Chapter VIII.
The Charge
Mr. Parr’s interview with Harvey Froyant was a short one. At the sight of the detective, that thin man blanched. He knew him by sight and had met him in connection with the Beardmore tragedy.
“Well, well,” he asked tremulously. “What is wrong? Have these infernal people started a new campaign?”
“Nothing so bad as that, sir,” said Parr. “I came to ask you a few questions. How long have you had Thalia Drummond in your house?”
“She has been my secretary for three months,” said Froyant suspiciously. “Why?”
“What wages do you pay her?” asked Parr.
Mr. Froyant mentioned a sum grossly inadequate, and even he was apologetic for its inefficiency.
“I give her her food, you know, and she has evenings off,” he said, feeling that the starvation wage must be justified.
“Has she been short of money lately?”
Mr. Froyant stared at him.
“Why—yes. She asked me if I could advance her five pounds yesterday,” he said. “She said she had a call upon her purse which she could not meet. Of course, I didn’t advance the money. I do not approve of advancing money for work which is not performed,” said Froyant virtuously. “It tends to pauperise——”
“You have a large number of antiques, I understand, Mr. Froyant, some of them very valuable. Have you missed any lately?”
Froyant jumped to his feet. The very hint that he might have been robbed was sufficient to set his mind in a panic. Without a word he rushed from the room. He was gone three minutes and when he came back his eyes were almost bulging from his head.
“My Buddha!” he gasped. “It is worth a hundred pounds. It was there this morning——”
“Send for Miss Drummond,” said the detective briefly.
Thalia came, a cool, self-possessed girl, who stood by her employer’s desk, her hands clasped behind her, scarcely looking at the detective.
The interview was short, and for Mr. Froyant, painful. Upon the girl it had no apparent effect whatever. And yet she must have known, from the steely glare in Froyant’s eyes, that her theft had been detected. For a little time the man found a difficulty in framing a coherent sentence.
“You—you have stolen something of mine,” he blurted out. His voice was almost a squeak. The accusing hand trembled in the intensity of his emotion. “You—you are a thief!”
“I asked you for the money,” said the girl coolly. “If you hadn’t been such a wicked old skinflint, you’d have let me have it.”
“You—you——” spluttered Froyant, and then with a gasp—“I charge her, inspector. I charge her with theft. You shall go to prison for this. Mark my words, young woman. Wait—wait,” he raised his hand. “I will see if anything else is missing.”
“You can save yourself the trouble,” said the girl, as he was leaving the room. “The Buddha was the only thing I took, and it was an ugly little beast, anyway.”
“Give me your keys,” stormed the enraged man. “To think that I’ve allowed you to open my business letters!”
“I’ve opened one which will not be pleasant for you, Mr. Froyant,” she said quietly, and then he saw what she was holding in her hand.
She passed the envelope across to him, and with staring eyes he saw the Crimson Circle, but the words written within the hoop were blurred and indistinct. He dropped the card and collapsed into a chair.
Chapter IX.
Thalia in the Police Court
The magistrate was a kind-hearted man and seemed uncomfortable. He looked from the unemotional Mr. Parr who stood on the witness-stand, to the girl in the steel pen, and she was almost as cool and as self-controlled as the police witness. Her face was one which would have attracted attention in any circumstances, but in the drab setting of the police court, her beauty was emphasised and enhanced.
The magistrate glanced down at the charge-sheet before him. Her age was described as twenty-one, her occupation as secretary.
The man of law, who had had many shocks in his lifetime, and had steeled himself to the most unusual and improbable happenings, could only shake his head in despair.
“Is anything known against this woman?” he asked, and felt it was absurd even to refer to the slim, girlish prisoner as a “woman.”
“She has been under observation for some time, your worship,” was the reply, “but she has not been in the hands of the police before.”
The magistrate looked over his glasses at the girl.
“I cannot understand how you got yourself into this terrible position,” he said. “A girl who has evidently had the education of a lady, you have been charged with a theft of a few pounds, for although the article you stole was worth a large sum, that was all that your dishonesty realised. Your act was probably due to some great temptation. I suppose the need for the money was very urgent; yet that does not excuse your act. I shall bind you over to come up for judgment when called upon, treating you as a first offender, and I do most earnestly appeal to you to live honestly and avoid a repetition of this unpleasant experience.”
The girl bowed slightly and left the box for the police office, and the next case was called.
Harvey Froyant rose at the same time and made his way out of the court. He was a rich man to whom money represented the goal and object of life. He was the type of man who counted the contents of his pocket every night before he went to bed, and he would have had his own mother arrested in similar circumstances. Thalia Drummond’s offence was made more heinous in his eyes because her last act of service had been to hand to him the warning of the Crimson Circle, from the shock of which he had not yet recovered.
He was a large, thin man with a permanent stoop. His attitude towards the world was one of acute suspicion; for the moment it was one of resentment, for he held the strongest views on the sacredness of property.
To Parr, who followed him out of the court, he expressed his disappointment that the girl had not been sent to prison.
“A woman like that is a danger to society,” he complained in his high-pitched, peevish voice. “How do I know that she isn’t in league with these blackguards who are threatening me? Forty thousand they ask for! Forty thousand!” He wailed the last words. “It is your duty to see that I come to no harm! Understand that—it is your duty!”
“I heard you!” said Inspector Parr wearily. “And as to the girl, I don’t suppose she ever heard of the Crimson Circle. She’s very young.”
“Young!” snarled the lean man. “That’s the time to punish them, isn’t it? Catch them young and punish them young, and you may turn them into respectable citizens!”
“I dare say you’re right,” agreed the stout Mr. Parr with a sigh, and then inconsequently, “Children are a great responsibility.”
Froyant muttered something under his breath, and without so much as a nod of farewell, walked rapidly through the court, into the motor-car which was waiting for him at the entrance to the court-house.
The inspector watched him depart with a slow smile, and, looking round, caught the eye of a young man who was waiting by the clerk’s door.
“Good morning, Mr. Beardmore,” he said. “Are you waiting to see the young lady?”
“Yes. How long will they keep her?” asked Jack nervously.
Mr. Parr gazed at him with expressionless eyes, and sniffed.
“If you don’t mind my saying so, Mr. Beardmore,” he said quietly, “you are probably taking a greater interest in Miss Drummond than is good for you.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jack quickly. “The whole thing was a plot. That beast Froyant——”
The inspector shook his head.
“Miss Drummond admitted that she took the statuette,” he said, “and, besides, we saw her coming out of Isaacs’. There isn’t any doubt about it.”
“She only made the admission for some reason best known to herself,” said Jack violently. “Do you think a girl like that would steal? Why should she? I would have given her anything she wanted”—he checked himself suddenly. “There is something behind this,” he went on more quietly, “something which I do not understand, and probably you do not understand either, inspector.”
The door opened at that moment and the girl came out. She stopped at the sight of Jack and a faint flush crept into her pale face.
“Were you in court?” she asked quickly.
He nodded, and she shook her head.
“You shouldn’t have come,” she said almost vehemently. “How did you know? Who told you?” She seemed oblivious to the presence of the inspector, but for the first time since her arrest she showed some sign of her pent emotion. The colour came and went, and her voice shook a little as she continued: “I am sorry you knew anything about it, Mr. Beardmore, and am desperately sorry you came,” she said.
“But it isn’t true,” he interrupted. “You can tell me that, Thalia? It was a plot, wasn’t it? A plot intended to ruin you?” His voice was almost pleading, but she shook her head.
“There was no plot,” she said quietly. “I stole from Mr. Froyant.”
“But why, why?” he asked despairingly. “Why did you——”
“I am afraid I can’t tell you why,” she said with the ghost of a smile on her lips, “except that I needed the money, and that is good and sufficient reason, isn’t it?”
“I’ll never believe it.” Jack’s face was set and his grey eyes regarded her steadily. “You are not the kind who would indulge in petty pilfering.”
She looked at him for a long time, and then turned her eyes to the inspector.
“You may be able to undeceive Mr. Beardmore,” she said. “I am afraid I cannot.”
“Where are you going?” he asked as, with a little nod, she was passing on.
“I am going home,” she replied. “Please don’t come with me, Mr. Beardmore.”
“But you have no home.”
“I have a lodging,” she said with a hint of impatience.
“Then I am going with you,” he said doggedly.
She did not make any remonstrance, and they passed from the court together into the busy street. No word was spoken until they reached the entrance of a tube station.
“Now I must go home,” she said more gently than before.
“But what are you going to do?” he demanded. “How are you going to get your living with this terrible charge against you?”
“Is it so terrible?” she asked coolly. She was walking into the station entrance when he took her arm and swung her round with almost savage violence.
“Now listen to me, Thalia,” he said between his teeth. “I love you and I want to marry you. I haven’t told you that before, but you’ve guessed it. I am not going to allow you to go out of my life. Do you understand that? I do not believe that you are a thief and——”
Very gently she disengaged his grip.
“Mr. Beardmore,” she said in a low voice, “you are just being quixotic and foolish! You have told me what you will not allow, and I tell you that I am not going to allow you to ruin your life through your infatuation for a convicted thief. You know nothing of me except that I am a seemingly nice girl whom you met by accident in the country, and it is my duty to be your mother and your maiden aunt.” There was a glint of amusement in her eye as she took his offered hand. “Some day perhaps we shall meet again, and by that time the glamour of romance will have worn off. Good-bye.”
She had disappeared into the booking hall before he could find his voice.
Chapter X.
The Summons of The Crimson Circle
Thalia Drummond went back to the lodging she had occupied before she had entered Mr. Harvey Froyant’s service as resident secretary, and apparently the story of her ill-deeds had preceded her, for the stout landlady gave her a chilly welcome, and had she not continued to pay the rent of her one room during the time she was working for Froyant, it was probable that she would not have been admitted.
It was a small room, neatly if plainly furnished, and oblivious to the landlady’s glum face and cold reception, she went to her apartment and locked the door behind her. She had spent a very unpleasant week, for she had been remanded in custody, and her very clothes seemed to exhale the musty odour of Holloway Gaol. Holloway, however, had an advantage which No. 14, Lexington Street, did not possess. It had an admirable system of bathrooms, for which the girl was truly grateful as she began to change.
She had plenty to occupy her mind. Harvey Froyant… Jack Beardmore… she frowned as though at a distasteful thought, and tried to dismiss him from her mind. It was a relief to go back to Froyant. She almost hated him. She certainly despised him. The time she had spent in his house had been the most wretched period in her life. She had taken her meals with the servants and had been conscious that every scrap of food she ate had been measured and weighed and duly apportioned by a man whose cheque for seven figures would have been honoured.
“At least, he didn’t make love to you, my dear,” she said to herself, and smiled. Somehow she couldn’t imagine Harvey Froyant making love to anybody. She recalled the days she had followed him about his big house with a notebook in her hand, whilst he searched for evidence of his servants’ neglect, drawing his fingers along the polished shelves in the library in a vain search for dust, turning up carpet corners, examining silver, or else counting, as he did regularly every week, the contents of his still-room.
He measured the wine at table and counted the empty bottles, even the corks. It was his boast that in his big garden he could tell the absence of a flower. These he sent to market regularly, with the vegetables he grew and the peaches which ripened on the wall, and woe betide the unlucky gardener who had poached so much as a ripe apple from the orchard, for Harvey had an uncanny instinct which led him to the rifled tree.
She smiled a little wryly at the recollection, and, having completed her change of costume, she went out, locking the door behind her. Her landlady watched her pass down the street, and nodded ominously.
“Your lodger’s come back,” said a neighbour.
“Yes, she’s come back,” said the woman grimly. “A nice lady she is—I don’t think! It is the first time I’ve ever had a crook in my house, and it’ll be the last. I am giving her notice to-night.”
Unconscious of the criticism, Thalia boarded a bus which took her into the city. She got down in Fleet Street, went into the large office of a popular newspaper. At the desk she took an advertisement form, looked at the white sheet for a moment thoughtfully, then wrote:
“Secretary.—Young lady from the Colonies requires post as Secretary. Resident-Secretary preferred. Small wages required. Shorthand and Typewriting.”
She left a space for the box number, handed the advertisement across the counter, and paid the fee.
She was back again in Lexington Street in time for tea, a meal which was brought up to her on a battered tray by her landlady.
“Look here, Miss Drummond,” said that worthy person, “I’ve got a few words to say to you.”
“Say them,” said the girl carelessly.
“I shall want your room after next week.”
Thalia turned slowly.
“Does that mean I’ve got to get out?”
“That’s what it means. I can’t have people like you staying in a respectable house. I’m surprised at you, a young lady as I always thought you were.”
“Continue to think so,” said Thalia coolly. “I’m both young and ladylike.”
But the stout landlady was not to be checked in her well-rehearsed indictment.
“A nice lady you are,” she said, “giving my house a bad name. You’ve been in prison for a week. Perhaps you don’t think I know, but I read the newspapers.”
“I’m sure you do,” said the girl quietly. “That will do, Mrs. Boled. I leave your house next week.”
“And I should like to say——” began the woman.
“Say it on the mat,” said Thalia, and closed the door in the choleric lady’s face.
As it was now growing dark, she lit a kerosene lamp and occupied the evening by manicuring her nails, an operation which was interrupted by the arrival of the nine o’clock post. She heard the rat-tat at the door and the heavy feet of her landlady on the stairs.
“A letter for you,” called the woman.
Thalia unlocked the door and took the envelope from the landlady’s hand.
“You had better tell your friends that you’re going to get a new address,” said the woman, loath to leave her quarrel half-finished.
“I haven’t told my friends yet that I live in such a horrible place,” said Thalia sweetly, and locked the door before the woman could think of a suitable reply.
She smiled as she carried the envelope to the light. It was addressed in printed characters. She turned it over, looking at the postmark before she opened it, and extracted a thick white card. At the first glance of the message her face changed its expression.
The card was a square one, and in the centre was a large crimson circle. Within the circle was written in the same printed characters:
“We have need of you. Enter the car which you will find waiting at the corner of Steyne Square at ten o’clock to-morrow night.”
She put the card down on the table and stared at it.
The Crimson Circle had need of her!
She had expected the summons, but it had come earlier than she had anticipated.
Chapter XI.
The Confession
At three minutes to ten the following night, a closed car drove slowly into Steyne Square and came to a halt at the corner of Clarges Street. A few minutes later Thalia Drummond walked into the square from the other end. She wore a long black cloak, and the little hat upon her head was held in its position by a thick veil knotted under her chin.
Without a second’s hesitation she opened the door of the car and stepped in. It was in complete darkness, but she could see the figure of the driver indistinctly. He did not turn his head, nor did he attempt to start the car, although she felt the vibration of the engines beneath her feet.
“You were charged at the Marylebone Police Court yesterday morning with theft,” said the driver without preamble. “Yesterday afternoon you inserted an advertisement, describing yourself as a newly-arrived colonial, your intention being to find another situation, where you could continue your career of petty pilfering.”
“This is very interesting,” said Thalia without a tremor of voice, “but you did not bring me here to give me my past history. When I had your letter I guessed that you thought I would be a very useful assistant. But there is one question I want to ask you.”
“If I wish to reply I shall,” was the uncompromising answer.
“I realise that,” said Thalia, with a faint smile in the darkness. “Suppose I had communicated with the police and I had come here attended by Mr. Parr and the clever Mr. Derrick Yale?”
“You would have been lying on the pavement dead by now,” was the calm announcement. “Miss Drummond, I am going to put easy money in your way and find you a very excellent job. I do not even mind if you indulge in your eccentricity in your spare time, but your principal task will be to serve me. You understand?”
She nodded, and then realising he could not see her, she said:
“Yes.”
“You will be well paid for everything you do; I shall always be on hand to help you—or to punish you if you attempt to betray me,” he added. “Do you understand?”
“Perfectly,” she replied.
“Your job will be a very simple one,” went on the unknown driver. “You will present yourself at Brabazon’s Bank to-morrow. Brabazon is in need of a secretary.”
“But will he employ me?” she interrupted. “Must I go in another name?”
“Go in your own name,” said the man impatiently. “Don’t interrupt. I will pay you two hundred pounds for your services. Here is the money.” He thrust two notes over his shoulder and she took them.
Her hand accidentally touched his shoulder, and she felt something hard beneath his fleecy coat.
“A bullet-proof waistcoat,” she noted mentally, and then aloud: “What am I to say to Mr. Brabazon about my earlier experience?”
“It will be unnecessary to say anything, or do anything. You will receive your instructions from time to time. That is all,” he added shortly.
A few minutes later Thalia Drummond sat in the corner of the taxi-cab which was taking her back to Lexington Street. Behind her, at intervals, came another taxi-cab which slowed when hers did, but never overtook her, not even when she descended at the corner of the street where her lodgings were situated. And when she turned the key of her street door, Inspector Parr was only a dozen paces from her. If she knew that she was being shadowed, she made no sign.
Parr only waited for a few minutes, watching the house from the opposite side of the roadway, and then, as her light appeared in the upper window, he turned and walked thoughtfully back to the cab which had brought him so far eastward.
He had opened the door of the cab and was stepping in, when somebody passed him on the side-walk; somebody who was walking briskly with his collar turned up, but Inspector Parr knew him.
“Flush,” he called sharply, and the man turned round on his heel.
He was a little dark, thin-faced, lithe man, at the sight of the Inspector his jaw dropped.
“Why—why, Mr. Parr,” he said, with ill-affected geniality, “whoever thought of seeing you in this part of the world?”
“I want a little talk with you, Flush. Will you walk along with me?”
It was an ominous invitation, which Mr. “Flush” had heard before.
“You haven’t got anything against me, Mr. Parr?” he said loudly.
“Nothing,” admitted Parr. “Besides, you’re going straight now. I seem to remember you telling me that the day you came out of prison.”
“That’s right,” said “Flush” Barnet, heaving a sigh of relief. “Going straight, working for my living, and engaged to be married.”
“You don’t tell me?” said the stout Mr. Parr with well-simulated astonishment. “And is it Bella or Milly?”
“It is Milly,” said “Flush,” inwardly cursing the excellent memory of the police inspector. “She’s going straight, too. She’s got a job at one of the shops.”
“At Brabazon’s Bank, to be exact,” said the inspector, and then turned as though some thought had arrested him. “I wonder,” he muttered, “I wonder if that is it?”
“She’s a perfect young lady, is Milly,” Mr. “Flush” hastened to explain. “Honest as the day, wouldn’t swipe a clock, not if her life depended on it. I don’t want you to think she is bad, Mr. Parr, because she’s not. We’re both living what I might term an honest life.”
Parr’s placid face wrinkled in a smile.
“That’s grand news you’re telling me, ‘Flush.’ Where is Milly to be found in these days?”
“She’s living in diggings on the other side of the river,” said “Flush” reluctantly. “You’re not going to rake up old scandals, are you, Mr. Parr?”
“Heaven forbid,” said Inspector Parr piously. “No, I’d like to have a talk with her. Perhaps——” he hesitated, “anyway, it can wait. It was rather providential meeting you, ‘Flush.’ ”
But “Flush” did not share that view, even though he expressed a faint acquiescence.
“So that’s it,” said Inspector Parr to himself, but he did not express the nature of his suspicions, even when he met Derrick Yale at his club half-an-hour later. And it was a further curious fact, that though they touched every aspect of the Crimson Circle mystery in the long conversation which followed, never once did Mr. Parr mention Thalia Drummond’s interview, which, if he had not seen, he had at least guessed.
The two men left early the next morning for the little country town where one Ambrose Sibly, described as an able-seaman, was held on a charge of murder. At his own earnest request, Jack Beardmore was allowed to accompany them, though he was not present at the interview between the two detectives and the sullen man who had slain his father.
A brawny, unshaven fellow, half Scottish, half Swede, Sibly proved to be. He could neither read nor write, and had been in the hands of the police before. This much Parr had discovered from a reference of his fingerprints.
At first he was not inclined to commit himself, and it was rather Derrick Yale’s skilful cross-examination, than Inspector Parr’s efforts, which produced the confession.
“Yes, I did it all right,” he said at last.
They were seated in the cell with an official shorthand-writer taking a note of his statement.
“You’ve got me proper, but you wouldn’t have got me if I hadn’t been drunk. And whilst I’m confessing, I might as well own up that I killed Harry Hobbs. He was a shipmate of mine on the Oritianga in 1912—they can only hang me once. Killed him and chucked his body overboard, I did, over the question of a woman that we met at Newport News, which is in America. I’ll tell you how this happened, gentlemen. I lost my ship about a month ago, and was stranded at the Sailors’ Home at Wapping. I got chucked out of there for being drunk, and on top of that I was locked up and got seven days’ imprisonment. If the old fool had only given me a month I shouldn’t have been here. One night after I came out of prison I was walking through the East End, down on my luck and starving for a drink, and feeling properly miserable. To make it worse, I had the toothache——”
Parr met Derrick Yale’s eyes, and Derrick smiled faintly.
“I was loafing along the edge of the pavement looking for cigarette ends, and thinking of nothing except where I could get a bit of food and a night’s lodging. It was beginning to rain, too, and it looked as though I was going to have another night on the streets, when I heard a voice say, almost in my ear, ‘Jump in.’ I looked round. A motor-car was standing by the side of the roadway. I couldn’t believe my ears. Presently the man in the car said ‘Jump in. It’s you I mean!’ and he mentioned my name. We drove along for a while without his saying anything, and I noticed that he kept clear of all the streets where the big lights were.
“After a bit he stopped the car, and began to tell me who I was. I can assure you I was surprised. He knew the whole of my history. He even knew about Harry Hobbs—I was tried for that killing and acquitted—and then he asked me if I’d like to earn a hundred pounds. I told him I would, and he said there was an old gentleman in the country who had done him a lot of harm, and he wanted him ‘outed.’ I didn’t want to take the job on for some time, but he gave me such a lot of talk about how he could get me hung for Hobbs’s murder, and how it was safe, and he’d give me a bicycle to get away on, and at last I agreed.
“He picked me up by arrangement a week later in Steyne Square. Then he gave me all the final particulars. I got down to Beardmore’s place soon after it was dark, and hid in the wood. He told me Mr. Beardmore generally walked through the wood every morning, and that I was to make myself comfortable for the night. I hadn’t been in the wood an hour when I had a fright. I heard somebody moving. I think it must have been a game-keeper. He was a big fellow, and I only just got a glimpse of him.
“And I think that’s about all, gentlemen, except that the next morning the old fellow came in the wood and I shot him. I don’t remember much about it, for I was drunk at the time, having taken a bottle of whisky into the wood with me. But I was sober enough to get on to the bicycle, and I rode off. And I should have got away altogether, if it hadn’t been for the booze.”
“And that is all?” asked Parr, when the confession had been read over and the man had affixed a rough cross.
“That’s all, guv’nor,” said the sailor.
“And you don’t know who it was who employed you?”
“Not the faintest idea,” said the other cheerfully. “There’s one thing about him, though, I could tell you,” he said after a pause. “He kept using a word that I’ve never heard before. I’m not highly educated, but I’ve noticed that some men have favourite words. We had an old skipper who always used the word ‘morbid’.”
“What was the word?” asked Parr.
The man scratched his head.
“I’ll remember it and let you know,” he said, and they left him to his meditations, which were few, and probably not unpleasant.
Four hours after, the jailor took Ambrose Sibly some food. He was lying on his bed, and the jailor shook him by the shoulder.
“Wake up,” he said, but Ambrose Sibly never woke again.
He was stone dead.
And in the tin dipper, half-filled with water, which stood by his bed, and with which he had slaked his thirst, they found sufficient hydrocyanic acid to kill fifty men.
But it was not the poison which interested Inspector Parr so much as the little circle of crimson paper which was found floating on the top of the water.
Chapter XII.
The Pointed Boots
Mr. Felix Marl sat behind the locked door of his bedroom, and he was engaged in a task which had the elements of unpleasant familiarity.
Twenty-five years before, when he was an inmate of the big French prison at Toulouse, he had worked in a bootmaker’s shop, and the handling of boots was an everyday experience. It is true his business had been to repair, and not to destroy. To-day, with a razor-sharp knife, he was cutting to shreds a pair of pointed patent leather shoes which he had only worn three times. Strip by strip he cut the leather, which he then placed on the fire.
Some men live intensely and suffer intensely. Mr. Felix Marl was one of those who could crowd into a day the terrors of an æon. In some manner a newspaper had got hold of the story of the footprint in Beardmore’s ground, and a new fear had been added to the many which confused and paralysed this big man. He was sitting in his shirt sleeves, the perspiration rolling down his face, for the fire was a big one and the room was super-heated.
Presently the last shred was thrown into the fire and he sat watching it grill and flame before he put away the knife, washed his hands and opened the windows to let out the acrid odour of burning leather.
It would have been better, he thought, if he had carried out his first resolution, and he cursed himself for the cowardice which had induced him to substitute his revolver for a fountain pen. But he was safe. Nobody had seen him leave the grounds.
With such men as he, blind panic and unreasoning confidence succeed one another, almost as a natural reaction. By the time he had descended his stairs to his little library he had almost forgotten that he was in any danger.
In the fading light of day he had written a conciliatory, even a grovelling letter, and had, as he believed, delivered it safely. Would it be found? He had another moment of panic.
“Pshaw!” said Mr. Marl, and dismissed that dangerous possibility.
His servant brought him a tea-tray and arranged it on a small table by the side of his desk, where the big man sat.
“Will you see that gentleman now, sir?”
“Eh?” said Mr. Marl, turning round. “Which gentleman?”
“I told you there was a man who wanted to see you.”
Marl remembered that his boot-destroying operation had been interrupted by a knock.
“Who is he?” he asked.
“I put his card on the table, sir.”
“Didn’t you tell him that I was engaged?”
“Yes, but he said he’d wait until you came down.”
The man handed him the card, and Mr. Marl reading it, jumped and turned a sickly yellow.
“Inspector Parr,” he said unsteadily. “What does he want with me?”
His shaking hand fingered his mouth.
“Show him in,” he said with an effort.
He had not met Inspector Parr either professionally or socially, and his first glance at the little man reassured him. There was nothing particularly menacing in the appearance of the red-faced detective.
“Sit down, inspector. I’m sorry I was busy when you came,” said Mr. Marl. When he was agitated his voice was almost bird-like in its thinness.
Parr sat down on the edge of the nearest chair, balancing his Derby hat on his knee.
“I thought I’d wait until you came down, Mr. Marl. I wanted to see you about this Beardmore murder.”
Mr. Marl said nothing. With an effort he kept his trembling lips from quivering, and assumed, as he believed, an air of polite interest.
“You knew Mr. Beardmore very well?”
“Not very well,” said Marl. “I certainly have had business dealings with him.”
“Have you met him before?”
Marl hesitated. He was the kind of man to whom a lie came most readily, and his natural habit of mind was to state the exact opposite of the truth.
“No,” he admitted. “I had seen him years ago, but that was before he had grown a beard.”
“Where was Mr. Beardmore when you were coming into the house?” asked Parr.
“He was standing on the terrace,” replied Marl with unnecessary loudness.
“And you saw him?”
Marl nodded.
“They tell me, Mr. Marl,” Parr went on, looking down at his hat, “that for some reason or other you were startled—Mr. Jack Beardmore says that he thought you were momentarily terrified. What was the cause of that?”
Mr. Marl shrugged his shoulders and forced a smile.
“I think I explained it was a little heart attack. I am subject to them,” he said.
Parr had turned his hat so that he was looking into the interior, and he did not raise his eyes when he asked:
“It was not the sight of Mr. Beardmore?”
“Of course not,” said the other vigorously. “Why should I be scared of Mr. Beardmore? I’ve had a lot of correspondence with him, and know him almost as well——”
“But you hadn’t met him for years?”
“I hadn’t seen him for years,” corrected Marl irritably.
“And the cause of your agitation was just a heart attack, Mr. Marl?” asked the inspector.
For the first time his eyes rose and fixed themselves upon the other’s.
“Absolutely.” Marl’s voice did not lack heartiness. “I had forgotten all about my little seizure until you reminded me.”
“There is another point I wanted cleared up,” said the detective. His attention had gone back to his fascinating hat, which he was turning over and over mechanically until it had the appearance of a revolving butter-churn. “When you came to Mr. Beardmore’s house you were wearing pointed patent shoes.”
Marl frowned.
“Was I? I’ve forgotten.”
“Did you take any walk into the grounds, except the walk you had from the railway station?”
“No.”
“You didn’t walk around the house to admire the—er—architecture?”
“No, I did not. I was only in the house a few minutes, and then I drove away.”
Mr. Parr raised his eyes to the ceiling.
“Would it be asking you too much,” he demanded apologetically, “if I requested you to show me the patent shoes you wore that day?”
“Certainly,” said Marl, rising with alacrity.
He was out of the room a few minutes, and came back with a pair of long pointed patent boots.
The detective took them in his hand and looked earnestly at the sole.
“Yes,” he said. “Of course, these are not the boots you were wearing, because——” he rubbed the soles gently with his hand, “there is dust on them, and the ground has been wet for the last week.”
Marl’s heart nearly stopped beating.
“Those are the boots I wore,” he said defiantly. “What you call ‘dust’ is really dried mud.”
Parr looked at his dusty fingers and shook his head.
“I think there must be some mistake, Mr. Marl,” he said gently. “This is chalk dust.” He put the boots down and rose. “However, it isn’t very important,” he said. He stood so long, looking down at the carpet, that Mr. Marl, in spite of his fear, became impatient.
“Is there anything more I can do for you, officer?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Parr. “I want you to give me the name and address of your tailor. Perhaps you would write it down for me.”
“My tailor?” Mr. Marl glared at the visitor. “What the dickens do you want of my tailor?” And then, with a laugh, “Well, you are a curious man, inspector; but I’ll do it with pleasure.”
He went to his secretaire, pulled out a sheet of paper, wrote down a name and address and, blotting it, handed it to the detective.
“Thank you, sir.”
Parr did not even look at the address, but put the paper into his pocket.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but you will realise that everybody who was present at the house within twenty-four hours of Mr. Beardmore’s death must necessarily be interrogated. The Crimson Circle——”
“The Crimson Circle!” gasped Mr. Marl, and the detective looked at him straightly.
“Didn’t you know that the Crimson Circle were responsible for this murder?”
To do him justice, Mr. Felix Marl knew nothing of the kind. He had seen a brief report that James Beardmore had been found shot but the association of the murder with the Crimson Circle had not been disclosed except by the Monitor, a newspaper which Mr. Marl never read.
He dropped into a chair, quaking.
“The Crimson Circle,” he muttered. “Good God—I never thought——” he checked himself.
“What didn’t you think?” asked Parr gently.
“The Crimson Circle,” murmured the big man again. “I thought it was just a——” he did not complete his sentence.
For an hour after the detective’s departure Felix Marl sat huddled up in his chair, his head in his hands.
The Crimson Circle!
It was the first time he had ever been brought into even the remotest touch with that blackmailing organisation, and now its obtrusion upon the order of his thoughts was so violent that it disturbed every theory he had formed.
“I don’t like it,” he muttered as he got up painfully and turned on the light in the darkened room. “I think this is where I get away.”
He spent the evening examining his bank-book, and the examination was very comforting. He could squeeze out a little more, he thought, and then——
Chapter XIII.
Mr. Marl Squeezes a Little More
Another agent of the Crimson Circle found her lines cast in pleasant places. She had been accepted by Mr. Brabazon without question, and evidently the man in the car possessed extraordinary influences.
What was even more extraordinary was that day followed day without a word from her mysterious employer. She had expected that he would almost immediately avail himself of her services, but she had been at Brabazon’s (late Seller’s) Bank nearly a month before she received any communication. It came one morning. She found the letter on her desk, addressed in bold pen-print.
There was no sign of the Circle on the letter, which began without preamble:
“Make the acquaintance of Marl. Discover why he has a hold over Brabazon. Send me the figures of his account and notify me immediately his account is closed. Notify me also if Parr and Derrick Yale come to the bank. Wire Johnson, 23, Mildred Street, City.”
She carried out her instructions faithfully, though it was not for a few days that she had an opportunity of seeing Mr. Marl.
Only once did Derrick Yale come into the bank. She had seen him before, when he was a guest of the Beardmores, and even if she had not, she would have recognised him from the portrait of the famous detective which had appeared in the newspapers.
What his business was she did not learn, but, looking out of the corner of her eye from the little office she occupied alone, by virtue of her position as Brabazon’s private secretary, she saw him talking with one of the tellers at the counter, and duly notified the Crimson Circle.
Inspector Parr, however, did not come, nor did she see Jack Beardmore. She did not want to think too much of Jack. He was not a pleasant subject.
* * * *
In moments of perturbation John Brabazon, the austere and stately president of Seller’s Bank, had a characteristic little trick. His white hands would stray to the hair, curly and thick at the back of his head. One curl he would twist about his forefinger for a moment, and then he would slowly bring the tips of his fingers across his bald dome until they rested on his forehead. In such moments, with his head bowed and his fingers resting on his brow, he had the appearance of being engaged in prayer.
The gentleman who sat with him in his neat office had no characteristics at all. He was a big man, who breathed noisily, and he was puffy with lazy, indulgent living, but he did not fidget and his hands were folded over his large waistcoat.
“My dear Marl,” the banker’s voice was soft and almost caressing, “you try my patience at times. I will say nothing about the strain you put upon my resources.”
The big man chuckled.
“I give you security, Brab—excellent security, old man. You can’t deny that!”
Mr. Brabazon’s white fingers played a tune on the edge of his desk.
“You bring me impossible schemes, and hitherto I have been foolish enough to finance them,” he said. “There must come an end to such folly. You have no need for help. Your balance at this bank alone is nearly a hundred thousand.”
Marl looked round at the door and bent forward.
“I’ll tell you a story,” he mumbled, “a story about a penniless young clerk that married the widow of Seller, of Seller’s Bank. She was old enough to be his mother, and died suddenly—in Switzerland. She fell over a precipice. Don’t I know it? Wasn’t I takin’ photographs of the bee-utiful mountain scenery? Did I ever show you the picture of that accident, Brab? You are in it! Yes, you’re in it, though you told the examining magistrate you were miles and miles away!”
Mr. Brabazon’s eyes were on the desk. Not a muscle of his face moved.
“Besides,” said Mr. Marl in a more normal tone, “you can afford it. You’re making another matrimonial alliance—that’s the expression, ain’t it?”
The banker raised his eyes and frowned at his visitor.
“What do you mean?” he demanded.
Mr. Marl was evidently amused. He slapped his knee and choked with laughter.
“What about the person you met in Steyne Square the other night—the one in the closed motor-car, eh? Don’t deny it! I saw you! A nice little car, it was.”
Now, for the first time, Brabazon displayed signs of emotion. His face was grey and drawn and his eyes seemed to have receded further into their sockets.
“I will arrange your loan,” he said.
Mr. Marl’s expression of satisfaction was interrupted by a knock at the door. At Brabazon’s “Come in,” the door opened to admit one whose appearance put all other matters out of the visitor’s head.
The girl brought a paper which she placed before her employer—evidently a pencilled telephone message.
“White—gold—red,” Mr. Marl’s senses registered the impression he received. White, creamy white and delicate skin, red as poppies the scarlet lips, yellow as ripe corn the hair. He saw her in profile, was revolted a little at the firmness of her chin—Mr. Marl liked women who were yielding and soft and malleable in his hands—but the beauty of mouth and nose and brow—they made him blink.
He breathed a little more quickly, a little more loudly, and when she had gone after a colloquy, in a low tone, he sighed.
“What a queen!” he said. “I’ve seen her somewhere before. What is her name?”
“Drummond—Thalia Drummond,” said Mr. Brabazon, eyeing the gross man coldly.
“Thalia Drummond!” repeated Felix slowly. “Isn’t she the girl who used to be with Froyant? Bit sweet on her yourself, eh, Brabazon?”
The man at the writing-table looked at the other steadily.
“I do not make it a practice to be ‘sweet on’ my employees, Mr. Marl,” he said. “Miss Drummond is a very efficient worker. That is all that I require of my staff.”
Marl rose heavily, chuckling.
“I’ll see you to-morrow morning about that other business,” he said.
He laughed wheezily, but Mr. Brabazon did not smile.
“At half-past ten to-morrow,” he said, going to the door with the visitor. “Or can you make it eleven?”
“Eleven,” agreed the man.
“Good morning,” said the banker, but did not offer his hand.
Hardly had the door closed on the visitor before Mr. Brabazon locked it and returned to his desk. He took from his pocket-book a plain white card, and dipping his pen in the red ink, drew a small circle. Beneath he wrote the words:
“Felix Marl saw our interview in Steyne Square. He lives at 79, Marisburg Place.”
He put the card into an envelope and addressed it:
“Mr. Johnson, 23, Mildred Street, City.”
Chapter XIV.
Thalia is Asked Out
Mr. Marl had to pass through the bank premises, and he glanced along the two rows of desks without, however, catching a glimpse of the girl whose face he sought. Near the end of the counter was a small compartment, the occupant of which was shielded from observation by opaque glass windows. The door was ajar, and he caught just a flash of the figure and walked toward the door. A girl at a typewriter watched him curiously.
Thalia Drummond looked up from her desk to see the big smiling face of a man looking down at her.
“Busy, Miss Drummond?”
“Very,” she replied, but did not seem to resent his intrusion.
“Don’t get much fun here, do you?” he asked.
“Not a lot.” Her dark eyes were surveying him appraisingly.
“What about a bit of dinner one of these nights and a show to follow?” he asked.
Her eyes took him in from his dyed hair to his painfully varnished boots.
“You’re a wicked old man,” she said calmly, “but dinner is my favourite meal.”
His grin broadened and the fires of conquest flickered in his faded eyes.
“What about ‘The Moulin Gris’?” He suggested the restaurant, without doubting her acceptance, but her lips curled scornfully.
“Why not at Hooligans Fish Parlour?” she asked. “No, it’s the Ritz-Carlton or nothing for me.”
Mr. Marl was staggered, but pleased.
“You’re a princess,” he beamed, “and you shall have a royal feed! What about to-night?”
She nodded.
“Meet me at my house in Marisburg Place, Bayswater Road. 7.30. You’ll find my name on the door.”
He paused, expecting her to demur, but to his surprise, she nodded again.
“Good-bye, darling,” said the bold Mr. Marl and kissed the tips of his fat fingers.
“Shut the door,” said the girl and went on with her work.
She was destined again to be interrupted. This time the visitor was a good-looking girl, whose forearms were gauntletted in shiny leather. It was the typist who had followed Mr. Marl’s movements with such curiosity.
Thalia leant back in her chair as the newcomer carefully closed the door behind her and sat down.
“Well, Macroy, what’s biting you?” she asked inelegantly.
The words did not seem to harmonise with the delicate refinement of face, and not for the first time did Milly Macroy look at the girl wonderingly.
“Who’s the old nut?” she asked.
“An admirer,” replied Thalia calmly.
“You do attract ’em, kid,” commented Milly Macroy, with some envy, and there was a little pause.
“Well?” asked Thalia. “You haven’t come here to discuss my amours, have you?”
Milly smiled furtively.
“If amours is French for boys, I haven’t,” she said. “I’ve come to have a straight talk with you, Drummond.”
“Straight talks are meat and drink to me,” said Thalia Drummond.
“Do you remember the money that went out by registered post last Friday to the Sellinger Corporation?”
Thalia nodded.
“Well, I suppose you know that they claim that when the package arrived it contained nothing but paper?”
“Is that so?” asked Thalia. “Mr. Brabazon has said nothing to me about it,” and she returned the other’s scrutinising glance without faltering.
“I packed that money in the envelope,” said Milly Macroy slowly, “and you had it to check. There’s only you and me in this business, Miss Drummond, and one of us pinched the money, and I’ll swear it wasn’t me.”
“Then it must be me,” said Thalia with an innocent smile. “Really, Macroy, that’s a fairly serious accusation to make against an innocent female.”
The admiration in Milly’s eyes increased.
“You’re a Thorough-Bad, if ever there was one!” she said. “Now, look here, kid, let’s put all our cards on the table. A month ago, soon after you came to the bank, there was a hundred note missing from the Foreign Exchange desk.”
“Well?” asked Thalia when she paused.
“Well, I happen to know that you had it and that it was changed by you at Bilbury’s in the Strand. I can tell you the number if you want to know.”
Thalia swung round and looked at the other under lowered brows.
“What have we here?” she asked in mock consternation. “A female sleuth! Heavens, I am indeed undone!”
The extravagant mockery of it all took Milly aback.
“You’ve got ice in your brain!” she said. She leant forward and laid her hand on the girl’s arm. “There may be trouble over this Sellinger business, and you will want all the friends you can get.”
“So will you, for the matter of that,” said Thalia coolly. “You handled the money.”
“And you took it,” said the other, in a matter-of-fact tone. “Don’t let us have any argument about it, Drummond. If we stick together there’ll be no trouble at all—I can swear that the envelope was sealed in my presence and that the money was there.”
There was a dancing light of amusement in Thalia Drummond’s eyes and she laughed silently.
“All right,” she said, with a little shrug of her shoulders. “Let it go at that. Now, I suppose, having saved me from ruin, you’re going to ask me a favour? I’ll set your mind at rest about the money. I took it because I had a good home for it. I need money frequently and anyway there have been lots of postal robberies lately. There was a long article in the paper about it the other day. Now go ahead.”
Milly Macroy, who had not a slight acquaintance with the criminal classes, stared at the girl in amazement.
“You’re ice all right,” she nodded, “but you’ve got to cut out this cheap pilfering, otherwise you’re liable to spoil a real big thing and I can’t afford to see it spoilt. If you want a share of big money you’ve got to come in with people who are working big—do you get that?”
“I get it,” said Thalia, “and who are your collaborators?”
Miss Macroy did not recognise the term but answered discreetly:
“There’s a gentleman I know——”
“Say ‘man’,” said Thalia. “Gentleman always reminds me of a tailor’s ad.”
“Well, a man if you like,” said the patient Miss Macroy. “He’s a friend of mine and he’s been watching you for a week or two, and he thinks you’re the kind of clever girl who might make a lot of money without trouble. I told him about the other affair and he wants to see you.”
“Another admirer?” asked Thalia Drummond with a lift of her perfect eyebrows, and Macroy’s face darkened.
“There’ll be none of that, you understand, Drummond,” she said decisively. “This fellow and I are sort of—engaged.”
“Heaven forbid,” said Thalia Drummond piously, “that I should come between two loving hearts.”
“And you needn’t be sarcastic either,” said Macroy, redder still. “I tell you that there’s to be no lovey-dovey stuff in this. It’s real business, you understand?”
Thalia played with her paper-knife. Presently she asked:
“Suppose I don’t want to come into your combination?”
Milly Macroy looked suspiciously at the girl.
“Come and have a bit of dinner after the bank closes,” she said.
“Nothing but invitations to dinner,” murmured Thalia and the nimble-witted Milly Macroy jumped at the truth.
“The old boy asked you to dinner, did he?” she demanded. “Well, ain’t that luck!” She whistled and her eyes brightened. She was about to offer a confidence, but changed her mind. “He’s got loads of money out of money-lending. My dear, I can see you with a diamond necklace in a week or two!”
Thalia straightened herself and took up her pen.
“Pearls are my weakness,” she said. “All right, Macroy, I’ll see you to-night,” and she went on working.
Milly Macroy lingered.
“Look here, you’re not going to tell this gentleman what I said about my being engaged to him, are you?”
“There’s Brab’s bell,” said Thalia, rising and taking up her notebook as a buzzer sounded. “No, I’m not going to discuss anything of the kind—I hate fairy stories anyway.”
Miss Macroy looked after the retreating figure of the girl with an expression which was not friendly.
Mr. Brabazon was sitting at his desk when the girl came in, and handed her a sealed envelope.
“Send this by hand,” he said.
Thalia looked at the address and nodded, and then looked at Mr. Brabazon with a new interest. Truly the Crimson Circle was recruited from many and various classes.