He looked at the girl.
“Check Number One,” he said.
She took the telegram from him and examined the hour at which it was dispatched.
“This is a common-knowledge telegram,” she said.
“What do you mean by common knowledge?” asked Larry good-humouredly.
“Well, it must have been answered just as soon as it arrived, and the man who sent this wrote from what is common knowledge. In other words, he didn’t attempt to make any investigations, but took the fact for granted; probably he asked somebody in the office, ‘Is Stuart married or a bachelor?’ and when they said he was a bachelor, he dispatched the reply.”
Larry folded the wire and put it away in his desk.
“If it is common knowledge that Stuart was not married, it merely complicates a situation which is not exactly clear. Here is a man who dies and is obviously murdered, and in a few moments preceding his death writes his will secretly on the inside of his shirt. It is possible, by the way, that he may have done this in the presence of his murderers without their being aware of the fact, and I should think that is most likely.”
“I thought that,” she agreed.
“He was murdered, and writes his will on the stiff breast of his shirt, leaving the whole of his property to his daughter. Now, a sane man—and there is no reason to suppose that he was anything but sane—does not invent a daughter on the spur of the moment; so it is obvious that the Chief of the Calgary Police is wrong.”
“It is equally certain that if he was married it was not in Calgary or even in Canada, where the fact would be known,” said the girl. “Secret marriages are possible in a great city, but in small places, amongst very prominent people—and apparently he lived not in a town but on a ranch—the fact that he was married could not escape knowledge.”
On the way home the previous evening Larry had told the girl almost all that the Commissioner had told him. It was not usual for him to make confidantes so quickly, but there was something very appealing about Diana Ward, and his confidence, usually a matter of slow growth, had come to maturity in a flash.
The girl was looking thoughtfully down at her desk.
“If he was married secretly,” she said slowly, “would it not be—in——”
“In London, of course,” said Larry, nodding. “Send a cable to the Chief of the Calgary Police, asking him particulars about Stuart’s known movements, when he was in London last before his present visit.”
She nodded, took out a telegram form from her rack, and began writing. Larry glanced through the reports mechanically, initialled one, and put the others aside. Then he opened the cupboard and, taking out the tray, carried it to the table. He examined the watch again in the light of day, the swivel ring, the cigar-case, and lastly the roll of paper. By daylight the embossed characters were visible, and he put his finger-tips over them very gingerly. He was not, however, accustomed to reading Braille, and he realized that his hand was a heavy one compared with the delicate touch of his secretary. She had finished her writing, had rung a bell and handed the telegram to him to read.
“That’s all right,” said Larry, and, when the uniformed messenger had come and taken the telegram away: “Do you notice anything peculiar about this piece of paper?” he asked, pointing to the Braille message.
“Yes,” she said. “I was looking at it before you came. You don’t mind?” she asked quickly, and Larry laughed.
“You can examine anything except my conscience,” he said. “Did you notice”—he turned his attention to the paper again—“that one end of this paper is less discoloured than the other?”
“I noticed that one end was drier than the other last night,” she said, “and that of course is the reason. It was on the dry end that we got our best results. For instance, the word ‘murderer’ was almost untouched by the water; it was damp but not moist.”
He nodded, and she opened a drawer of her desk and took out a sheet of brown paper.
“I brought this with me,” she said. “It is a sheet from a Braille book, and I was trying experiments with strips I had torn from the book, soaking them in my wash-basin. Here is the result.” She took out a little roll of shapeless pulp, which skinned when she attempted to unwind it.
“Humph!” said Larry. They had both reached the same conclusion, but by different processes—she by actual experiment, he by deduction; and the conclusion they had come to was that the roll of paper had been placed in Gordon Stuart’s pocket after the body had left the water.
“There would be enough moisture in the cloth to saturate it through,” said Larry. “This paper is very absorbent, almost as much so as blotting paper. So we have come to this—that Gordon Stuart was drowned, and after he was drowned his body was handled by some person or persons, one of whom slipped this message into his pocket, and that person was either a blind man or one who believed——” He stared at her. “By Jove!” he said, as a thought struck him.
“What were you going to say?” she asked.
“Is it possible——” He frowned. It was an absurd idea. The man or woman who left this message on the body expected that Diana Ward would read it.
She held no official position, and the fact that she was Larry Holt’s secretary was a purely fortuitous circumstance, which could not have been anticipated by any outside person. Yet a hasty telephone call to the Chief of Internal Intelligence revealed the fact that there was no Braille expert at Scotland Yard, the only man who knew the system being at that time on sick leave for six months.
“I think you can dismiss the idea that the message was intended for me,” said the girl with a smile. “No, it was written by a blind man, or it would have been written better. A person with the use of his eyes, or——”
“Suppose he were writing in the dark?” asked Larry. He put the tray away and locked the cupboard.
The girl shook her head.
“If he were not blind, he would not be in possession of the instrument to make these markings,” she said, and Larry felt that was true.
He spent two hours dictating letters to various authorities, and at eleven o’clock he rose and put on his coat and hat.
“We’re going for a joy ride,” he said.
“We?” she repeated in surprise.
“I want you to come along,” said Larry, and this time his tone was authoritative, and the girl meekly obeyed.
There was a car waiting for them at the entrance to the Yard, and the driver evidently had already received his instructions.
“We’re going to Beverley Manor, the village which Stuart was so fond of visiting,” he said. “I particularly want to discover what attractions the old Saxon church had for this unhappy man. He doesn’t seem to have been an archæologist, so the fact that the foundations were a thousand years old would not interest him.”
It was a glorious spring day, with just a sufficient nip in the air to bring the colour to young and healthy cheeks. The hedgerows were bursting into vivid green, and the grassy banks were yellow with primroses. They sat silent, this man and woman whom fate had thrown together in such strange circumstances, enjoying the golden day and thankful of heart to be alive in that season of renewal. All the world was living. The air was lively with hurrying birds going about their business of nest-making. They saw strange, furtive shapes creeping across the road from burrow to burrow; and in one sheltered old-world garden which they passed white lilacs were blooming.
Beverley Manor was a straggling village at the foot of the Kentish Rag. Beyond its church it had few attractions for visitors, for it lay off the main Kentish road, a tiny backwater of rural England, where life ran a smooth, unruffled course.
They pulled up at the inn, where Larry ordered lunch, and then they set forth on foot to the church, which lay a quarter of a mile away along a white and pleasant road. It was not a pretty church; its square tower was squat and unlovely, and successive generations, endeavouring to improve its once simple lines, had produced a medley of architecture in which Romanesque, Gothic, and Norman struggled for recognition.
“It rather swears, doesn’t it?” said Larry irreverently as they passed through the old lych-gate into the churchyard.
The door of the church was open, and the edifice was empty. However disturbing its outside might be, there were serenity and peace and simplicity in the calm interior.
Larry had hoped to find memorial tablets placed in the wall of the church which would give him some clue to Stuart’s movements. But beyond a brass testifying to the virtues of a former vicar, and the tomb of an ancient Bishop of Rochester, the church was innocent of memorials. Larry then began a systematic inspection of the graves. Most of them were very old, and their inscriptions indecipherable. He came at last to the far end of the cemetery, where half a dozen workmen were carrying a new stone wrapped in canvas, and he and the girl stood side by side watching them in silence as they deposited their load by a well-kept grave.
“I’m afraid we’ve had our journey for nothing,” said Larry. “We’ll make a few inquiries in the village, and then we’ll go back to London.”
He was turning to go, when one of the men stripped the canvas covering from the headstone.
“We might as well know who this is,” said Larry, and stepped forward to look.
The men stood on one side to give him a better view, and he read; and, reading, gasped.
✝
TO THE MEMORY OF
MARGARET STUART,
WIFE OF
GORDON STUART
(OF CALGARY, CAN.).
DIED MAY 4TH, 1909
ALSO HIS ONLY DAUGHTER
JEANE,
BORN 10TH JUNE, 1908.
DIED 1ST MAY, 1909.
The girl had joined him now, and together they stood staring down at the headstone.
“His only daughter!” said Larry in a tone of bewilderment. “His only daughter! Then who is Clarissa?”
An examination of local records produced no satisfactory result. Margaret Stuart had died at a farm three miles out of Beverley Manor, and the farm had changed hands twice since the date of her death.
“Twenty years ago?” said the farmer whom Larry interviewed. “Why, twenty years ago this place was a sort of nursing home. It was run by a woman who took in invalids.”
Where the woman is, he could not say. She was not a local woman. He thought he had heard she was dead.
“I’ve been racking my brains to recall her name,” said the farmer. “I told the gentleman yesterday that he’d best go to Somerset House——”
“A gentleman here yesterday?” said Larry quickly. “Was there somebody inquiring yesterday?”
“Yes, sir, a man from London,” said the farmer. “He came down in a car and offered me fifty pounds if I could tell him the name of the woman who kept this place as a home, and a hundred pounds if I could give him any information about a lady that died here twenty-two years ago. A lady named Stuart.”
“Oh, indeed?” said Larry, alert now. Nobody from Scotland Yard had made the inquiries, he was well aware. “What was this gentleman like who called yesterday?” he asked.
“Rather a tall man,” said the farmer. “I didn’t see his face properly because he had his overcoat buttoned up to his chin. But I did notice that he’d lost the little finger on his left hand.”
On their way back to London both Larry and Diana Ward were absorbed in their own thoughts. The car was threading through the traffic of Westminster Bridge Road before Larry made any reference to their visit.
“Who is in such a frantic hurry to discover all about the Stuarts,” he asked, “and will give fifty pounds for information? And who is his daughter Clarissa, and how can he have a daughter Clarissa, when his only daughter lies at Beverley Manor?”
“You inquired at the stonemason’s when we came through Beverley. Didn’t they tell you anything?” asked the girl.
He nodded.
“The stone was put up by order of Mr. Stuart, who was in the habit of coming to the churchyard every day to sit beside the grave. The memorial was ordered two months ago, and the stone was seen and approved by Gordon Stuart only last week.”
He bit his lip thoughtfully.
“Between last week and the night of his murder Stuart must have discovered that he had another child.” He shook his head. “That sort of thing doesn’t happen,” he said decisively, “not in real life, anyway.”
He spent ten minutes with the Commissioner, and afterwards went into the City, and the girl did not see him till seven o’clock that night. She had had instructions from him that she was not to wait, as it was a Saturday and her office hours ended at one. But she was sitting at her desk, reading, when he came in, and he was so elated that he did not reprove her.
“I’ve got it!” he said exultantly.
“The murderer?” she asked with a start.
“No, no, the story of Stuart. Has there been any reply to my cablegram?”
Diana shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter very much,” he said briskly as he paced the office. “I’ve secured the registration of the marriage. It occurred in August, 1907, and was celebrated at a church in Highgate. Don’t you see what happened?”
“I don’t quite see,” she said slowly.
“Well, I’ll tell you. Gordon Stuart, a young man at the time, was on a visit to this country. I have found that he stayed at the Cecil Hotel from June to August, 1907. He married the girl, whose name was Margaret Wilson, and returned to the Cecil Hotel alone in March, ’08. There is a record there that he left for Canada two days after he came back to the hotel. They keep a book in which they write down the addresses to which letters should be forwarded, and there was no difficulty whatever in tracing his movements so far. Then I went to see the vicar of the church where he was married; and here I had a great find.”
He paused, rumpled his hair, and frowned.
“I really should like to know who is that tall man who has lost the little finger of his left hand,” he said irritably.
“Why?” she asked in surprise.
“He had been there a day before me,” said Larry, and then, shaking off his annoyance: “Here is the story—the story told by Stuart to the vicar, whom he met in the Strand on the day before he sailed for Canada, never to return until he came back eight or nine months ago.
“The vicar married him, and remembered the circumstances very well. He said Stuart was a very nervous and somewhat conceited man, who lived in terror of his father, a rich landowner in Canada. Stuart confessed to him, over a cup of tea which they had together at the Cecil, that he was leaving his wife and going back to Canada to break the news of his marriage to his father. He was in considerable doubt as to what his father would say, or, to be more exact, he had no doubt whatever that the old man would kick up a shine. The impression left on the vicar’s mind was that the old man would disinherit him. To cut a long story short, he said he was leaving London the next day, and at the first opportunity he should tell his father, and then he would return for his wife.
“There’s no doubt in my mind,” Larry went on, “that Stuart did not tell his father, that he kept the secret of his marriage carefully hidden, and in a panic at being found out, he broke off all communication with his wife.”
The girl shook her head.
“One doesn’t want to judge the dead too harshly,” she said, “but it was not a manly thing to do.”
“I agree,” said Larry. “It wasn’t sporting. He must have left his wife a considerable sum of money. At any rate, when the vicar saw her she was in comfortable circumstances and gave him that impression. Stuart left in March. In June, 1908, three months later, his child was born—the child he never saw, and about whom in all probability he never heard until years of remorse worked upon him and he came back to England to find his wife and establish her in the position to which she was entitled.
“He must have employed an inquiry agent. And the end of his quest was a discovery in the churchyard of Beverley Manor—the grave of his wife and his only child.”
“What about Clarissa?” asked the girl, and Larry shrugged.
“That is Mystery No. 2 which has got to be cleared up.”
She was silent, this thoughtful girl, and her pretty brows were wrinkled in perplexity. Presently she put down the pen she had been so assiduously biting, and looked across at him with a slow, triumphant smile, a smile which found a ready response in his face.
“You’ve solved it?” he asked eagerly, and she nodded. “You’ve solved the mystery of Clarissa?”
“I think it’s one of the easiest of the problems to solve,” she said calmly, “and I must have been silly not to have thought of it before. Have you the registration of birth?”
“I haven’t got that; we’re making a search for it to-morrow,” said Larry.
“I can save you the trouble,” replied Diana Ward. “Clarissa is the other twin daughter.”
“Twins!” gasped Larry, and the girl nodded, her eyes dancing with merriment at his surprise.
“Obviously,” she said. “Poor Mrs. Stuart had twin daughters. One of them died; the other is Clarissa, of whom Stuart learnt, perhaps, in the last few hours of his life.”
Larry looked at her in awe.
“When you are Chief Commissioneress of the Metropolitan Police,” he said, “I shall be very obliged to you if you make me your secretary. I feel I have a lot to learn.”
Flash Fred had not left London: he had no intention of leaving London, if the truth be told. He had certain doubts in his mind which he had determined to set at rest, certain obscurities on his horizon which he desired should be dispersed. Flash Fred was a clever man. If he had not been clever, he would not have lived in the excellent style he adopted, nor possessed chambers in Jermyn Street and a motor-brougham to take him to the theatre at night. His working expenses were heavy, but his profits were vast. He had many irons in the fire and burnt himself with none of them—which is the art of success in all walks of life.
On the evening of the day that Larry had made his discovery Flash Fred, in the seclusion and solitude of his ornate sitting room, had elaborated a theory which had followed very close upon a discovery he had made that morning. Men of his temperament and uncertain prospects suffer from a chronic dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction is half the cause of their departure from the straight and narrow path, and is wholly responsible for their undoing. A hundred pounds a month, payable yearly, is a handsome income; but the underworld abhor anything that savours of steadiness, regularity, and system—three qualities which are so associated with prison life that they carry with them a kind of taint particularly distressing to the lag-who-was.
Twelve hundred pounds a year for five years is six thousand pounds, or twenty-four thousand dollars at the present rate of exchange—a respectable sum; but five years represents a big slice taken out of the hectic life of men like Flash Fred. Twelve hundred pounds at best represents only two coups at trente et quarante, and can be lost in three minutes.
Dr. Judd was a collector. It had been reported to Fred that Dr. Judd’s residence at Chelsea was a veritable treasure-house of paintings and antique jewellery. Fred had read a newspaper paragraph that Dr. Judd was the possessor of historical gems worth fifty thousand pounds. Though Fred had no passion for history, he had an eye to the value of precious stones. And the theory he had evolved was in the main arithmetical. If he could get away with ten thousand pounds’ worth of property in twenty-four hours, he would not only have anticipated his income for eight or nine years, but he would be saved the fag of coming to London every twelve months to collect it. Much might happen in twelve months. It might not always be possible for him to make the journey, since prison authorities are notoriously difficult to persuade. Or he might be dead.
To get that movable property would be difficult, because the doctor was hardly the kind of man to leave his property unguarded. Indeed, the ordinary methods of effecting an entrance were repugnant to Fred’s professional feelings. For he gained his livelihood by the cleverness of his tongue and the lightning adjustment of certain brain cells to meet emergencies, and to him a jemmy was an instrument of terror, since it implied work. But there was another method—and once he had made his get-away, would the doctor dare prosecute?
That afternoon, sauntering aimlessly through Piccadilly Circus at the midday hour, he had come face to face with a tall, stoutish man, who, after one glance at him, had attempted to avoid a meeting; but Fred had caught him by the arm and swung him round.
“Why,” he said, “if it isn’t old No. 278! How are you, Strauss?”
Mr. Strauss’s face twitched nervously.
“I think you’ve made a mistake, sir,” he said.
“Come off it,” demanded Fred vulgarly, and, taking him by the arm, led him down Lower Regent Street.
“Excuse my not recognizing you,” said Mr. Strauss nervously, “but I thought at first you were a bull—‘split’ we call them in this country.”
“Well, I’m not,” said Flash Fred. “And how has the old world been treating you, hey? Do you remember G Gallery at Portland, in B Block?”
The face of the stout man twitched again. He did not like being reminded of his prison experience, though in truth he had little against the prisoner who had occupied the adjoining cell.
“How are you getting on?” he asked. And it happened that that morning Flash Fred had gone out without any visible diamonds—he carried them in his hip pocket, for he trusted nobody.
“Bad,” said Fred, which was a lie, but no good crook admits that he is prosperous. Then suddenly: “Why did you think I was a split, Strauss?”
Strauss looked uncomfortable.
“Oh, I just thought so,” he said awkwardly.
“Are you at the old game?”
Fred looked at the other steadily and saw his eyes shift.
“No, I’m going straight now,” he said.
“A liar you are, and a liar you will always be,” said Fred, quoting Larry Holt. “I’ll bet you’re on the way to ‘fence’ something.”
Again the man looked round as though seeking a way of escape; and Fred, who never despised an opportunity, however small, held out a suggestive palm and said laconically, “Drop!”
“Only a few things,” said Mr. Strauss hurriedly. “Things that were given to me or wouldn’t be missed—just odds and ends like. A couple of salt-spoons…” He enumerated his loot.
“Drop!” said Fred again. “I’m hard up and want the money. I’ll take a share and you shall have the money back—one of these days.”
Mr. Strauss dropped, with a curse.
“Come and have a drink,” said Fred briskly, when the transaction had been completed to his satisfaction.
“You’ve left me with about three pounds’ worth,” grumbled the man. “Really, Mr. Grogan, I don’t think you’re fair,” and he looked at the other suspiciously. “And you don’t look as if you’re hard up either.”
“Appearances are deceptive,” said the cheerful Fred, and led the way into a private bar. “What are you now—valet or butler?”
“Butler,” replied Strauss, tossing down a dram. “It’s not a bad place, Mr. Grogan.”
“Call me Fred,” begged Flash Fred.
“It seems a liberty,” said Strauss, and meant it. “I’ve got a butler’s job with a very nice gentleman,” he said.
“Rich?”
Mr. Strauss nodded.
“Yards of it,” he said briefly. “But what’s the good? He knows I’m a lag, and he’s very decent to me.”
Fred was eyeing him narrowly.
“You still dope, I see?” he said, and the man flushed.
“Yes,” he said gruffly, “I take a little stimulant now and again.”
“Well,” said Fred, “who is your boss?”
“You wouldn’t know him.” Mr. Strauss shook his head. “He’s a City gentleman, head of an insurance office.”
“Dr.—Judd?” asked Flash Fred quickly.
“Why, yes,” said the other in surprise. “How did you know?”
They parted soon after, and Flash Fred was a thoughtful man for the rest of the day, and his plans began to take shape toward the evening.
He dressed himself with care after dark, and strolled Strandwards, for he numbered amongst his other accomplishments that of an experienced squire of dames. He had a ready smile for the solitary girl hurrying homewards, and though the rebuffs were many, such conquests as he had to his credit added to the pleasures of memory. Between St. Martin’s Church and the corner of the Strand he drew blank, for such girls as he saw were unattractive or were escorted. Opposite Morley’s Hotel he saw a peach.
He caught one glimpse of her under a light-standard and was transfixed by the rare beauty of her face. She was alone, and Fred swung round and in two strides had overtaken her.
“Haven’t we met before?” he asked, raising his hat, but asked no more. Somebody caught him by the collar and jerked him back.
“Fred, I shall really have to be severe with you,” said the hated voice of Larry Holt, and Fred developed an instant grievance.
“Haven’t you got a home to go to?” he wailed, and continued his journey to the Strand in a bitter mood, for the romance had been shaken out of him, and he could still feel the knuckles of the shaker at the back of his neck.
* * * * *
The girl passed on, unconscious of the fact that Larry Holt had been behind her. It was not an unusual experience to be spoken to in the street, and she had grown hardened to that also.
She lived above a tobacconist’s shop in the Charing Cross Road, and Larry saw her open the side door and go into the dark passage; he waited for a few minutes, then continued his walk.
This girl had made an extraordinary impression upon him. He told himself that it was not her delicate beauty, or anything about her that was feminine, but that it was her genius, her extraordinary reasoning faculties which attracted him; and, to do him justice, he believed this. He was not a susceptible man. Beautiful women he had known, on both sides of the border line which separates the good from the bad, the honest from the criminal. He had had minor affairs in his youth, but had come through those fiery dreams unscorched and unmarked by his experiences.
So he told himself. It was extraordinary that it was necessary to tell himself anything; but there was the indisputable fact that he spent a great deal of his spare time in arguing out his attitude of mind toward Diana Ward. And he had known her something over twenty-four hours!
Diana Ward was not thinking of Larry as she went into her flat. Her mind was wholly occupied by the problems which the Stuart case presented. She felt that, if the missing Clarissa were found, they would be on the high road to discovering the cause of Stuart’s death and the reason for this hideous crime.
She slammed the door and went up the dark and narrow stairs slowly. The upper part of the tobacconist’s was let off in three flats, and she occupied the highest and the cheapest. The tenants of the other two were, she knew, spending the week-end in the country. The first floor was occupied by a bachelor Civil servant, a hearty man whose parties occasionally kept her awake at night; the second floor by a newspaper artist and his wife; and she had no reason to complain of her neighbours.
She had reached the second landing, her foot was on the stairs of the final two flights, when she stopped. She thought she had heard a noise, the faint creak of a sound which she had felt rather than heard. She waited a second, and then smiled at her nervousness. She had heard these creaks and whispers before on the dark stairs, but had overcome her timidity to discover that they were purely imaginary. Nevertheless, she walked up a little more slowly and reached the landing from whence rose a short flight of stairs to her own apartments. The landing was a broad one, and as she turned, with one hand on the banisters, she put out the other in a spirit of bravado as though she groped for some hidden intruder.
And then her blood turned to water, for her hand had touched the coat of a man! She screamed, but instantly a hand, a big unwholesome hand, covered her face, and she was drawn slowly backward. She fought and struggled with all her might, but the man who held her had almost superhuman strength, and the arm about her was like a vise. Then, suddenly, she went limp, and momentarily the arm that held her relaxed.
“Fainted, have ye?” said a harsh voice, and as a hand came feeling down for her face, the other arm relaxed a little more.
With a sudden dart the girl broke free, ran up the remaining stairs and opened and slammed the door. There was a key on the inside and this she turned with a heart full of gratitude that she had never locked her bedroom door from the outside. She flew across the room, stopping only to switch on the lights, pulled out a drawer and took from its depths a small revolver. Diana Ward came from a stock which was not easily scared, and, though her heart was pounding painfully, she ran back at the door and flung it open.
She stood for the space of a few seconds. She heard a stealthy footstep on the stairs and fired. There was a roar of fear and a blunder of feet down the stairs. Only for a moment did she hesitate, and then raced down the stairway in pursuit. She heard the thump of feet on the landing lower down, heard the rattle of the door, and came down the last flight to find it open and nobody in sight.
Concealing the revolver in a fold of her dress, she stepped out into the Charing Cross Road. At this hour there were few pedestrians, and she looked round for some sign of her assailant. A light motor-van was driving away, and the only person she saw near at hand was an old blind man. The iron ferrule of his stick came “tap-tap-tap,” as he stumbled painfully along.
“Pity the blind,” he wailed; “pity the poor blind!”
“Sunny,” said Larry to his servitor, “London is a terrible city.”
“Indeed it is, sir,” said Mr. Patrick Sunny.
“But it has one bright, radiant feature which redeems it from utter desolation and abomination.”
“I think you’re right, sir,” said Sunny. “I’ve often noticed that myself, sir. I’m very fond of the picture houses myself.”
“I’m not talking about the picture houses,” snapped Larry. “Nothing is further from my thoughts than the cinema houses. I am talking of something different, something spiritual.”
“Would you like a whisky and soda, sir?” asked Sunny, at last securing a tangible line.
“Get out!” roared Larry, bubbling with laughter. “Get out, you horrible materialist! Go to the pictures.”
“Yes, sir,” said Sunny, “but it’s rather late.”
“Then go to bed,” said Larry. “Stop a bit. Bring me my writing-case.”
He was wearing his favourite indoor kit, a dressing-gown, a pair of old cricketing trousers, and a soft shirt, and now he filled his polished brier with a sense of physical well-being.
“Believe me, Sunny,” said Larry Holt impressively, “there are many worse places than London on a bright spring day, when your heart——”
There was a faint rat-tat-tat on the outer door. “A visitor at this time of night!” said Larry in surprise. It could not be from Scotland Yard, because Scotland Yard use the telephone freely, a little too freely sometimes.
“I think there’s somebody at the door, sir,” said Sunny.
“That’s a fine bit of reasoning on your part,” said Larry. “Open it.”
He waited and heard a brief exchange of questions. The visitor was a woman; and before he could guess who it was, the door opened and Diana Ward came in. He saw by her face that something had happened, and went to meet her.
“What is the matter?” he asked quickly. “That man didn’t follow you?”
“What man?” she demanded in surprise.
“Flash Fred.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know whether it was Flash Fred,” she said grimly, “but if he is somebody particularly unpleasant, it was probably he.”
“Sit down. Would you like some coffee? I’m just going to have a cup. Sunny, get two coffees.”
“Yes, sir,” said Sunny, and then, significantly, “Do you want me to go out to the pictures, sir?”
Larry blushed angrily.
“Get some coffee, you—you—you——” he spluttered. “Now, what is it?”
The girl told the story of her adventure without preliminary. Larry listened with a serious face.
“You say he was big? That rules out Flash Fred,” he said. “Do you think it was a burglar—somebody who had broken in and whom your arrival interrupted?”
“I don’t think so,” she shook her head. “In fact, I know that it was a much more serious attack. When I got back to my flat, I went through all the rooms. In the dining room, the room to which I would have gone first in ordinary circumstances, I found a long laundry basket.”
“A laundry basket?” he repeated in surprise.
She nodded.
“It was lined with a sort of quilting, very thick, and the lid was padded in the same way. Inside of it was this.”
She laid down the object she had been carrying. It looked like an airman’s cap, except that there was no opening for the mouth.
He took it up and sniffed, though there was no need for this, for he had noticed the sweet scent when she had come into the room.
“It is saturated in chloroform,” he said. “Of course, this would not make you entirely insensible, but it would have quieted you.”
He paced the room, his hands in his pockets, his chin on his chest.
“Did you find anything else?”
“When I got out into the street,” she said, “a laundry van was just moving off. I noticed it particularly, because I thought all the time that the word ‘laundry’—and that was all the inscription the van bore—had been written by an amateur, and very badly done.”
“I can’t understand it,” said Larry, bewildered. “The brute couldn’t have got you away. He must have had some assistants in the house.”
“I don’t agree with you,” she said quietly. “This man was terribly strong. I felt like an infant in his arms, and it would have been a very simple matter for him to slide the basket down the stairs and carry it out across the pavement with the help of the man who was driving the van.”
“But why you?” he asked, bewildered. “Why should they bother about you?”
She did not reply immediately.
“I am wondering,” she said at last, “whether I have by accident stumbled upon some clue which incriminates the Stuart murderers. Perhaps, without knowing that I have such a clue, I am in possession of information which they wish to suppress.”
Larry was very thoughtful.
“Just wait here a little while and I’ll change,” he said, and disappeared from the room.
The girl looked round the cosy flat appreciatively and Sunny came in, bearing a tray, first stopping outside the door to cough loudly, to the intense annoyance of Larry, who heard him from the other room.
“Will you have sugar, miss?” asked Sunny solemnly, and when she nodded: “Some ladies don’t like sugar. It makes them fat.”
“I’m not very much afraid of getting fat,” she smiled.
“No, ma’am, you wouldn’t be,” said Sunny agreeably.
On the way to the flat she asked Larry laughingly if Sunny agreed with everything he said.
“With everything I’ve ever said,” said Larry. “He drives me to despair sometimes. I have yet to find the subject upon which Sunny has an independent, definite opinion.”
Later he was to discover there was at least one matter in which Sunny had a mind of his own, but that time was distant.
They came to the apartment in Charing Cross Road, and Larry began his search. He had brought a flash lamp with him, and inspected every stair, without, however, coming upon a single clue that would identify the mysterious assailant.
“Now we’ll have a look at your room.”
He examined the laundry basket, which the girl had exactly described.
“Nothing new here,” he said. “See if anything is missing.”
She made an independent search and came back to him in the sitting room with a puzzled face.
“My green coat, an overcoat I wear, and a hat have disappeared.”
“A distinctive hat?” he asked quickly.
“What do you mean by a distinctive hat?” she asked in surprise.
“Is it rather striking?”
“It is rather,” she smiled. “It is a golden-yellow hat which I wear with my green coat.”
He nodded.
“Have you worn it to the Yard?” he asked.
“Often,” she replied in surprise.
“Then that’s it,” said he. “Come down with me. I don’t want to leave you alone.”
She followed him into the street, and he went into the nearest telephone booth and rang up Scotland Yard and got the officer on duty at the door.
“Has Miss Ward been in to-night? It is Inspector Holt speaking,” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” was the reply. “She’s just gone out.”
Larry groaned.
“But I haven’t been to Scotland Yard,” she said in surprise.
“Somebody has impersonated you!” he said shortly.
They were in the grim building on the Thames Embankment within a few minutes, and the door of 47 was apparently untampered with. He opened the door and switched on the lights.
“Oh, yes,” he said softly, for the doors of the cupboard wherein he had kept the clues concerning the death of Stuart hung broken upon their hinges.
He pulled out the tray and gave a rapid glance at its contents.
The Braille writing had disappeared!
He lifted the telephone, and presently:
“Send the first two officers in the building,” he said, “and a messenger, quick!”
The girl was watching interestedly. Now she saw the real Larry Holt, the man of whom it is said by the Commissioner that “he slept trailing.” At his request, she stood outside the open door whilst he conducted an investigation. The light jemmy which the intruder had used he had not troubled to take away. It lay on the floor, and he picked it up with a piece of paper and carried it to the light.
A short thread of cotton adhered to its rough end which meant that its user had worn cotton gloves to avoid finger prints. His only hope was the tray. It was a flat glass tray with wicker sides and handles, and he knew that if the gloves came off anywhere it would be here; for a person unaccustomed to working in gloves would remove them to examine the smaller objects. And his surmise was right. When he breathed on the polished back of the gold watch, a distinct thumb print was visible.
By this time two officers had arrived.
“Is there a man on duty in the print department?” asked Larry.
“Yes, sir,” replied the officer.
“Take this watch down. Hold it by the stem. If he cannot bring up the print by powder I want it photographed and verified within the next hour.”
The burglar had made another faux pas. Larry had pulled out the waste-paper basket without disturbing its contents and had taken out three screwed-up pieces of paper, two of which proved to be nothing more important than memoranda in Diana’s writing. The third, however, was a plan of the room, drawn in ink by a skilful hand, the cupboard being marked and the positions of the desks shown.
“They thought there were three cupboards here,” said Larry, pointing. “There is one supposed to be on the left of the fireplace,” he looked up and raised his eyebrows. “By Jingo, they’re right!” he said. “And another behind the door.” He looked and nodded. “They know this room much better than I do, Miss Ward,” he said, and looked at the paper again. “The man who drew this has a knowledge of architectural drawing,” said he. “I think we’d better have a safe and a bodyguard,” he added bitterly.
Somebody appeared in the doorway. It was Sir John Hason, who sometimes returned to his office at night to take advantage of the quiet and freedom from interruption which the evening hours afforded.
“What has happened, Larry?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing,” said Larry airily, “only a burglar has broken into Scotland Yard! Don’t you think we ought to send for the police?” he asked sardonically, and Sir John grinned. But the smile came off his face instantly.
“They haven’t taken the Stuart clues, have they?”
“The only clue that matters,” replied Larry. “It would be a good idea if we brought some Boy Scouts into this building to look after our movable property!”
“I like you when you’re funny,” said the Commissioner, but he was serious. “We’ll have the doorkeeper up.”
The doorkeeper, when he came, could give no satisfactory explanation, except that he had thought it was Miss Ward who had passed. It was the practice to call the number of the room when its occupants came in for duty, and this was also the custom after office hours. The visitor had said “47,” and had been allowed to pass unchallenged.
“There have been no strangers here, have there?” asked Larry.
“No,” said the girl, and then: “There was a blind man here this afternoon: you remember, you wanted to see the instruments these poor people use, and I asked the little old man who sells matches on the Embankment to come up.”
Larry remembered.
“At any rate, he couldn’t have made a plan of the room,” he said.
“The system seems to be a little bit groggy,” said Sir John when the doorkeeper had gone. “We can’t really blame this man. It is our own fault.”
“There’s hardly enough light in the main hall to read a newspaper placard,” complained Larry. “Here is the finger-print gentleman.”
The officer who came up had a broad smile: the smile of a man who had justified his hobby.
“Got it first time, sir,” he said. “Fanny Weldon, 280 Coram Street. Here’s her record.” He handed the card to Larry.
“Twice gaoled for impersonation,” he read. “That’s the woman. But how did she come into this game?”
The officer who had taken the watch away, and who now restored it, supplied the information.
“Fanny’s a queer woman, sir,” he said. “She hasn’t a spark of originality, and she’s had all her trouble through helping other people in their schemes. Big Joe Jaket employed her to impersonate Miss Lottie Home, the actress, about two years ago; and then she was employed by somebody else to impersonate a barmaid whilst the landlord was away, when the Mannic gang cleared out three thousand from the Hotel Victor Hugo.”
Larry was sitting at the table, his chin in his palm, thinking.
“That is what has happened,” he said. “These people have got track of all the crooks in London, and it’s just as likely they’ve employed Fanny. No. 280 Coram Street, I think you said? We’ll see what Fanny has to say for herself.”
He did not see Fanny until daylight. No. 280 Coram Street was a corner house, apparently rented out in rooms. Soon after daybreak a cab drew up to the kerb outside the door and a woman stepped out and paid the driver. As she walked to the door, Larry came behind her and took her arm. She turned round with an exclamation of fright. She was a pretty woman with a shrewish mouth.
“Here, what are you doing?” she asked in alarm.
“You’re coming for a little walk with me,” said Larry.
“Is it a cop?” she asked, going pale.
“A fair cop,” said Larry, and, still holding her elbow, led her to the nearest police station, where Diana and his officers were waiting.
On the way to the station she bewailed her fate.
“This comes of being obliging,” she said bitterly. “What’s the charge?”
“Sacrilege,” said Larry solemnly, and she was astonished.
“Sacrilege? What do you mean? Breaking into a church or something?”
“Breaking into Scotland Yard,” said Larry.
She drew a long breath.
“Then it is a cop!” she said.
“You’ve said it,” replied her captor.
They put her in the steel pen, but not before she had been searched by one of the woman attendants. The search produced £150 in bank-notes, which Fanny, who had now recovered her good spirits, insisted should be counted.
“I’ve lost things in police stations before,” she said significantly.
She was not taken to the cells, but in a little waiting room Larry and Diana interviewed her. And the presence of Diana was a source of great interest to the prisoner.
“You’ve brought your young lady along, I see?” she said flippantly. She was gamine right through, despite her smart clothes and her elaborate jewellery. “Is this the lady I ‘took off’?”
“She’s the identical lady,” said Larry. “Now, Fanny, I’m going to talk to you like a father.”
“Go ahead and don’t mind me,” said Fanny recklessly. “But I can tell you that I’ve been going straight for months,” and Larry grinned.
“I should like to draw a line alongside that straight course of yours,” he said. “It’d be a bit bumpy. Fanny, I’m going to give you a chance. And I shall be perfectly frank with you. Scotland Yard doesn’t want the world to know that a female hook has broken in under its nose and pinched certain articles of value.”
The woman laughed softly, and, catching Diana’s eye, winked.
“It takes a woman to do that sort of thing, eh, dearie?” she asked. “Proceed with your story, Mr. Busy Fellow. But if you think I’m going to give anybody away, why, you’re making a mistake.”
“You will give away just what I want you to give away,” said Larry sharply. “You are going to tell me who employed you to do this job.”
She shook her head.
“You will also tell me who was the man to whom you handed the stuff, and where.”
Again she shook her head, but she was in a good humour.
“There is no use in asking me questions,” she said. “I’m not going to answer. You can put me into the cell just as soon as you like, and save yourself a lot of trouble.”
“I’ll put you into the cell after I’ve charged you,” said Larry quietly, and the woman looked up sharply.
“You have charged me with breaking and entering,” she said.
“That is not the crime which I shall bring against you,” said Larry. “If I get no satisfaction from you now I shall take you back to the pen and charge you with being an accessory to the murder of Gordon Stuart on the night of the twenty-third of April.”
She looked at him, speechless.
“Murder?” she repeated. “Good Gawd! You don’t mean that I’m in——”
“You’re in bad,” said Larry. “You’re assisting murderers to escape the processes of justice. You were employed to steal a very important clue which the police held, and which might have led to the conviction of the murderer—and that is sufficient offence to bring you under the gravest suspicion.”
She was serious now.
“Do you mean that?” she asked.
“I do indeed,” said Larry earnestly. “See here, Fanny, I don’t want you to think I’m kidding you. I’m giving it you as straight as it’s possible for one human being to give a thing to another. You went out to steal the clue which might have led to the arrest of the murderers.”
“What is your name?” she asked.
“I am Inspector Larry Holt,” and she gasped.
“Suffering Moses! Then I am in bad!” she said. “I thought you were abroad. Now, Mr. Holt, I’ll tell you. I’ve heard a lot about you, and I’m told that you always play straight with a hook. I knew nothing about this job until yesterday afternoon, and then I had a telephone call asking me to meet Big Jake, or Blind Jake as they call him.”
“Blind Jake?” repeated Larry, to whom the name was new, and then he recalled the blind match-seller on the Embankment who had come to his office—but it could not be he. Diana had said he was a small man.
“Your men know all about him, Mr. Holt,” Fanny hesitated. “He’s a wicked man. Now, that sounds funny coming from me; but if you know what I mean, he’s just wicked. I’m scared to death of Blind Jake, and there isn’t a hook in London who isn’t. He’s been inside twice: once for unlawfully wounding and once for being in possession of property. There used to be three of ’em, all hooks together, and all blind! We used to call ’em the Blind Eyes of London, because they could get about quicker than you, and in a fog they’d beat the best detectives that ever lived, because fog never means anything to them. Blind Jake used to be the boss of the three, and then one of ’em disappeared and I heard he was dead. We never heard much about them for twelve months, and then Blind Jake turned up again with yards of money. I believe he is working for a big boss.”
“Well, you met Blind Jake?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “He gave me the plan——”
“Not his own—he couldn’t draw,” interrupted Larry.
“Not him,” said the woman contemptuously. “No, he brought the plan with him. I’ve got it somewhere. Maybe it’s in the bag you’ve taken.”
“Don’t worry about the plan,” said Larry. “I found that in the office.”
“Well, Blind Jake told me how to go about it, said he would give me a coat and a hat that this young lady always wore when she went to the Yard, and I got instructions that I was to say ‘47’ when I went into the room, and run upstairs quick.”
“What were you told to get?”
“A little roll of brown paper,” said the woman. “They told me where it was and almost how it was placed in the tray.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I can’t guess how they knew.”
“I can,” said Larry, and turned to the girl. “The little old match-seller recovered his sight! Where can I find Blind Jake?” he asked the woman.
“You won’t find him,” she said, shaking her head. “He never comes out by day—at least, very seldom.”
“What is he like in appearance?”
“Very big and as strong as an ox.”
Diana uttered an exclamation.
“Has he a beard?” she asked.
“Yes, miss,” said the woman. “A little grayish kind of beard.”
“It was the man on the stairs,” said Diana. “I am certain of it.”
Larry nodded.
“Well,” he said, addressing the woman, “when did you hand over the stuff?”
“About two o’clock this morning. That was the time he said I was to meet him at the lower end of Arundel Street in the Strand, near the Embankment. And a pretty fine temper he was in, too.”
“Do you know where he lives?” asked Larry.
She shook her head.
“Years ago they used to live in Todd’s Home,” she said. “That’s an institute in Lissom Lane, Paddington, where they used to look after the blind hawkers. But I don’t think he’s there now.”
Larry took the woman back to the charge room.
“You can release her on my recognizance,” he said. “Fanny, you will report to me to-morrow morning at Scotland Yard at ten o’clock.”
“Yes, sir,” said Fanny. “What about my money?”
Larry thought a moment.
“You can take that,” he said.
“If anybody tells me,” said Fanny, as she collected and counted her notes with offensive care, “that the police are dishonest, I shall have something to say.”
“My dear,” said Larry gently, “you really must go home and go to bed.”
Diana shook her head laughingly.
“I really am not tired, Mr. Holt,” she said. “Won’t you let me go along with you? You know, you promised to keep me in this case.”
“I didn’t promise to keep you up all night,” he said good-humouredly, “and you’re looking a wreck. I don’t think I shall do anything much more this morning—except sleep,” said he. “Now, off you go. There’s a providential taxi crawling this way,” he said, and whistled.
She was feeling desperately tired, and she knew his words were the words of wisdom. But she made one last ineffectual protest. Larry was adamant. The cab drew up and he opened the door for her.
“Sergeant Harvey will go home with you,” he said, and drew Harvey aside. “Go upstairs to Miss Ward’s room, search it thoroughly, and remain on duty on the lower landing until you’re relieved.”
He watched the cab out of sight, then turned to the second officer who had accompanied him.
“Now, sergeant,” he said, “I think we will investigate Todd’s Home.”
It was some time before they found another taxi, and Larry had a constitutional objection to walking. Six o’clock was booming out from the church towers when the cab put them down before Todd’s Home. It was a bleak, unlovely house, the windows covered with blue-wash. A long black board, covering the width of the house, was inscribed in faded gold letters: “Todd’s Home for the Indigent Blind.”
Larry expected he would have some difficulty in making the inmates hear, but he was mistaken; for hardly had he knocked when the door was opened by a little man.
“That’s not Toby and not Harry and not Old Joe,” he said loudly. “Who is it?”
Larry saw that he was blind.
“I want to see the superintendent,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” said the man in a tone of respect. “Just wait here, will you?”
He went down a long passage full of turns and angles, so that he disappeared from sight, and presently they heard him shuffling back in his slippered feet, and behind him walked a tall man wearing a white clerical collar. His eyes were covered with dark blue glasses, and he, too, felt his way along the passage.
“Won’t you please come in?” he said in an educated voice. He was a man of powerful build, and his clean-shaven face denoted a strength of character out of the ordinary. “I am John Dearborn—the Rev. John Dearborn,” he explained as he led the way. “We have few visitors here, alas! I’m afraid Todd’s Home is not very popular.”
He did not speak resentfully but cheerfully, and as one who had a great spirit. Nor did he make allusion to the early hour they had chosen.
“It is a little farther along, gentlemen,” he said. “I know there are two of you because I can hear your footsteps. Mind the step—this way.”
He pushed open a door and they went in. The room was cosily furnished, and the first thing that Larry noticed was the bare condition of the walls; and then he remembered, with a little pang, that the blind have no need for pictures.
A curious little instrument stood by the side of the table, which was the principal article of furniture in the room, and a tiny wheel was spinning as they came in. The superintendent walked unerringly to the machine. There was the snap of a button and the wheel ceased to revolve.
“This is my dictating machine,” he explained, turning to them with a smile. “I am engaged in literary work, and I can dictate to this cylinder, which is then transferred to an operator who types from my voice.”
Larry expressed polite interest.
“Now, gentlemen,” said the Rev. John Dearborn as he seated himself, “to what am I indebted for the honour of this visit?”
“I am an officer from Scotland Yard,” said Larry, “and my name is Holt.”
The other inclined his head.
“I hope none of my unfortunate men have been getting into trouble?” he asked.
“I don’t exactly know yet,” said Larry. “At present, I am searching for a man called Blind Jake.”
“Blind Jake?” repeated the other slowly. “I don’t think we have had such a name in the Home since I have been in charge. I’ve been here for four years,” he explained. “It used to be run, and very badly run, by a man who got together quite the worst type of blind men in London. You know that the blind are wonderful and heroic, and the majority of them are positively an inspiration to those who have sight. But there are a class of men so afflicted who are the scum of the earth. You have probably heard of the Dark Eyes?”
“Not until this morning,” said Larry, and the other nodded.
“We have got rid of those people, and we have now very respectable old hawkers who come here, where everything is done for them. You would like to see the home?”
“You don’t know Blind Jake?”
“I have never heard of him,” said the Rev. John Dearborn, “but if you will come with me, we will make inquiries.”
The Home consisted of four dormitories and a common room; and in this latter, reeking with tobacco smoke, sat the inmates of the Home. Larry looked round and could scarcely repress a shiver.
“Just one moment,” said Mr. Dearborn, when he had ushered the two men into the passage. He returned shortly, shaking his head.
“Nobody there knows Blind Jake, though one has heard of him.”
They ascended to the first dormitory.
“I don’t suppose you want to see any more,” said Mr. Dearborn.
Larry raised his head.
“I thought I heard somebody groaning.”
“Yes, yes, a sad case,” said the superintendent. “There are cubicles upstairs for those men who can afford to pay a little more than their fellows. In one of them we have a man who, I fear, is going out of his mind. I have had to report the case to the local authorities.”
“May we go upstairs?” asked Larry.
“With pleasure,” said the Rev. Dearborn, after a moment’s hesitation. “The only thing I am afraid of,” he said as he led the way, “is that the language of this man will distress you.”
In a little cubicle lay a wizened man of sixty, who tossed desperately to and fro in his bed, and all the time he was talking, talking to some invisible person. And Larry, watching him, wondered.
“Brute! Coward!” muttered the man on the bed. “You’ll swing for it, mark my words! You’ll swing for it!”
“It is very terrible,” said the Rev. John Dearborn, turning away and shaking his head. “This way, gentlemen.”
But Larry did not move.
“All right, Jake, you’ll suffer, too! Mark my words, you’ll suffer! Let them do their dirty work! I didn’t put the paper in his pocket, I tell you.”
Larry took a step into the cubicle, and, bending over, shook the man.
“Let go my arm, you’re hurting it,” said the man on the bed, and Larry released his hold.
“Wake up,” he said, “I want to speak to you.”
But the man went talking on, and Larry shook him again.
“Leave me alone,” growled the old man. “I don’t want to have any more trouble.”
“What is your name?” asked Larry.
“I don’t want any more trouble,” said the man.
“He’s quite delirious,” said John Dearborn. “He is under the impression that he’s accused of a practical joke on one of his friends downstairs.”
“But he said ‘Jake,’ ” said Larry.
“There is a Jake below—Jake Horley. Would you like to see him? He’s a little fellow and rather amusing.”
Disappointed, Larry walked down the stairs and took farewell of his conductor.
“I am very glad to have had a visit from the police,” said John Dearborn. “I only wish that we could persuade other people to come to us. You have seen some of our work and some of the difficulties with which we are faced. Before you go,” he added, “perhaps you will tell me why you are seeking Blind Jake? The men will be consumed with curiosity to know the reason for this police visit.”
“That is easy to satisfy,” smiled Larry. “There is a charge against him made by a woman to the effect that she was employed by him to commit a felony.”
The police officer who was with him gasped, for it is not the practice of the police to give away their informants.
Larry opened the door himself and paused with his hand upon the handle.
“Pardon my asking what may be a very painful question, Mr. Dearborn,” he said gently. “Are you afflicted——?”
“Oh, yes,” said the other cheerfully, “I am quite blind. I wear these glasses from sheer vanity. I think they improve my appearance.” He laughed softly.
“Good-bye,” said Larry, shaking his disengaged hand, and then he pulled the door open and came face to face with Flash Fred.
Flash Fred was dumbfounded, and he walked backwards down the few steps at some peril to himself. Larry surveyed him, his head on one side, like an inquisitive hen.
“Are you following me or am I following you?” he asked gently. “And why this early rising, Fred? Have you been out all night at your—business?”
For once Fred had no words. He had walked all the way from Jermyn Street to Paddington, and had been very careful to see that he had not been followed. At last he found his voice.
“So it was a trap, was it?” he said bitterly. “I might have guessed it. But you’ve got nothing on me, Mr. Holt.”
“I have several things on you,” said Larry pleasantly. He had unconsciously closed the door of the Home behind him. “I don’t like your face, I don’t like your jewels, I positively loathe your record. What is the idea, Fred? Have you called to deliver a contribution? Is your conscience pricking you?”
“Stow that stuff, Mr. Holt,” growled Fred, and to Larry’s surprise began walking away with him.
“Aren’t you going to the Home?” he asked.
“No, I’m not,” snapped Fred.
They walked on in silence, Fred between the two police officers, and his thoughts were very busy. They had reached the broad thoroughfare of Edgware Road before he had completed his mental exoneration.
“I don’t know what you’ve got me for. You can’t pinch me for ancient ’istory.”
In moments of perturbation Fred suffered certain lapses of style.
“History,” corrected Larry. “For the matter of that, I don’t know why you’re with us. But since you’ve forced yourself upon us, and since there’s nobody to see the disgraceful company I keep, I will endure you.”