Hullo, Jos! said the intruder in a light, careless and rather scornful tone.
It was a stroke of genius on his part to address Mr. Ilam as “Jos.” That curt and familiar monosyllable, directed like a bullet at the formidable Ilam, the august President of the City, made such an impression upon both Mr. Gloucester and the L. and W. E. Bank-clerk that they took no part whatever in the immediately subsequent proceedings. They were astounded into silence. They trembled lest lightning should descend and utterly destroy the intruder.
And Ilam himself was plainly at a loss. He was about to say to the intruder: “You have no right to speak to me in such a way,” and to order him out of the place, when the ridiculousness of protesting and the futility of ordering presented themselves vividly to his mind.
Besides, there was the revolver.
So Mr. Ilam said merely, in a sort of pained surprise:
“Jetsam!”
“Exactly,” said Jetsam.
And the imperturbable fellow, with his grey hair and his shabby suit and his weary eyes, nonchalantly sat down on the edge of one of the counting-tables, his legs dangling, and his body leaning forward.
The two employés were by this time convinced that the new-comer must be either the Shah of Persia in disguise, or else some extremely intimate and life-long friend of Ilam’s, perhaps richer than Ilam himself. The bank-clerk knew by sight several chairmen of banks who were quite as badly dressed as the man on the table. Nevertheless, they did not carry revolvers. The revolver was certainly rather disquieting. However, they bent to their work, as though both eyes of the Recording Angel were upon them.
Ilam closed the door of the safe.
“The doorkeeper let you pass?” he ventured.
“No, not at all,” replied Jetsam.
“He isn’t at his post?”
“Not just at the moment. I’ve had him removed for a bit. He’ll doubtless return as soon as I’ve gone. I thought it would be simpler to have my own doorkeeper.”
“What did the Soudanese say, though?”
“Which Soudanese?”
“The Soudanese who is outside the door.”
“Oh, him? He didn’t say anything.”
“This is a serious breach of rules for you to be here, you know,” said Ilam. “And I must ask you to go.”
“I really can’t go just yet,” said Jetsam.
“What are you doing here?”
“Nothing,” said Jetsam; “except nursing this revolver. I’m going to do something soon.”
Both the bank-clerk and Mr. Gloucester looked up. They even went so far as to glance at their employer for instructions; but their employer seemed to avoid the eyes of the underlings. Then Mr. Gloucester spoke in a low tone to the clerk, and the clerk replied, and some bags of gold were bundled into a coffer and the coffer locked and double-locked, and the bank-clerk murmured respectfully:
“These are the lot, sir. Shall I take them and go?”
“Yes,” said Ilam.
“Will you help me?” said the clerk to Mr. Gloucester.
“Yes,” said Mr. Gloucester.
And Mr. Gloucester and the clerk each picked up several coffers.
“Good-night, sir,” said the clerk.
“Good-night,” said Ilam.
“Stop that!” Jetsam exclaimed, turning his head slowly behind him to follow the movements of the pair.
“I beg pardon?” murmured the clerk interrogatively.
“I thought I told you to go to the other end of the room,” thundered Jetsam.
“But Mr. Ilam——”
“Go to the other end of the room, up there at that corner,” Jetsam commanded sternly, adding, “or I’ll blow your idiotic brains out! Do you hear?”
The clerk was in love with a girl who lived with her mother in a pretty little semi-detached villa at Weybridge. He thought of her; he thought of all the evenings he had spent with her; he conjured her up in all her different dresses; he heard her voice in all its tones—and all this in the fraction of a second. Then he put down the boxes and discreetly betook himself to the corner indicated by Mr. Jetsam, thinking obscurely and slangily that to be a bank-clerk was not all jam.
“And you, too!” ordered Jetsam, raising a finger to Mr. Gloucester.
Mr. Gloucester was not in love with a charming young thing at Weybridge. He never had been in love; he had never lived with anyone except himself and a bull-terrier; but he was fond of playing chess at night at Simpson’s; and he suddenly saw Simpson’s and the chess-boards, and the foamy quart, and the bull-terrier lying under the table. Life and Simpson’s seemed infinitely precious to him in those instants. And he put down his boxes and followed the bank-clerk to the suggested corner.
“I must really——” he began protestingly.
“Silence!” exploded Mr. Jetsam; and there was silence.
You must picture the large, low room, with its concrete lining and its half-dozen sixteen candle-power electric lights burning in the ceiling; and underneath these lights the four men—Ilam leaning against the gigantic safe which rose out of the floor in the middle of the apartment; Jetsam still nonchalantly swinging his legs as he sat on the table, facing him directly; and the democracy, somewhat scared and undecided, in a corner. Jetsam had his back to the door, and since the two piles of coffers were near the door they were out of his field of vision.
Jetsam winked at Ilam—deliberately winked at him.
“Simple as a, b, c, isn’t it?” he pleasantly remarked.
“What?” demanded Ilam.
“What I’m doing now—holding up a strong room and its staff.”
“You’ll suffer for this,” said Ilam.
“That remains to be seen,” was the reply. “I gravely doubt if I shall suffer for it. Up to now, what have I done? I have asked those gentlemen to go into a corner and not to indulge in desultory and disturbing conversation; and they have been good enough to humour my caprice; and I have winked at you, Jos. Is there anything illegal in winking at you? A few days ago you did more than wink at me—you nearly killed me!”
“I must go,” said Ilam. “I have an appointment—I——”
He moved slightly.
“Let me advise you not to move,” Jetsam warned him, raising the revolver an inch or so. “It mightn’t be very good for your constitution. You must grasp, the fact that you are being held up. A worn-out operation, you will say—a trick lacking in novelty! Yes; but one, nevertheless, based on the fundamental human instincts, and therefore pretty certain to succeed. Indeed, I am surprised how simple it is. You might fancy from my easy bearing that I had devoted a lifetime to holding people up. Not in the least. I have never held anyone up before. And yet, how well I am succeeding! The thing works like a charm; merely because you can see in my eye that I mean to be obeyed.”
“I suppose you want money?” said Ilam savagely.
“I don’t want impudence!” retorted Jetsam. “Apologize, if you please, my friend!”
“What have I said?”
“It isn’t what you said—it’s your manner of saying it that was unworthy of you. You mean to apologize for wounding my feelings, don’t you?” Jetsam smiled. “No, don’t move; merely express your regret!”
“I’m sorry,” muttered Ilam.
“There—you see!” cried Jetsam to the men in the corner. “Let that be a lesson to you. And remember, that only great men like Mr. Ilam have sufficient moral force, when they are in the wrong, to admit the fact. Well, Jos, I accept your apology in the cheerful and generous spirit in which you offer it; and I shall not deny that I do want money. That is part of what I came for.”
“How much do you want?” asked Ilam.
“Well,” said Jetsam. “How much have you got handy?”
Mr. Ilam intimated that there was a small sum in gold.
“A thousand in gold?” queried Jetsam.
Ilam nodded.
“Probably more,” Jetsam commented. “But a thousand will suffice me. If I need a fresh supply I can always come again, can’t I? And besides, all that is yours is mine, eh?”
Ilam maintained silence.
“Eh?” repeated Jetsam persuasively.
“Yes,” growled Ilam, and his eye caught the eye of the young bank-clerk by pure accident.
At that moment the young bank-clerk, fired by martial valour, a thirst for glory, and the thought of what a splendid thrilling tale he would have to tell to the charming young thing at Weybridge, sprang furiously forward in the direction of Jetsam.
“Stop!” said Jetsam, slipping off the table and facing the youth, revolver ready.
The youth hesitated for the fifth of a second.
“No,” said the youth, and came on.
Jetsam fired almost point-blank at the hero’s face, and the hero started back and sank to the ground. And there was a great hush in the room and a smell of powder and a little smoke. The youth lay still.
“Get up!” said Jetsam fiercely. “Get up, or I’ll kick you up!”
And, strange to relate, the youth discovered the whereabouts of his limbs and got up, and returned to the corner.
“A singular example of what imagination will do!” commented Jetsam. “The first chamber of this revolver was loaded with blank. I expected to have to use it for theatrical effect, to begin with, and I was not wrong. Let me add that the other five chambers are most carefully loaded, and that I once earned my living in a music-hall by shooting the pips out of cards with this revolver.” He then addressed Mr. Gloucester. “Now, old man,” he said, “how much gold is there in one of those boxes?”
“Two thousand five hundred!” answered Mr. Gloucester politely.
“And it weighs?”
“About sixty pounds.”
“It isn’t worth while breaking into it,” said Jetsam smoothly, looking at Ilam. “I’ll take the lot. In our final settlement it shall be brought into account.” His glance shifted to Gloucester. “Thank you,” he added, “for this information so courteously given.
“Perhaps you are satisfied now!” said Ilam.
“Why don’t you go? You think you won’t get caught, but you will.”
“Surely, you won’t give me away, Jos!” protested Jetsam. “I’m convinced you won’t; because you see, if you begin to talk about me I should probably begin to talk about you, and think how dreadful that would be.”
“Keep it up! Keep it up!” said Ilam.
“Hence,” Jetsam proceeded, ignoring the interruption, “I shall confidently rely on you to see that these excellent gentlemen here in the corner keep their elegant mouths shut. I shall rely on you for that. You understand, gentlemen, Mr. Ilam wishes you not to prattle, even in the privacy of your own homes.”
“Are you going?” said Ilam doggedly.
“Yes,” said Jetsam; “and so are you.”
“Me!”
“Yes, you. The money is a mere incidental. What I came for was your distinguished self.”
“I’m not coming with you. I haven’t the slightest intention of coming with you.”
“You may not have much intention, but you are coming,” said the suave Jetsam. “Besides, who is going to carry this box outside for me? I can’t carry the box and a revolver, too. Obviously Providence has designated precisely you to carry this box. Come.”
“Not I!” Ilam defied him.
“Come!” repeated Jetsam. “I have a vehicle awaiting outside, and we shall see what we shall see.”
“No!” insisted Ilam.
Mr. Jetsam advanced two paces.
“Listen!” said he angrily and yet calmly. “If you don’t come, I’ll shoot you where you stand. You ought to be able to perceive that I mean what I say.”
Ilam’s reply was a mute surrender. He dropped his eyes, and the next moment the two underlings had the spectacle of the corpulent Mr. Ilam lifting a sixty-pound weight and struggling with it to the door, followed by the revolver and Mr. Jetsam behind the revolver.
“Stop in the doorway a second,” ordered Jetsam. He addressed the clerks again. “If I were you, I shouldn’t hurry out of here. You might catch cold.”
And then they saw Ilam disappear, the box in his arms, and Mr. Jetsam follow him. Mr. Jetsam closed the door. The clerks were alone.
“Well, of all the——!” exclaimed the younger man.
“I wonder how soon it will be safe for us to leave!” said Mr. Gloucester.
That evening the nightly concert of the “Carpentaria Band” was held in the great court of the Exposition Palace, partly because the weather was threatening, and partly because the Y.M.C.A. wished it so. The stalwart members of the Y.M.C.A. were prominent and joyous, and they pervaded the City to the number of some fifty thousand. They were nearly all young, and they were all, without exception, enthusiastic. They had taken possession of practically the whole of the tables on the three tiers of balconies that surrounded the court, and there was also a considerable sprinkling of them on the ground floor. They liked Carpentaria; they liked his music; they liked his way of conducting. They admired him when he split the drums of their ears, and they equally admired him when he wooed those organs with a hint of sound that was something less than a whisper. They violently cheered his marches, and with the same violence they cheered his serenades and his cradlesongs.
Consequently Carpentaria was content. He was more than content—he glowed with pleasure. He was the centre of the vast illuminated court, with its ornate architecture, and its wonderful roof, and its serried rows of lights. All eyes were centred on him. He swayed not only his band, but the multitude, by a single movement of the slim baton—that magic bit of ivory which he held in his hand. He said to himself that he had never had a better, a more appreciative and enthusiastic audience in the whole of his glorious career. The result was, that-he conducted in his most variegated and polychromatic manner. He did things with his wand that no conductor had ever done with a wand before; he performed gyrations, contortions, and acrobatics beyond all his previous exploits. In a word, he surpassed himself.
He was in the very act of surpassing himself, in his renowned “Cockney Serenade,” when he observed, out of the tail of his eye, a middle-aged man, who was forcing his way at all costs across the floor of the hall towards the bandstand.
When seven thousand people are packed on chairs on a single floor, it is not the quietest task in the world to penetrate through them. And the middle-aged man was not doing it quietly, in fact, he was making decidedly more noise than the “Cockney Serenade,” and attracting quite as much attention.
A number of ardently musical young men on the grand balcony leaned over the wrought-iron parapet and advised the middle-aged man to lie down and die, in a manner unmistakably ferocious. (It is extraordinary how ferocious a youth can be on mere lemonade.) But the middle-aged man continued his course, and he arrived at the bandstand, despite official and unofficial protests, simultaneously with the conclusion of the serenade.
Gales of applause swept about the court, and Carpentaria bowed, and bowed again—bowed innumerably, all the time regarding the middle-aged man with angry and suppressed curiosity. The middle-aged man had lifted up a hand and pulled the triangle-player by the belt of his magnificent uniform, and the triangle-player had bent down to speak to him.
“What is it? What is it?” asked Carpentaria, his nerves on edge.
“A person insists on speaking to you, sir,” replied the triangle-player.
“He cannot,” snapped Carpentaria.
“He says he shall,” said the triangle-player.
“I’ll——” Carpentaria began an anathema, and then stopped. He went to the rail of the bandstand and leaned over to the middle-aged man.
“At your age,” he said grimly, “you ought to know better than to interrupt my concerts in this way. Who are you? What do you want?”
“My name is Gloucester, sir,” was the answer. “Doubtless you recollect.”
“I do nothing of the kind,” said Carpentaria.
“I’m in charge of the—er——” Here Gloucester stood up on tiptoe in an endeavour to whisper directly into Carpentaria’s ear—“the strong-rooms.”
“Well,” asked Carpentaria, “what do you want?”
“Been robbed, sir.”
“Great Heavens, man!” Carpentaria exploded. “You come to interrupt my concert because the strong-rooms have been robbed!”
“Two thousand five hundred pounds, sir.”
“I don’t care if it’s two thousand times two thousand five hundred pounds. Go away! Go and worry Mr. Ilam.”
“That’s just it, sir. Mr. Ilam has been taken, too.”
By this time the multitudinous eyes of the audience were fixed on Carpentaria and his interlocutor, and everybody was sapiently saying to everybody else that something extraordinary must have occurred.
“What do you mean—Mr. Ilam been taken?” Carpentaria demanded.
“He’s been carried off—he carried the money off—he was forced to, sir. Revolver, sir. Can’t you come, sir?”
“Can I come? Ye gods! Man, do you know what a concert is? Can I come? Of course I can’t come!”
“Mr. Ilam may be dead, sir.”
“We shall have leisure to bury him after the concert,” said Carpentaria. “Go away. Go and consult Lapping, head of the police department. Or, rather, don’t. You’ll upset the audience making your way out. Sit down. Sit right down there, and don’t move. We’re going to play my new arrangement of the ‘Glory Song’ with variations. You’ll see it will bring the house down. It will be something you’ll remember as long as you live.”
“But, sir,” pleaded Mr. Gloucester pathetically.
“Sit down—and listen,” Carpentaria repeated sternly.
He returned to the centre of his men. He rapped the magic wand on his desk, and the next moment the band had burst deliriously into the now famous orchestral arrangement of the “Glory Song.” The audience was thrilled by the waves of sound that emanated from the instruments, especially when the variations began. So the entertainment continued, while Mr. Gloucester, consuming his middle-aged impatience as best he could, ruminated upon the strange caprices of employers. He had been an employé all his life; he had never commanded; and his conclusion, at the age of fifty odd, was to the effect that the nature of employers is incomprehensible, and that you never know what they will do next.
“Excuse me, sir.” He timidly touched Carpentaria when the concert was over.
Carpentaria, it appeared, in the rush and fever of the music, had forgotten all about him, and was on the point of leaving the court deafened by applause.
“Ah, yes!” said Carpentaria. “That thief. Two thousand five hundred pounds. And you say that Mr. Ilam has been carried off. Tell me all about that. Come this way. Come into the street—it is always the most private place.”
And in the Central Way, near the fountain, upon which coloured lights were reflected from below, Mr. Gloucester related in detail to Carpentaria the episode of the theft.
“You say it was a man dressed in blue, with grey hair?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And there were three of you, including Mr. Ilam, and you could not manage to disarm him?”
“It might have meant death for the first of us, sir.”
“Well,” said Carpentaria absently, “what if it did?”
Mr. Gloucester grunted.
“You said I was to consult Mr. Lapping, sir. Shall we go there?”
“No,” said Carpentaria, “not yet. I will look into it myself first. The principal mystery is that of the doorkeeper. What is his name?”
“Wiggins.”
“And he has disappeared?”
“He was not there when I left, sir. And he could not have been there when the thief entered.”
“Why not?”
“Because he would not have allowed the thief to enter, sir. He has strict orders.”
“Humph! Come along.”
They hastened up the Central Way, in a northerly direction. The rain had kept off, and the illuminations, which were superb, evidently met with the ecstatic approval of the Y.M.C.A. adherents, who paraded to and fro, and filled the flying cars, with the hectic enjoyment of people who feel that closing time is near. The progress made by Carpentaria and his companion was therefore not of the quickest.
“It’s more than an hour since,” said Mr. Gloucester, daring to show his. discontent.
“What is?” asked Carpentaria.
“Since the crime occurred.”
“The fellow must have calculated on my concert,” replied Carpentaria. “He probably knew that everybody in this City runs to me when the slightest thing goes wrong.”
“The slightest thing!” repeated Mr. Gloucester bitterly—but not aloud, only in his secret soul.
They hurried round by the side of the Storytellers’ Hall, and so to the passage at the back. And standing at the entrance to the vaults, underneath a solitary jet of electric light, was Wiggins, the doorkeeper of the heart of the City. He was a man aged about thirty-five, six feet two high, and not quite so broad.
“So you’re here!” exclaimed Carpentaria.
“Yes, sir.”
“Where have you been since—since Mr. Ilam arrived here?”
“I did what you told me, sir,” said Wiggins, with an air of independence. Wiggins was not a Mr. Gloucester.
“What was that?” demanded Carpentaria, mystified.
“Why, your note, sir.”
“What note?”
Wiggins pulled a crumpled paper from his pocket and handed it to Carpentaria, who read:
“Come to me in my office at once. If I am not there, wait for me. The bearer will take your duties meanwhile.
“C. Carpentaria.”
“Oh!” said Carpentaria. “And who brought this?”
“A Soudanese, sir.”
“Which Soudanese?”
“I don’t know. They’re all alike to me.”
“And it didn’t occur to you that this note was forged?”
“No, sir. Why should it?”
“It didn’t occur to you,” Carpentaria continued, “that I was conducting my concert, and that therefore I couldn’t possibly be in my office?”
“I didn’t know anything about any concert, sir. I’m doorkeeper here——”
“Not know about my concert!” cried Carpentaria. Then he calmed himself. “Mr. Ilam came before the Soudanese brought the note to you?”
“Yes, sir, but only a few seconds before. He had but just gone in when the Soudanese came. I was talking to the driver of the motor-car as was waiting, sir, here in front of the door.”
“Oh. So there was a motor-car?”
“Yes, sir. It was one of the City cars. No. 28, sir. To take the money away, sir.”
“Good. Who was the driver? Do you know his name?”
“I think his name’s Pratt, sir.”
“Then you left immediately and went to my office and waited for me, and then?”
“Then I got tired of waiting and I came back here, sir.”
“Good,” said Carpentaria. “Mr. Gloucester, the garage is indicated as our next resort.”
The immense garage of the City was close to the northern entrance gates. And it, too, was guarded by a doorkeeper, hidden in a little box near the double-wooden doors.
“I want to know if Car No. 28 has come in,” said Carpentaria.
“Yes, sir,” was the reply. “Came in twenty minutes ago.”
“Did you see it?”
“Yes, sir,” said the doorkeeper.
“Who was driving it?”
“I didn’t notice, sir.”
“Show us the car, if you please.”
They passed into the desert expanse of the garage, where a few men were cleaning cars. Car No. 28 was in its place. In shape it was rather like a police-van, but smaller. Carpentaria noticed that its wheels were very dirty.
“Open it,” said he.
The key was found, and the interior of the car exposed to the light of a lantern. And at the extremity of the car could be seen a vague mass, a collection of limbs and clothes on the floor.
“Get in,” said Carpentaria, “and see what that is.”
The next moment two men were dragged out of the car in a state of stupor. One was the Soudanese entitled “Spats,” who had become Ilam’s bodyguard, and the other wore the uniform of an automobile driver.
“Who is this?” Carpentaria asked.
“It looks precious like Pratt, the man as usually drives this car, sir,” answered the doorkeeper.
All the attendants in the place had now gathered round.
You will now relate to me, as accurately as you can,” said Carpentaria somewhat peremptorily to Pratt the chauffeur, “exactly what were the circumstances which led to your ceasing to be master of your car.”
Carpentaria had had Pratt and the Soudanese carried to the strong-room, the heart of the City, where a chemist and Dr. Rivers had united to treat them for the effects of the narcotic which had evidently, by some means, been administered to them. Rivers repeated that, so far as he could judge, the narcotic employed was chloral hydrate, a drug more powerful than morphine, more effective in its action on the heart, and less annoying to other functional parts of the body. When Rivers and the chemist had finished their ministrations, Carpentaria had politely intimated to them that he did not absolutely insist on their remaining—a piece of information which surprised the doctor, who, having been let into one of his director’s secrets, expected, with the confidence of youth, to be let into all of them. The three men, two white and one Ethiop, were thus alone together in the chamber.
“Well, sir,” said Pratt, who was a fair man, talkative, with, just at present, a terrific sense of his own importance as the central hero of a mysterious drama. “It was like this: After I’d had the drink——”
“What drink?” demanded Carpentaria sharply. “The drink the other driver offered to me, sir.”
“What other driver?”
“There came up another driver, sir.”
“In the City uniform?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who was he? What was his name?”
“No idea, sir. I seemed to remember his face, like, but I couldn’t recollect his name. I asked him his name, and he said: ‘Don’t try to be funny, Pratt; you’ve had a drop too much.’”
“And had you?”
“Not I, sir—of course I hadn’t. I’d made two journeys to the Bank with full loads, and the next one was to be the last, and——”
“And you hadn’t had anything to drink at all?”
“Nothing to speak of, sir. A glass of port at Short’s as I was coming back the first time, and a pint of beer—or it might have been a pint and a half—at the Redcliffe as I was coming back the second time.”
“That was absolutely all?”
“Yes, sir, except a drop of whisky which was left in my flask.”
“But how came the other driver to be in a position to offer you drink? Was he carrying casks and other things about with him?”
“No, sir, only a flask. Every chauffeur has a flask. Necessary, sir. Cold work, sir. And you’ll recollect it hasn’t been exactly sultry to-night.”
“What did he say? Are you in the habit of accepting drinks from men whose names you can’t call to mind?”
“He was in the profession, sir, and in the uniform; besides, he said he’d got a new cordial, fresh from Madeira, that would keep anyone warm, even in the depth of winter, for at least two hours.”
“But this isn’t the depth of winter.”
“No, sir; but, as the cordial was handy, I thought I might as well try it.”
“And when you had tried it?”
“I felt rather jolly, sir. I never felt better in my life, and thinks I to myself: ‘I’d better write down the name and address of this cordial before I forget it.’ So I says: ‘What’s-your-name,’ I says, meaning the other driver, ‘what’s the name and address of this cordial, before I forget it?’ And I was just taking a pencil out of my pocket to write it down when I felt a bit less jolly and the pencil wouldn’t stop in my hand.”
“You were on your driving seat?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And that is all you remember?”
“Yes, sir. Except that once, dreamy like, I thought I was in prison for exceeding the legal limit, and that all the lights in the prison were turned out, and an earthquake was going on.”
“The other driver stood in the road by the car, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How was he dressed?”
“I’ve told you, sir. This uniform. Blue and white cap, same as this, and long overcoat.”
“You couldn’t see what he wore underneath the overcoat?”
“No, sir.”
“And you?” Carpentaria turned swiftly on the Soudanese. “Did you drink too?”
“Yes, sah.”
Spats smiled.
“And after you had drunk?”
Spats shook his head, still smiling.
“You remember nothing?”
“Yes, sah.”
“What?”
“He means he doesn’t remember anything,” Pratt explained.
“You mean you remember nothing?” Carpentaria questioned.
“Yes, sah.”
“Why did you drink?”
“Yes, sah.”
The Soudanese looked at Pratt, smiling.. “Because Pratt drank?”
“Yes, sah.”
“You have been waiting on Mr. Ilam lately, haven’t you?”
“Yes, sah.”
“When he came to the outer door there, and entered in here, did he tell you to wait outside?”
“Yes, sah.”
“You can both go,” said Carpentaria. “Come to me at eight o’clock to-morrow, Pratt, in case I should want you.”
“Yes, sir,” said Pratt. “Yes, sah,” said the Soudanese.
“No, not you,” Carpentaria explained.
“Yes, sah.”
“One moment,” said Carpentaria to the Ethiopian. “Did Mr. Ilam or any other person give you a note to hand to the doorkeeper outside there?” The Soudanese shook his fierce and yet amiable head.
“What!” cried Pratt, addressing him in surprise, “didn’t you come up and give a note to Wiggins and then go away again, and return a second time?” The Soudanese shook his head once more.
“Then there must have been two of ’em, sir,” said Pratt to Carpentaria. “This chap’s honest enough.”
“Me have brother,” said the Soudanese, “same me.”
“Where is your brother?”
The Soudanese shook his head.
“In the native village?”
“Yes, sah.”
“Go and fetch him,” ordered Carpentaria.
And the next moment he was alone in the great chamber, and he felt tempted simply to go to the regular police, of whom a few were constantly employed by the City, and tell them what had happened, and leave the whole affair entirely in their hands. And then the strange attraction which always emanates from a mystery appealed to him so strongly that he determined to probe a little further into the peculiar matter of Ilam’s disappearance, without the aid of professional detectives. He didn’t imagine for an instant that Ilam was dead. He was capable of believing that Ilam had disappeared willingly; and yet such a theory, having regard to the recitals of Mr. Gloucester and of the bank-clerk (by this time doubtless on his way to Weybridge, and the young thing) was to say the least exceedingly improbable.
He unlocked the door and went outside. Wiggins was at his post, actuated by the exaggerated alertness which characterizes one who has been caught napping.
“Anything happened, Wiggins?”
“No, sir. Nothing whatever.”
“I shall return soon. If the Soudanese comes, keep him.”
“Yes, sir.”
He passed into the Central Way, which was almost deserted. The last visitor, the very last stalwart of the Y.M.C.A., had departed, and the sole signs of life in the great thoroughfare were a lamplighter extinguishing the gas-lamps which were provided in case of a sudden failure of electricity, and a road-sweeper in charge of a complicated machine with two horses. The clock in the tower of the Exposition Palace showed half an hour after closing time. The moon was peeping over the eastern roofs.
Carpentaria went to the garage, and, not without difficulty, for it was shut up, made his way into the interior and procured some light. He wished to make a thorough examination of the car which had been employed as the instrument of the plot. He had it drawn out to the centre of the garage, under the full flare of an electric chandelier. A sleepy attendant hovered in the background.
“Get a ladder and see if there’s anything on the roof of the van—any tyres or boxes or anything,” said Carpentaria.
“There’s only this, sir,” replied the attendant when he had climbed up, and he produced a cap and overcoat of the City uniform.
“Well, I’m——!” exclaimed Carpentaria, and a notion struck him.
“Doorkeeper gone to bed?” he queried.
“Yes, sir.”
“Wake him and tell him I want him.”
While waiting for the doorkeeper, Carpentaria scrutinized attentively the wheels of the vehicle; those wheels, even on his first visit, had put an idea into his head. Then the doorkeeper arrived, not quite as spruce and perfect as a doorkeeper ought to be.
“No one can enter this garage except under your observation?” Carpentaria asked him.
“No one,” said the doorkeeper, positively.
“But you don’t keep such a careful eye on the people who go out?”
“Naturally not, sir. They can’t go out till they’ve been in, and if they’ve been in they’re all right.”
“Just so. Now try to remember. Soon after this car returned to the garage to-night, did any one leave the garage who was unfamiliar to you?”
“I don’t remember, sir. You see, sir——”
“Exactly. I see. I am not blaming you. Your theory, though defective, is a natural one. Now, do you remember, for instance, a man in a blue suit, with grey hair, going out?”
“Upon my soul, I believe I do, sir.”
“You are certain?”
“Oh, no, sir. I’m not certain. But I have a sort of a hazy idea——”
“Look at these wheels,” Carpentaria cut him short. “That’s clayey mud, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where could the car have been to get that?”
“There’s that passage down under the embankment, sir, that way as leads to the river.”
“Doorkeeper,” said Carpentaria, “you are brilliant. I also have thought of that spot, where just such clay exists. But why should the car go down there?”
“Ah,” said the doorkeeper. “There you beat me, sir.”
“Then perhaps you are not so brilliant after all,” said Carpentaria.
And having minutely examined the interior of the car, with no result, he left the garage, and returned to the strong room.
The Soudanese was awaiting him at the door, and there were evident signs of a quarrelsome temper on the part of Wiggins. Wiggins had not forgotten the colour of the messenger who had handed him the forged note.
“Well?” Carpentaria asked of the Soudanese. “Where’s your brother?”
The man shook his head, but not smilingly.
“Has he gone?”
“Yes, sah.”
“No one knows at the village where he’s gone?”
Spats shook his head.
“Wiggins,” said Carpentaria. “Is this the man who brought you the note?”
Wiggins hesitated.
“No, sir,” he said at length’, resentfully. “But they’re all alike, them folk are.”
“H’m!” murmured Carpentaria. “Since there is nothing to guard here, you may as well go, Wiggins. You, too, Spats.”
Two minutes later he was crossing the Oriental Gardens in the direction of the Thames. And when he had travelled two hundred yards or so he heard footsteps behind him, light, rapid, irregular. He turned quickly, his hand on the revolver in his pocket, to face his pursuer. His pursuer, however, was Pauline Dartmouth and no other. So he left the revolver where it was.