THE GREAT ATTEMPT
There are supercilious critics who sneer at Scotland Yard. They are
quite unofficial critics, of course, writers of stories wherein figure
amateur detectives of abnormal perspicuity, unraveling mysteries with
consummate ease which have baffled the police for years. As a matter of
fact, Scotland Yard stands for the finest police organization in the
world. People who speak glibly of “police blunders” might remember one
curious fact: in this last quarter of a century only one man has ever
stood in the dock at the Old Bailey under the capital charge who has
escaped the dread sentence of the law.
Scotland Yard is patiently slow and terribly sure.
Angel in his little room received a letter written in a sprawling,
uneducated hand; it was incoherent and stained with tears and
underlined from end to end. He read it through and examined the date
stamp, then rang his bell.
The messenger who answered him found him examining a map of London. “Go
to the Record Office, and get E.B. 93,” he said, and in five minutes
the messenger came back with a thick folder bulging with papers.
There were newspaper cuttings and plans and dreadful photographs, the
like of which the outside world do not see, and there was a little
key ticketed with an inscription. Angel looked through the _dossier_
carefully, then read the woman’s letter again....
Vinnis, the man with the dead-white face, finishing his late breakfast,
and with the pleasurable rustle of new banknotes in his trouser pocket,
strolled forth into Commercial Road, E. An acquaintance leaning against
a public-house gave him a curt nod of recognition; a bedraggled girl
hurrying homeward with her man’s breakfast in her apron shrank on one
side, knowing Vinnis to her sorrow; a stray cur cringed up to him, as
he stood for a moment at the edge of the road, and was kicked for its
pains.
Vinnis was entirely without sentiment, and besides, even though the
money in his pocket compensated for most things, the memory of old
George and his babbling talk worried him.
Somebody on the other side of the road attracted his attention. It was
a woman, and he knew her very well, therefore he ignored her beckoning
hand. Two days ago he had occasion to reprove her, and he had seized
the opportunity to summarily dissolve the informal union that had kept
them together for five years. So he made no sign when the woman with
the bruised face called him, but turned abruptly and walked towards
Aldgate.
He did not look round, but by and by he heard the patter of her feet
behind, and once his name called hoarsely. He struck off into a side
street with a raging devil inside him, then when they reached an
unfrequented part of the road he turned on her.
She saw the demon in his eyes, and tried to speak. She was a penitent
woman at that moment, and hysterically ripe for confession, but the
savage menace of the man froze her lips.
“So,” he said, his thin mouth askew, “so after what I’ve said an’ what
I’ve done you follow me, do you. Showing me up in the street, eh!”
He edged closer to her, his fist doubled, and she, poor drab,
fascinated by the snakelike glare of his dull eyes, stood rooted to
the spot. Then with a snarl he struck her--once, twice--and she fell a
huddled, moaning heap on the pavement.
You may do things in Commercial Road, E., after “lighting-up time”
that are not permissible in the broad light of the day, unless it be
Saturday, and the few people who had been attracted by the promise of a
row were indignant but passive, after the manner of all London crowds.
Not so one quiet, middle-aged man, who confronted Vinnis as he began to
walk away.
“That was a particularly brutal thing to do,” said the quiet man.
Vinnis measured him with his eye, and decided that this was not a man
to be trifled with.
“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” he said roughly, and tried to push
past, but an iron grip was on his arm.
“Wait a moment, my friend,” said the other steadily, “not so fast; you
cannot commit a brutal assault in the open street like that without
punishment. I must ask you to walk with me to the station.”
“Suppose I won’t go?” demanded Vinnis.
“I shall take you,” said the other. “I am Detective-Sergeant Jarvis
from Scotland Yard.”
Vinnis thought rapidly. There wasn’t much chance of escape; the street
they were in was a cul-de-sac, and at the open end two policemen had
made their appearance. After all, a “wife” assault was not a serious
business, and the woman--well, she would swear it was an accident. He
resolved to go quietly; at the worst it would be a month, so with a
shrug of his shoulders he accompanied the detective. A small crowd
followed them to the station.
In the little steel dock he stood in his stockinged feet whilst a deft
jailer ran his hands over him. With a stifled oath, he remembered the
money in his possession; it was only ten pounds, for he had secreted
the other, but ten pounds is a lot of money to be found on a person
of his class, and generally leads to embarrassing inquiries. To his
astonishment, the jailer who relieved him of the notes seemed in no
whit surprised, and the inspector at the desk took the discovery
as a matter of course. Vinnis remarked on the surprising number of
constables there were on duty in the charge room. Then--
“What is the charge?” asked the inspector, dipping his pen.
“Wilful murder!” said a voice, and Angel Esquire crossed the room from
the inspector’s office. “I charge this man with having on the night of
the 17th of February....”
Vinnis, dumb with terror and rage, listened to the crisp tones of
the detective as he detailed the particulars of an almost forgotten
crime. It was the story of a country house burglary, a man-servant who
surprised the thief, a fight in the dark, a shot and a dead man lying
in the big drawing-room. It was an ordinary little tragedy, forgotten
by everybody save Scotland Yard; but year by year unknown men had
pieced together the scraps of evidence that had come to them; strand
by strand had the rope been woven that was to hang a cold-blooded
murderer; last of all came the incoherent letter from a jealous
woman--Scotland Yard waits always for a jealous woman--and the evidence
was complete.
“Put him in No. 14,” said the inspector. Then Vinnis woke up, and the
six men on duty in the charge room found their time fully occupied.
* * * * *
Vinnis was arrested, as Angel Esquire put it, “in the ordinary way of
business.” Hundreds of little things happen daily at Scotland Yard
in the ordinary way of business which, apparently unconnected one
with the other, have an extraordinary knack of being in some remote
fashion related. A burglary at Clapham was remarkable for the fact
that a cumbersome mechanical toy was carried away in addition to other
booty. A street accident in the Kingsland Road led to the arrest of a
drunken carman. In the excitement of the moment a sneak-thief purloined
a parcel from the van, was chased and captured. A weeping wife at
the police station gave him a good character as husband and father.
“Only last week he brought my boy a fine performin’ donkey.” An alert
detective went home with her, recognized the mechanical toy from the
description, and laid by the heels the notorious “Kingsland Road Lot.”
The arrest of Vinnis was totally unconnected with Angel’s
investigations into the mystery of Reale’s millions. He knew him as a
“Borough man,” but did not associate him with the search for the word.
None the less, there are certain formalities attached to the arrest of
all bad criminals. Angel Esquire placed one or two minor matters in the
hands of subordinates, and in two days one of these waited upon him in
his office.
“The notes, sir,” said the man, “were issued to Mr. Spedding on his
private account last Monday morning. Mr. Spedding is a lawyer, of the
firm of Spedding, Mortimer and Larach.”
“Have you seen Mr. Spedding?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. Mr. Spedding remembers drawing the money and paying it away
to a gentleman who was sailing to America.”
“A client?”
“So far as I can gather,” said the subordinate, “the money was paid on
behalf of a client for services. Mr. Spedding would not particularize.”
Angel Esquire made a little grimace.
“Lawyers certainly do queer things,” he said dryly.
“Does Mr. Spedding offer any suggestion as to how the money came into
this man’s possession?”
“No, sir. He thinks he might have obtained it quite honestly. I
understand that the man who received the money was a shady sort of
customer.”
“So I should imagine,” said Angel Esquire.
Left alone, he sat in deep thought drawing faces on his blotting-pad.
Then he touched a bell.
“Send Mr. Carter to me,” he directed, and in a few minutes a
bright-faced youth, fingering an elementary mustache, was awaiting his
orders.
“Carter,” said Angel cautiously, “it must be very dull work in the
finger-print department.”
“I don’t know, sir,” said the other, a fairly enthusiastic ethnologist,
“we’ve got----”
“Carter,” said Angel more cautiously still, “are you on for a lark?”
“Like a bird, sir,” said Carter, unconsciously humorous.
“I want a dozen men, the sort of men who won’t talk to reporters, and
will remain ‘unofficial’ so long as I want them to be,” said Angel, and
he unfolded his plan.
When the younger man had gone Angel drew a triangle on the blotting-pad.
“Spedding is in with the ‘Borough Lot,’” he put a cross against one
angle. “Spedding knows I know,” he put a cross at the apex. “I know
that Spedding knows I know,” he marked the remaining angle. “It’s
Spedding’s move, and he’ll move damn quick.”
The Assistant-Commissioner came into the room at that moment.
“Hullo, Angel!” he said, glancing at the figures on the pad. “What’s
this, a new game?”
“It’s an old game,” said Angel truthfully, “but played in an entirely
new way.”
* * * * *
Angel was not far wrong when he surmised that Spedding’s move would be
immediate, and although the detective had reckoned without an unknown
factor, in the person of old George, yet a variety of circumstances
combined to precipitate the act that Angel anticipated.
Not least of these was the arrest of Vinnis. After his interview with
old George, Spedding had decided on a waiting policy. The old man had
been taken to the house at Clapham. Spedding had been prepared to wait
patiently until some freak of mind brought back the memory to the form
of cryptogram he had advised. A dozen times a day he asked the old man--
“What is your name?”
“Old George, only old George,” was the invariable reply, with many
grins and noddings.
“But your real name, the name you had when you were a--professor.”
But this would only start the old man off on a rambling reminiscence of
his “munificent patron.”
Connor came secretly to Clapham for orders. It was the night after
Vinnis had been arrested.
“We’ve got to move at once, Mr. Connor,” said the lawyer. Connor sat
in the chair that had held Jimmy a few nights previous. “It is no use
waiting for the old man to talk, the earlier plan was best.”
“Has anything happened?” asked Connor. His one-time awe of the lawyer
had merged in the familiarity of conspiratorship.
“There was a detective at my office to-day inquiring about some notes
that were found on Vinnis. Angel Esquire will draw his own conclusions,
and we have no time to lose.”
“We are ready,” said Connor.
“Then let it be to-morrow night. I will withdraw the guard of
commissionaires at the safe. I can easily justify myself afterwards.”
An idea struck Connor.
“Why not send another lot of men to relieve them? I can fix up some of
the boys so that they’ll look like commissionaires.”
Spedding’s eyes narrowed.
“Yes,” he said slowly, “it could be arranged--an excellent idea.”
He paced the room with long, swinging strides, his forehead puckered.
“There are two reliefs,” he said, “one in the morning and one in the
evening. I could send a note to the sergeant of the morning relief
telling him that I had arranged for a new set of night men--I have
changed them twice already, one cannot be too careful--and I could give
you the necessary authority to take over charge.”
“Better still,” said Connor, “instruct him to withdraw, leaving the
place empty, then our arrival will attract no notice. Lombard Street
must be used to the commissionaires going on guard.”
“That is an idea,” said Spedding, and sat down to write the letter.
* * * * *
The night of the great project turned out miserably wet.
“So much the better,” muttered Connor, viewing the world from his
Kensington fastness. The room dedicated to the use of the master of
the house was plainly furnished, and on the bare deal table Connor had
set his whisky down whilst he peered through the rain-blurred windows
at the streaming streets.
“England for work and Egypt for pleasure,” he muttered; “and if I get
my share of the money, and it will be a bigger share than my friend
Spedding imagines, it’s little this cursed country will see of Mr.
Patrick Connor.”
He drained off his whisky at a gulp, rubbed the steam from the windows,
and looked down into the deserted street. Two men were walking toward
the house. One, well covered by a heavy mackintosh cloak, moved with
a long stride; the other, wrapped in a new overcoat, shuffled by his
side, quickening his steps to keep up with his more energetic companion.
“Spedding,” said Connor, “and old George. What is he bringing him here
for?”
He hurried downstairs to let them in.
“Well?” asked Spedding, throwing his reeking coat off.
“All’s ready,” answered Connor. “Why have you brought the old man?”
“Oh, for company,” the lawyer answered carelessly.
If the truth be told, Spedding still hoped that the old man would
remember. That day old George had been exceedingly garrulous, almost
lucidly so at times. Mr. Spedding still held on to the faint hope that
the old man’s revelations would obviate the necessity for employing the
“Borough Lot,” and what was more important, for sharing the contents of
the safe with them.
As to this latter part of the program, Mr. Spedding had plans which
would have astonished Connor had he but known.
But old George’s loquacity stopped short at the all-important point
of instructing the lawyer on the question of the cryptogram. He had
brought him along in the hope that at the eleventh hour the old man
would reveal his identity.
Unconscious of the responsibility that lay upon his foolish head, the
old man sat in the upstairs room communing with himself.
“We will leave him here,” said the lawyer, “he will be safe.”
“Safe enough. I know him of old. He’ll sit here for hours amusing
himself.”
“And now, what about the men?” asked the lawyer. “Where do we meet
them?”
“We shall pick them up at the corner of Lombard Street, and they’ll
follow me to the Safe Deposit.”
“Ah!”
They turned swiftly on old George, who with his chin raised and with
face alert was staring at them.
“Safe Deposit, Lombard Street,” he mumbled. “And a most excellent plan
too--a most excellent plan.”
The two men held their breath.
“And quite an ingenious idea, sir. Did you say Lombard Street--a
safe?” he muttered. “A safe with a word? And how to conceal the word,
that’s the question. I am a man of honor, you may trust me.” He made
a sweeping bow to some invisible presence. “Why not conceal your word
thus?”
Old George stabbed the palm of his hand with a grimy forefinger.
“Why not? Have you read my book? It is only a little book, but
useful, sir, remarkably useful. The drawings and the signs are most
accurate. An eminent gentleman at the British Museum assisted me in its
preparation. It is called--it is called----” He passed his hand wearily
over his head, and slid down into his chair again, a miserable old man
muttering foolishly.
Spedding wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
“Nearly, nearly!” he said huskily. “By Heavens! he nearly told us.”
Connor looked at him with suspicion.
“What’s all this about the book?” he demanded. “This is the second time
old George has spoken like this. It’s to do with old Reale, isn’t it?”
Spedding nodded.
“Come,” said Connor, looking at his watch, “it’s time we were moving.
We’ll leave the old man to look after the house. Here, George.”
Old George looked up.
“You’ll stay here, and not leave till we return. D’ye hear?”
“I hear, Mr. Connor, sir,” said old George, with his curious assumption
of dignity, “and hearing, obey.”
As the two men turned into the night the rain pelted down and a gusty
northwesterly wind blew into their faces.
“George,” said Connor, answering a question, “oh, we’ve had him for
years. One of the boys found him wandering about Limehouse with hardly
any clothes to his back, and brought him to us. That was before I knew
the ‘Borough Lot,’ but they used him as a blind. He was worth the money
it cost to keep him in food.”
Spedding kept the other waiting whilst he dispatched a long telegram
from the Westbourne Grove Post Office. It was addressed to the master
of the _Polecat_ lying at Cardiff, and was reasonably unintelligible to
the clerk.
They found a hansom at the corner of Queen’s Road, and drove to the
Bank; here they alighted and crossed to the Royal Exchange. Some men
in uniform overcoats who were standing about exchanged glances with
Connor, and as the two leaders doubled back to Lombard Street, followed
them at a distance.
“The guard left at four o’clock,” said Spedding, fitting the key of the
heavy outer door. He waited a few minutes in the inky black darkness
of the vestibule whilst Connor admitted the six uniformed men who had
followed them.
“Are we all here?” said Connor in a low voice. “Bat? Here! Goyle? Here!
Lamby? Here!”
One by one he called them by their names and they answered.
“We may as well have a light,” said Spedding, and felt for the switch.
The gleam of the electric lamps showed Spedding as pure a collection of
scoundrels as ever disgraced the uniform of a gallant corps.
“Now,” said Spedding in level tones, “are all the necessary tools here?”
Bat’s grin was the answer.
“If we can get an electric connection,” he said, “we’ll burn out the
lock of the safe in half----”
Spedding had walked to the inner door that led to the great hall, and
was fumbling with the keys. Suddenly he started back.
“Hark!” he whispered. “I heard a step in the hall.”
Connor listened.
“I hear nothing,” he began, when the inner door was thrown open, and a
commissionaire, revolver in hand, stepped out.
“Stand!” he cried. Then, recognizing Spedding, dropped the muzzle of
his pistol.
White with rage, Spedding stood amidst his ill-assorted bodyguard. In
the searching white light of the electric lamps there was no mistaking
their character. He saw the commissionaire eying them curiously.
“I understood,” he said slowly, “that the guard had been relieved.”
“No, sir,” said the man, and the cluster of uniformed men at the door
of the inner hall confirmed this.
“I sent orders this afternoon,” said Spedding between his teeth.
“No orders have been received, sir,” and the lawyer saw the
scrutinizing eye of the soldierly sentry pass over his confederates.
“Is this the relief?” asked the guard, not attempting to conceal the
contempt in his tone.
“Yes,” said the lawyer.
As the sentry saluted and disappeared into the hall Spedding drew
Connor aside.
“This is ruin,” he said quickly. “The safe must be cleared to-night.
To-morrow London will not hold me.”
The sentry reappeared at the doorway and beckoned them in. They
shuffled into the great hall, where in the half darkness the safe
loomed up from its rocky pedestal, an eerie, mysterious thing. He saw
Bat Sands glancing uncomfortably around the dim spaces of the building,
and felt the impression of the loneliness.
A man who wore the stripes of a sergeant came up.
“Are we to withdraw, sir?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Spedding shortly.
“Will you give us a written order?” asked the man.
Spedding hesitated, then drew out a pocketbook and wrote a few hasty
words on a sheet, tore it out, and handed it to the man.
The sergeant looked at it carefully.
“You haven’t signed it or dated it either,” he said respectfully, and
handed it back.
Spedding cursed him under his breath and rectified the omissions.
“Now you may go.”
In the half-light, for only one solitary electrolier illuminated the
vast hall, he thought the man was smiling. It might have been a trick
of the shadows, for he could not see his face.
“And am I to leave you alone?” said the sergeant.
“Yes.”
“Is it safe?” the non-commissioned officer asked quietly.
“Curse you, what do you mean?” cried the lawyer.
“Well,” said the other easily, “I see you have Connor with you, a
notorious thief and blackmailer.”
The lawyer was dumb.
“And Bat Sands. How d’ye do, Bat? How did they treat you in Borstal, or
was it Parkhurst?” drawled the sergeant. “And there’s the gentle Lamby
trying hard to look military in an overcoat too large for him. That’s
not the uniform you’re used to wearing, Lamby, eh?”
From the group of men at the door came a genuinely amused laugh.
“Guard the outer door, one of you chaps,” said the sergeant, and
turning again to Spedding’s men, “Here we have our respected friend
Curt Goyle.”
He stooped and picked up a bag that Bat had placed gingerly on the
floor.
“What a bag of tricks,” the sergeant cooed, “diamond bits and dynamite
cartridges and--what’s this little thing, Bat--an ark? It is. By Jove,
I congratulate you on the swag.”
Spedding had recovered his nerve and strode forward. He was playing for
the greatest stake in the world.
“You shall be punished for this insolence,” he stormed.
“Not at all,” said the imperturbable sergeant.
Somebody at the door spoke.
“Here’s another one, sergeant,” and pushed a queer old figure into the
hall, a figure that blinked and peered from face to face.
He espied Spedding, and ran up to him almost fawning.
“The Safe Deposit--in Lombard Street,” he cackled joyously. “You see, I
remembered, dear friend; and I’ve come to tell you about the book--my
book, you know. My munificent patron who desired a puzzle word----”
The sergeant started forward.
“My God!” he cried, “the professor.”
“Yes, yes,” chuckled the old man, “that’s what he called me. He bought
a copy of my book--two sovereigns, four sovereigns he gave me. The
book--what was it called?”
The old man paused and clasped both hands to his head.
“_A Study--a Study_” he said painfully, “_on the Origin of--the
Alphabet._ Ah!”
Another of the commissionaires had come forward as the old man began
speaking, and to him the sergeant turned.
“Make a note of that, Jimmy,” the sergeant said.
Spedding reeled back as though he had been struck.
“Angel!” he gasped.
“That’s me,” was the ungrammatical reply.
Crushed, cowed, beaten and powerless, Spedding awaited judgment. What
form it would take he could not guess, that it would effectively ruin
him he did not doubt. The trusted lawyer stood self-condemned; there
was no explaining away his companions, there could be no mistaking the
meaning of their presence.
“Send your men away,” said Angel.
A wild hope seized the lawyer. The men were not to be arrested, there
was a chance for him.
The “Borough Lot” needed no second ordering; they trooped through the
doorway, anxious to reach the open air before Angel changed his mind.
“You may go,” said Angel to Connor, who still lingered.
“If the safe is to be opened, I’m in it,” was the sullen reply.
“You may go,” said Angel; “the safe will not be opened to-night.”
“I----”
“Go!” thundered the detective, and Connor slunk away.
Angel beckoned the commissionaire who had first interrogated Spedding.
“Take charge of that bag, Carter. There are all sorts of things in it
that go off.” Then he turned to the lawyer.
“Mr. Spedding, there is a great deal that I have to say to you, but
it would be better to defer our conversation; the genuine guard will
return in a few minutes. I told them to return at 10 o’clock.”
“By what authority?” blustered Spedding.
“Tush!” said Angel wearily. “Surely we have got altogether beyond that
stage. Your order for withdrawal was expected by me. I waited upon the
sergeant of the guard with another order.”
“A forged order, I gather?” said Spedding, recovering his balance.
“Now I see why you have allowed my men to go. I overrated your
generosity.”
“The order,” said Angel soberly, “was signed by His Majesty’s Secretary
of State for Home Affairs”--he tapped the astonished lawyer on the
shoulder--“and if it would interest you to know, I have a warrant in my
pocket for the arrest of every man jack of you. That I do not put it
into execution is a matter of policy.”
The lawyer scanned the calm face of the detective in bewilderment.
“What do you want of me?” he asked at length.
“Your presence at Jimmy’s flat at ten o’clock to-morrow morning,”
replied Angel.
“I will be there,” said the other, and turned to go.
“And, Mr. Spedding,” called Jimmy, as the lawyer reached the door, “in
regard to a boat you have chartered from Cardiff, I think you need not
go any further in the matter. One of my men is at present interviewing
the captain, and pointing out to him the enormity of the offense of
carrying fugitives from justice to Spanish-American ports.”
“Damn you!” said Spedding, and slammed the door.
Jimmy removed the commissionaire’s cap from his head and grinned.
“One of these fine days, Angel, you’ll lose your job, introducing the
Home Secretary’s name. Phew!”
“It had to be done,” said Angel sadly. “It hurts me to lie, but
I couldn’t very well tell Spedding that the sergeant of the
commissionaires had been one of my own men all along, could I?”