I'm not a pukka detective," he said, "and Teal owes me ten bob."
"Are you being funny," demanded Susan, "or is there likely to be more trouble?"
He looked at her steadily, eyes half closed, his cigarette between his lips.
"You're scared!" he said.
"Well, I'm not absolutely praying to be killed."
There was a short silence, for he had no wish to alarm her unduly. And yet, to minimise the danger would not be the thought of anyone but a born fool. He turned his eyes on Blaythwayt.
"Are you scared?"
"I can't say I've thought about it seriously," confessed Joe. "I really don't see that I have much to fear—far less, anyway, than I have to fear from bank robbers and kiters—that's an American word for bank swindlers," he explained unnecessarily. "Inspector Teal, my very good friend, always says that violent crime is foreign to this country. A few attempts by dagoes and suchlike, perhaps, but they can easily be rounded up. It's just a coincidence that a threat should have come to me. One can understand them being sent to the others. Public men are bound to receive threatening letters, but they very rarely come to anything."
Storm would have liked to point out the minor coincidences of alcohol diluted with aconite, and firework displays in Albany Court Yard and Hamilton Place, but refrained.
"What's your honest opinion, Kit?" Susan persisted.
"Oh, well, Mecklen's in hospital, and we've got Morini's description. There may be a bit of fun before he's found," he conceded easily, "but I don't think you need be afraid. I'd like you to stay with some friends of mine, though, while Hannassay's away. You don't want to be alone in that huge house—besides, it's so dull. You'll like 'em—Terry Mannering's a great lad. But don't go liking him too much, because he's already married!"
"You needn't be afraid of that," she told him coldly, and did not realise for five minutes why he smiled.
Blaythwayt pulled out his watch.
"I'm afraid I really must be off, Captain Arden. It's nearly a quarter to three—please don't think I'm rude, my dear fellow, but Business..."
When Joe Blaythwayt spoke of weighty matters he always gave the impression that he talked in capital letters.
In Salisbury Square he inspected every inch of the silver Hirondel with an almost childish awe.
"I wish I could afford a car like this," he said wistfully. "Can she Go?"
"Go?" scoffed Storm. "She's the fastest thing on wheels that you can use on the road! I've tried her up to a hundred and fifteen at Brooklands." He had an inspiration. "Get in and let's have a run—I'll be taking Susan home, anyway."
"Can we really?" said Joe, and Storm had shepherded him into the back seat before he had quite decided whether to accept the invitation.
He had, apparently, forgotten the calls of Business.
They whirled round Trafalgar Square, and Storm hesitated momentarily between Cockspur Street and the Mall. He decided on Cockspur Street, and to this day the thought of the far-reaching effects of that casual decision makes him gasp.
Oscar Raegenssen, waiting for the arrival of his luxurious Navarre cabriolet, saw a man whom he particularly wished to avoid sauntering down from Pall Mall. He looked up and down the street, but there was no sign of his car. With a slight gesture of annoyance he started to cross the road.
He stepped directly in front of the bonnet of Storm's car. The fine drizzle that was falling lay on the road like thin oil, and Storm knew at once that it would be impossible to pull up in time on the treacherous surface, for he was doing over thirty miles an hour. He wrenched the wheel over to the right as he braked, and one wing just caught Raegenssen as the Hirondel skidded round. Luckily the street was almost deserted, and the silver car turned completely round in a space of feet and fetched up against the kerb, facing back towards Trafalgar Square.
It was a magnificent piece of driving, but the most masterly driver in the world could not have saved Raegenssen from that blow.
Storm jumped from his seat and ran towards the stunned man, an excited Joe hard on his heels. He picked the Swede up in his arms and carried him to the pavement. He was loosening the clothes about Raegenssen's throat, with Blaythwayt trying ineffectually to assist, when a tall, oldish man elbowed his way through the crowd and knelt down beside him.
"Your boss, Mattock," remarked Storm briefly.
Raegenssen was not badly hurt. He was even then recovering consciousness. His eyelids flickered dazedly, and his lips framed an almost inaudible word.
"Sylvia ... Sylvia..."
"He's coming round," said Storm to the constable who had joined the group. "He stepped out right in front of me without looking where he was going, but I only grazed him."
"This gentleman is Captain Arden of the Special Branch," announced Blaythwayt pompously.
Storm was searching in his pockets for a card, and Susan saw that his jaw was tightened up so that the muscles stood out in faintly serrated knots, and his eyes were abnormally level.
Wondering, she looked at the others. Joe Blaythwayt was standing by importantly with a broad smile on his face, and yet he was trembling with excitement. Mattock had looked up from applying first aid to his employer, and was staring at one of the other two—she could not be sure which. His features were contorted, his mouth working, and there was a blaze in his eyes that set her heart pounding against her ribs like a trip-hammer.
CHAPTER VI
IMMIGRATION OF THE UNGODLY
Storm breakfasted with Hannassay on the morning his lordship left for his holiday. It was an unexpected invitation, but Lord Hannassay came to the reason of it without delay.
"I have made arrangements for you to be given complete charge of the case," he said. "You will probably get the official intimation when you reach the Yard."
His usual abruptness of manner was conspicuously absent. He spoke restrainedly and rather artificially, like a man who has planned out his speech in advance and intends to adhere rigidly to a premeditated sequence of words.
"You will have carte blanche, and you may use any means you think fit within—and, by special arrangement, without—the law to round up the Alpha Triangle. I am convinced that the menace with which we are faced is the greatest in the history of crime."
"I'm glad to have your support," said Storm. "I more than scent rodents myself! But I thought I was in for some job persuading the authorities I wasn't an alarmist."
The peer nodded absently and stirred his coffee. He seemed hardly to have heard Kit's remark, and when he spoke again it was in the same mechanical way as before, as though he neither anticipated nor required interruption.
"Strictly between ourselves, Captain Arden, I know the secret of the Alpha Triangle." He pushed away his plate and lighted a cigar. "That, I think, should surprise you. You will ask, also, why I do not place my information at the service of the police. There is a reason for that—a reason which I cannot explain to you now, but which will be clear to you when, and if, you run the gang to earth. The Alpha Triangle is an organisation which came into existence originally for the purposes of revenge—the purpose for which it was organised by a genius who, I sometimes think, is mad. You have, of course, been interested in the murder—it was murder, by the way—of Joubert, a few months ago. That was the first crime of the Triangle, and yet I offer for your contemplation the paradox that until five minutes before the murder there was no Alpha Triangle."
Storm sat without comment, although he was literally amazed at the confession he had just heard. Lord Hannassay, whose eyes throughout had been fixed vacantly on the opposite wall, after the fashion of a child repeating a lesson, looked at him suddenly and surprised that look of consternation.
"Exactly—I am deliberately admitting that I am, in a sense, an accessory," he said with a smile. "I must ask you to accept the extraordinary situation, the cause of which will be apparent to you at the successful conclusion of your labours. The Alpha Triangle, then," he went on, "from being a purely revengeful society, became an acquisitively criminal one. I ask you to take my word on that score, for although the Triangle has committed no acquisitive crimes up to date, I have every reason to believe that it will make up for the deficiency in the future. This transition, already an accomplished fact—in the spirit, if not in the deed—must have already occurred to you as a probability. What, indeed, could be more natural than that such an organisation, having established a powerful and unscrupulous society for taking its vengeances, should visualise the possibilities for material gain latent in such a society? The power is there—a power, Captain Arden, which, if you knew its magnitude and the utter, cold, superhuman inflexibility of the man who controls it, might make even you, in spite of your reputation for physical prowess and indomitable courage, turn back from the task you seem so eager to undertake."
For all the precise, calculated levelness of Lord Hannassay's voice, there was an earnestness behind his pedantic sentences that pricked the small hairs on the nape of Storm's neck like a chill wind. And yet this was a purely reflex sensation, for Storm smiled lightly and flicked the ash from his cigarette with leisured care.
"I'll take the risk," he drawled.
Lord Hannassay nodded slowly.
"I thought you would," he said. "You're the sort that would."
"And that's not what they call 'sand,' either," said Storm, and his mocking smile flitted elusively across his lips. "I'll give it you, Lord Hannassay, straight, that I'd rather tackle anything else under the sun than this Triangle business. And I could throw in my hand—I'm not a detective, and I'm not even in Special Branch regularly. I stay on simply because it's a challenge. I've got some sort of a reputation among disreputable people—Storm won't be beat till he's buried, and maybe not then, they'll tell you. And they've got it all wrong! It's pride—arrogance—conceit—anything you care to call it. But all it stews down to is just that I'm too bucked with myself—it'd break my heart to have to admit I was beaten! I'd sooner go down fighting, because if I'm beaten that way I'll never have to admit it."
He spoke without a trace of affectation, and yet it was an analysis he had never made to anyone in his life before. Later, Lord Hannassay knew the reason for that frankness, yet even at the time Storm's simple directness appealed to him.
The peer rose and held out his hand.
"I call that 'sand,'" he said quietly. "Captain Arden, you have my very best wishes. I'm—scared of that Triangle. It's got me jumpy—that's honest." He had relapsed into his old jerky style. "It's bigger than I ever dreamed such a thing could be. Queer thing: sometimes I don't care, sometimes I wish I could speak. Probably you'll be killed; sometimes I'm sorry, sometimes it doesn't seem to matter. Yet I like you extraordinarily. Look an easy man to frighten?"
Storm viewed the splendid physique, seemingly unimpaired by age, and his glance wandered to the masterful poise of the big head on the broad shoulders. He smiled as he shook his head.
"I'm afraid," said Lord Hannassay with a grim matter-of-factness that was more startling than any emotional outburst.
"Is that serious?" Storm asked incredulously, and Hannassay nodded.
"Same as you—I'd like to be out of it. Sooner or later, I think, I'll have to pay for my knowledge of it. And yet, if I placed that knowledge at your disposal, even on your assurance that it would go no further, I should be little better off. The Triangle is supremely callous—you understand that, Captain Arden? A human life—half a dozen, if you like—that!"
He snapped his fingers contemptuously. Storm concentrated on blowing three smoke rings interlinked with accurate symmetry.
"Who is Bulsaid?" he asked carelessly.
He had expected to create a sensation, and in this he was not disappointed. Hannassay froze into a rock-like immobility. His pale blue eyes were like chips of ice, brittle and glistening.
"Bulsaid," he whispered.
"Bulsaid—the man who was supplanted by Joe Blaythwayt at school, whose mean little soul conceived even at that age an undying hatred of those who passed him in the race. Bulsaid, the man whom Sir John Marker beat at the Clayston bye-election in March, 1897. Bulsaid, the scientist whose seriousness and anarchical views caused him to be ragged rather unmercifully at Oxford, particularly by a man named James Mattock—a man of good family but with too much money, a popular, noisy, carefree youngster whom Bulsaid came to add to the list of enemies his warped mind never forgot. Bulsaid, the man who has you, Lord Hannassay, in his clutches, and who will perhaps never let you go. Bulsaid, the brilliant scholar, the fanatic, the unforgiving hater, the embittered, half-mad genius—Hugo Arden Bulsaid, my father!"
The Under Secretary said nothing, but the ramrod set of his giant frame was now only superficial, for Storm saw that the whole man was vibrant with tiny tremors. Every line on that stern, dominant face was graven deeper and sterner, and little chips of hot steel glinted behind the icy blue eyes.
"Hugo Arden Bulsaid," said Storm slowly, "the man who made Oscar Raegenssen, and who will break him; the man who'll kill me one day, if I don't kill him!"
"So you know," breathed Hannassay. "And I needn't have been so secretive about my knowledge."
He placed his thin cigar between his white teeth and walked across to the window, whence he could look out on the green beauty of Hyde Park dappled with the golden glory of the morning sun.
"Yes.... I know," said Storm after a silence, and the peer turned.
"Captain Arden," he said, "do you hate your father?"
Storm shook his head.
"No—it's just the luck of the game." He paused. "But you hate him."
"I hate him, I think, more than I had ever believed it was possible to hate a man," said Hannassay with a cold gentleness that was like the caress of vitriol. "I hate him from the ultimate depths of my soul. I would kill him without compunction and without fear this day ... but for one thing."
Storm pitched the stump of his cigarette into a flowerpot and buttoned his coat. In those trivial actions he dispelled the tense gloom of the atmosphere as the dawning sunshine breaks up the miasma of a swamp—it was a quality born of his clean, fresh wholesomeness.
"I must be going," he said cheerily. "Hope you have a good holiday."
Lord Hannassay did not ring for the butler, but himself escorted his guest to the door and opened it. He held out his hand and took Kit Arden's in a firm grip.
"Au revoir," said Storm, but Hannassay's head made a slight, half-amused negative movement.
"Adieu," he said. "A premonition, Captain Arden.... We shall never meet again.... Good-bye!"
Storm drove back to New Scotland Yard, and found the indefatigable Teal waiting for him. That stout detective was working his jaws rhythmically, and a folded copy of the morning paper was propped up on Storm's table before him, while a litter of papers and printed forms of all colours were spread across the blotter.
"There's a few notes you asked for," he remarked. "I've been looking through them."
He rose ponderously, and Storm took his place at the desk.
"I can see somebody's been at them," said Storm gently, and proceeded to attempt to restore order. "Those files of the Record arrived yet?"
"They're at the bottom."
Storm swept the chaos to one side and opened the package which lay beneath. Then he smoothed out the two newspapers he found and began to skim methodically through the pages. It was some minutes before he found the passage he had expected to find, and then the form of it was entirely unsuspected. It consisted of the book reviews, and most of the space was occupied by criticisms of a certain work.
"You read this, Teal," he observed after a while, "and then tell Uncle Joe to give up literature as a career. He's no idea what budding authors have to put up with!"
The commentary was one of the most scathing Storm had ever read. At the head of it was the title Devolution, by Hugo Bulsaid; and, a little lower down, appeared the name of the reviewer—signed, as he had anticipated, John Cardan. There was one paragraph:
We are, frankly, amazed that a firm of such standing as Messrs. Barry and Stokes should have suffered such a fit of judicial aberration as to place on the market a work of such incredible worthlessness. We are equally astounded that a man of such scientific prestige as Mr. Bulsaid should have wasted his time in preparing it.
The article went on to discuss the worthlessness of the book in detail, and, judging by the quotations from it with which the remarks were interlarded, it seemed that there was some excuse for the reviewer's violence.
"Anyone but Bulsaid would have started a libel action," Storm murmured.
The tirade concluded with these words:
There is, we know, a great freedom allowed to the printed word, but this freedom was originated that social problems might be clearly and adequately discussed, and that reforms, where necessary, might be suggested without fear. It was not granted in order that such works as "Devolution" might be published. "Devolution" is not only a degrading book; it is a revolting book. The subject is unclean, the theme might have been adopted from the ravings of a lunatic, the treatment is of a coarseness unrelieved by the faintest sparkle of wit or logic, and to the mentality of the author can only be applied the adjective "septic." The only way in which one can regard this work is as a joke—and then the joke is in such poisonous taste that, one hopes, it would scarcely be tolerated in a Wapping taproom.
Storm passed the sheet over to Teal, and the stolid detective read it dispassionately.
"I hope you never read Devolution," Kit said when Teal had finished.
"I was a respectably married man by that time," said Mr. Teal virtuously. "And, anyway, what sort of jokes don't they tolerate in Wapping taprooms? I've never been into one—fat men didn't ought to drink."
"I seem to have heard that homily before," remarked Storm. "Anyway, not many people did read it—it was withdrawn shortly after that review. Here's the record."
He glanced through the second paper and finally folded it down at a certain paragraph and passed it across the desk.
"And yet it was all hot air," he said. "I've made inquiries, and as far as anyone can ascertain, Bulsaid led an impeccably moral life both before and after he married. I think that book marks the beginning of his definite insanity. Later, his madness turned into another channel, and consequently became far less obvious."
He collected the scattered documents which he had pushed aside, and began to run through them, classifying them as he did so, and discarding those which did not bear directly on his investigation. Then he drew a clean sheet of paper towards him and made some notes, and when he had finished he called Teal over to study the result.
"I know all about Bulsaid," he said, speaking slowly and quietly, as was his fashion when he was outlining his thoughts aloud. "But Bulsaid isn't the Triangle by any means! There are men in the Triangle who've been brought in to serve the ends of the Triangle, but who've become its masters. Not openly—that's not what I mean. But work's got to be found for them, and money's got to be found for them, or else they'll turn on their leader. Bulsaid started the Triangle, and now Bulsaid's the unconfessed slave of the men he leads."
It was a curious thing that, although it was Teal, acting on the suggestion of Joe Blaythwayt, who had revealed to Storm the identity of his father, the relationship had never since then been mentioned between them.
"Here's the list," said Storm, indicating the notes he had made, "of the crook emigrants into this country, as supplied to us by the American, French, and German police. I'll bracket them off: Con men"—-he ticked one group with his pencil—"yeggs ... whizzers ... knockers-off ... blackmailers ... dope merchants ... jewel thieves ... and so forth and so on. All the usual bunch who come over in the season—and the numbers are about average. But look at these, who generally stay at home: eleven killers from Germany; sixteen ditto from Paris, Toulon and Marseilles; twenty-seven synthetic American gunmen. That makes fifty-four criminals who value the life of a man at approximately two cents—-all in, or 'believed to be in,' London. Tell me why, Teal! Here's the report of the Chief of the Sûreté: 'Sans doute, quelqu'un a causé....' Sorry, you don't talk the lingo, do you?
"Undoubtedly, someone has been talking of the opportunities which presents violent crime in England. We have been able to trace some of the movements of this unknown, and we are convinced that his words have induced numbers of our criminals to quit our shores.
That's a literal translation. In England, old Lafleuve means that some coot's been touting for thugs!" He turned over other papers. "Much the same from Germany. New York says:
"Knowing the rarity of violent crime in England, and the efficiency of the police in suppressing such as exists, we beg to suggest that you search for an organisation which contemplates an attack on London which might easily have disastrous consequences by reason of its very unexpectedness. Our information leads us to suspect the existence of some such organisation, since there is abundant evidence of the persuasive suggestions of some agent, whom we have been unable to trace and identify, and since it is unlikely that men such as those we name on the enclosed list would leave in a body without a definite plan in mind.
Teal, who said respectability was dull?"
"I'll put through an all-station call for these men—you've got the descriptions," said Teal conventionally.
Storm lighted a cigarette with a grace which he contrived to make inexpressibly cynical.
"Put through all the calls you like," he said languidly. "I'll bet you ten thousand bucks to half a secondhand Limberger you don't get more than six of 'em that way! Personally, I'm going to commit two felonies in the course of the next forty-eight hours, and I'll guarantee to find out more about the Triangle that way than you will in forty-eight years with the help of the Police News and the Weekly List and the rest of the bunch, and the whole dogstrung C.I.D. into the bargain!"
He cast around for an excuse to ring up Susan, and, finding none, called her number and hoped that the Lord would provide.
"Yes, of course I'm all right," he said in answer to her first question, and felt a pleasant tingle at the thought that this should have been her initial interest. "One reason I rung up was to find out if you'd decided to accept Terry's invitation to stay with them till Hannassay's back. I wish you would."
In the new spirit of selfishness that had come upon him in the past few days, this was an inquiry of minor importance; and yet, having made it, he was seriously concerned about the reply he would receive.
"I have accepted it," she told him, and he was relieved.
"I'd like you to move in to-day," he said. "I'm sorry if that rushes you, but you've got to realise that there is a certain amount of danger, and if you're killed or anything, I shall get it in the neck. I'll give Terry a ring, and he'll come round and fix everything for you. He loves work," added Storm mendaciously.
"I suppose it can be managed," she said, for in spite of his flippancy she recognised his determination, and knew of old the futility of opposing him. Also, when Storm gave orders he had an uncanny knack of being always right.
"Do we lunch with Uncle Joe?" he teased her.
"I shall probably lunch with Mr. Mannering," she mocked him back. "No, really, I'm sorry you're in such a hurry for me to move. I wanted to go to Moraine's and see the jewels."
"What jewels?"
"Haven't you seen the papers?"
"Haven't had time yet, I usually breakfast in pyjamas, if that personal detail interests you. Getting up so early to go out to breakfast spoilt my interest in the latest horrors other people have been suffering! I'll get hold of Terry now—and I'll be round with him. That boy wants watching!"
He hung up the receiver and took the paper from Teal's hand. The detective, with a perspicacity which indicated that he had not turned a politely deaf ear to the telephone conversation, had already found the place and folded the sheet so as to display it. It was an announcement that the final instalment of the Russian Crown jewels were to be sold by auction at Moraine's on the morrow, and would be on view from ten to four on this particular day, and for one day only. The regalia had already been broken up, and the stones alone, valued at something like four hundred thousand pounds, would be sold.
"That's a lot of money," murmured Storm thoughtfully. "Teal, get on the 'phone and find out how many men are watching Moraine's."
Mr. Teal obeyed heavily, and in a few moments he had the required information. He cupped one hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone and imparted the facts without interest.
"Eight?" repeated Storm. "That's a hell of a lot—I don't think! Tell 'em to turn out the reserves. I want fifty men at Moraine's in thirty minutes, and they've got to be armed!"
CHAPTER VII
ROBBERY OVER ARMS
"The car's in Cannon Row," said Storm, and led the way down the stone stairs.
Just before they came into view from the street he stopped in the corridor, fished out his cigarette case, and selected a slender cylinder with elaborate care.
"I think I'm considered the most important, Teal," he remarked. "So you'll stand in the doorway while I go down to the car—and you'll shoot first!"
Mr. Teal nodded, and Storm lighted his cigarette as calmly as though he was about to stroll out of a theatre during the interval. Then, with a gay wave of his hand to the grim detective, he stepped out into the bright sunlight and began to walk towards the Hirondel.
He fully expected that an attempt would be made on his life, but the manner of it came as a complete surprise. He had covered half the distance when he heard a warning yell from Teal, which, even in those circumstances, was unlike that placid gentleman; for Inspector Teal was accounted the best revolver shot in the Force. An instinct that had lain dormant since 1918 made him fling himself to the ground, and as he did so Teal's gun cracked viciously. Practically on the instant, there came a detonation that surged staggeringly, and clanged with savage force back from the stone walls of the building. Deafened and half-stunned, he sensed dimly a chorus of shouts and one shrill scream, and something hummed menacingly over his body.
Then he stumbled to his feet, mechanically brushing the dust from his clothes.
In the roadway was a Thing which, presumably, had once been a man. Inspector Teal was coming imperturbably towards him, pocketing his revolver with an air of duty well done. Further from the Thing were a couple of moaning figures, around which a crowd was rapidly collecting....
"A Mills bomb," said Teal unemotionally.
Two men who had been passing at the time were terribly injured, and an elderly lady was leaning against a convenient lamp-post having hysterics. Storm saw the ambulance arrive and superintended the removal of the wounded men, and then he made an inspection of the car. It had been between himself and the bursting bomb, and undoubtedly it had saved his life. The coachwork on one side was battered and torn in great gaping holes, but, miraculously, the tires and the engine had escaped.
He climbed in, lighted a fresh cigarette to replace the one he had lost, and Teal followed him.
"Like to insure my life, Teal?" Storm murmured lightly. "You might make enough to retire on in a few days."
"I'll go first next time, sir," said the sporting Mr. Teal, and the two men solemnly shook hands.
Storm drove the car to Moraine's and affected a sublime indifference to the curious glances which followed the progress of the damaged relic of what had once been a glorious shining Hirondel.
All the world knows Moraine's, the inconspicuous house where priceless art treasures change hands, and the bidding rises in thousands of pounds. To Moraine's come the wealthy connoisseurs and their resplendent wives, with a small sprinkling of gaping sightseers, awing themselves with the sight of so much concentrated wealth, and a few optimistic ladies and gentlemen of irregular notions anent the laws of property, whose dream it is that one day they will arrange a coup on the premises. That they do not is due to the foresight of the architect who designed the showroom—a lofty hall of glass and marble, roughly square in shape, and set in the centre of the building, with no windows for the cruder criminals to attempt to smash, too severely furnished for the more nimble to find cover in at closing time, too solidly built for the violent to break into with high explosive. It is a room of fearful silences, where every whisper rings out like a clarion, and the intruder moves delicately on the unpurchasable crimson carpet that hides most of the tiled floor—for fear of offending the giant flunkeys who stand statuesquely, one on each side of each of the three portals (it would be sacrilege to describe these masterpieces as "doors") in all the glory of their gold and scarlet livery.
But Storm and Teal had small leisure to absorb all this vision of magnificence. Outside they had seen little knots of variously dressed stalwart men standing chatting, men who scarcely spared them a glance; or, if they did, gave no sign of recognition. Inside, grouped about the doors, were similar men; and yet more moved unostentatiously about the room, peering idly at the glittering gems displayed in the long glass case that ran down the centre of the hall.
"Four hundred thousand pounds," said Storm. "Teal, wouldn't you sell your soul for the brains of the Triangle!"
Among the crowd Mr. Teal caught sight of an old friend, and flowed irresistibly towards him. The friend so recognised suddenly remembered an urgent appointment elsewhere, but the vast form of the detective effectively barred his path.
"Hullo, Birdie," he drawled. "How's trade?"
"You're making a mistake, Mr. Teal," said the little man with dignity. "I'm an honest man. Them jools"—he jerked a contemptuous thumb in the direction of the showcase—"them jools are beautiful, but my interest is solely that of the connosewer."
Birdie Sands was playing his "gentleman act," a device he adopted automatically when accused of anything. Mr. Teal, however, remained unimpressed.
"Oh, no, Birdie, you naughty, wicked man!" he said genially, "I won't believe you've degenerated that much. Not when you see as much of Snooper as you do. What does the Good Book say? 'Snooper finds some mischief still for Birdie Sands to do.' Birdie, go home!"
"As a lore-abiding citizen an' a man of edjucation," Birdie began haughtily—but Teal was in no mood for wasting time.
He signed to one of the "connosewers" who was loafing near by, and a protesting Birdie was taken gently but firmly by the arm and conducted towards the open air. Following which Teal, with intent to continue his clean-up, looked around him for a fresh victim.
He never accomplished his ambition.
Startlingly loud above the hushed whispering of the crowd a voice rang out in a curt command:
"Everybody will now stand perfectly still and keep silence!"
Teal swung round, his hand moving instinctively to his hip. It stayed abruptly, for he saw the means there were for enforcing the order. At one end of the room stood six men, in line, their right hands held high above their heads. And in every one of those hands was something round and black and shining.
"Shades of Mills!" breathed Teal.
The leader spoke again:
"These are Mills bombs. The pins are out, and at the first sign of resistance they will be thrown. Also, if any one of us is shot, his bomb will, of course, explode when he falls. Please be sensible. We do not wish to shed blood unnecessarily."
The detectives, uncertain, looked to Storm for their cue. He only hesitated for a second, and then he gave them their instructions in a clear voice.
"You will all obey that order. Carry on, Gat!"
Three of the men handed their bombs to their companions and moved towards the glass cases. The other three, now holding a bomb in each hand, stood motionless.
"Everybody will now move down to the far end of the room," said Gat Morini. "The officers of the law, except Mr. Teal and Captain Arden, will be at the back of the crowd. If a bomb has to be thrown, I should dislike having to hurt any policemen or any of my assistants."
Storm, standing well to the front, was coolly lighting a cigarette. That amazing young man was smiling, and the hand that held the match was coldly steady as an iceberg. He looked at Teal, and found that the detective was flushed and shaking with rage. Teal's vanity was an unsuspected tender spot, and there was no doubt that the barefaced effrontery of the gang in so holding up a squad of detectives was likely to strike him with apoplexy.
"Can't anything be done, sir?" he pleaded unsteadily. "There's about thirty armed men behind us, and we're helpless!"
"And there's about sixty civilians, male and female," Storm told him, "who'll get where the bottle got the cork if we start any funny stuff and bombs go flying about! And they will throw 'em—you can invest your hosiery in that!"
Teal shook his head despondently.
"This'll be the end of both of us," he said. "What in hell's happened to those dear friends outside?"
He did not say "dear friends."
Storm shrugged. A bag had been produced, and the three men in the centre of the room were gathering up the jewels and packing them quickly and carefully away. One by one they emptied the cases, and the bag grew heavy and bulging. They were working on the last case when an interruption occurred. One of the guards from the street came to the entrance.
The whole thing was perfectly planned. The three unarmed men hardly looked up from their task. One of those who held bombs turned with one arm threateningly drawn back as the detective, swiftly comprehending the scene, made a swift movement of his right hand. The other two continued to menace the crowd huddled together at the far end of the room.
"Don't shoot!" rapped Storm, and the man's hand fell to his side.
He was passed back to his comrades behind the crowd of frightened men and women, and the despoiling of the last case went on without a break. The Triangle had allowed for all contingencies, and every counter-move had been designed and rehearsed to perfection, so that the complete performance should move as cleanly and slickly as an exhibition by a perfectly trained corps de ballet.
It was all carried out with incredible speed and efficiency. Barely five minutes elapsed between the first intimation of the attack and the collection of every gem in the place in the bag the three operatives carried.
In the forefront of the crowd a keen-faced young man was writing swiftly in a notebook. His astounding unconcern stamped him immediately as a member of the only profession which would be detachedly interested in the end of the world.
Snooper Brome replaced the pins in the bombs he held, and one of his assistants did the same. The third man still held up his hands with their load of concentrated death. The three who had rifled the cases left first, strolling out one by one and conversing casually of what they had seen. Morini, carrying the bag, paused to deliver a mocking farewell.
"We shall meet again, Captain Arden," he said.
"In the Old Bailey," brisked Storm cheerfully. "So long, Gat."
He had no fear of being attacked then, for obviously the gang would be unwilling to alarm the people outside if it could be avoided. The whole thing was staked on the handicap of the crowd of people who would be involved in the fight if the police made a move. It was the most consummately daring bluff in the history of crime, and, granted police officers who felt responsibility for the safety of the general public, it was a bluff that could not be called....
Now only the last man was left, and he stood like a graven image while the hands of the big clock on the wall over his head moved slowly. A silence had fallen on the crowd, and the only sound was the restless movements of their feet. The reporter was still writing dispassionately.
And then, without the quiver of a nerve, Storm performed an act of reckless heroism that drew a great gasp from the crowd. He threw away the butt of his cigarette, and reached boredly to his pocket. Those who were near him saw something hard and blue-black leap out with his hand....
He fired, and as he fired he hurled himself forward, The man with the bombs sagged and crumpled with a little choking cry. Storm was upon him even before he fell, had wrenched the bombs from the spastic clutch of the dead hands, and was racing towards the door. Beyond that door was a long marble corridor which led to the vaults wherein the treasures offered for sale at Moraine's were stored at night. With a grunt he flung the two bombs far from him and jerked himself back into the room.
They detonated in mid-air, and he was only just in time to avoid the fragments of metal that came whizzing back on the earth-shaking reverberation. The tense effort left him gasping weakly, and the screams of panicking men and women came to him through a red haze. But it was only for a moment.
"Attaboy!" His cheery voice rose above the pandemonium. "Three shies a penny—after 'em, you hounds of Hell!"
The detectives, led by Teal, poured out of the other door which led to the street, and were met by the inrush of the outside guards who had heard the explosion. Storm watched them go, and then went towards the fighting, stampeding mass of people who were striving to follow them. At a glance he saw that the flying splinters of the bombs had done no physical damage, and he let his parade-ground voice go like a whip crack. He cursed and insulted them into silence, and barked them back into the room.
"You poor henripped sheep!" he snapped when he had cowed them into some sort of order. "There'll be no more fireworks. Form single rank, all ladies to the right, and go out quietly—not like a lot of milling white rabbits!"
He marched them out like a string of beaten dogs. Only one protested at this assumption of command, and he was a man whom Storm had marked down in the stampede—a gross, expensively dressed bounder, white and shaking with terror, who had striven to claw his way to safety through a mob of frightened women.
"I'll have the coat off your back, sir!" he fumed, his voice shrill with the reaction from fear. "You—you—you insolent young puppy, swearing at us as if we were the scum of the earth! I'll report you to your chief! I'll have you kicked out of the Force! You're a disgrace to the police, sir—a disgrace! You—you endanger our lives, and then you have the—the impertinence—the impertinence—I demand to know your name, sir! I shall go straight to Scotland Yard!"
"I am Captain Arden," said Storm coldly, and his lip curled. "Ask for Mr. Kennedy, who is my chief. And put a cushion in the seat of your trousers before you go, because he will quite certainly kick you down the stairs."
"I'll write to the papers about this outrage!" stormed the man. "I'll have you pilloried in the Press! I'll—I'll——"
"I'll tie you in three knots and push you under an omnibus if you aren't outside in five seconds," said Storm quietly, and there was such concentrated scorn in his voice that the man shrank away as though he expected a blow.
Storm was boiling with suppressed rage beneath his calm exterior, for the events of the past minutes had frayed his nerves more than he would ever have admitted. The reporter had watched the scramble with half-closed, amused eyes, and had gracefully taken his place at the end of the queue when peace was restored. He was the last to leave, and he held out his hand as he came to the door.
"I won't ask for an interview," he said, "because I don't want my head bitten off before I've written up this scoop. Here's my card. I'll see you through if that cow in trousers makes a fuss."
Storm's acid stare dissolved into a smile in response to the youngster's grin, and he shook hands heartily. They went out into the street together, and shouldered their way through the mass of excited people who had assembled. A uniformed man answered Storm's query.
"Your men are after them, sir, but I don't think they've much chance. I saw them all go, and they looked too innocent to be wrong; besides, there'd been no alarm."
Storm started up the Hirondel and the journalist, without invitation, joined him. Storm drove him back to Fleet Street and returned to Scotland Yard. He was feeling annoyed, for he had risked everything to allow the detectives to give chase with the least possible delay, and yet he knew the futility of attempting to allow even two minutes' start in London to a fast car whose number was unknown; and he did not doubt for one moment that the gang had provided themselves with every possible means of ensuring a good getaway.
Newsboys were rushing about with sensational posters in their hands, yelling indistinguishable captions, but he hardly noticed them. He had occasion to remember them, however, when he reached his room, for a letter was awaiting him and it was marked URGENT. He tore it open, and found a sheet of thin foolscap covered with neat writing. At the head of it was drawn the symbol of the Alpha Triangle, and just below this was a note: