speculative but they are essentially correct. Metrobe conveyed his gold
to Fountain Court, obtained a stout oak coffer for it, and selected a
spot _west_ of the fountain. He chose a favourable occasion for burying
it, but by some mischance Irons came on the scene. Metrobe explained the
incident by declaring that he was burying a favourite parrot. Irons
thought nothing particular about it then, although he related the fact
to the butler, and to others, in evidence of the general belief that
'the old cock was quite barmy.' But Metrobe himself was much disturbed
by the accident. A few days later he dug up the box. In pursuance of his
new plan he carried his gold to the Bank of England and changed it into
these notes. Then transferring the venue to one due _east_ of the
fountain, he buried them in this tin, satisfied that the small space it
occupied would baffle the search of anyone not in possession of the
exact location."
"But, I say!" exclaimed Mr Bellmark. "Gold might remain gold, but what
imaginable use could be made of bank-notes after the end of the world?"
"That is a point of view, no doubt. But Metrobe, in spite of his foreign
name, was a thorough Englishman. The world might come to an end, but he
was satisfied that somehow the Bank of England would ride through it all
right. I only suggest that. There is much that we can only guess."
"That is all there is to know, Mr Carrados?"
"Yes. Everything comes to an end, Mrs Bellmark. I sent my car away to
call for me at eight. Eight has struck. That is Harris announcing his
arrival."
He stood up, but embarrassment and indecision marked the looks and
movements of the other two.
"How can we possibly take all this money, though?" murmured Elsie, in
painful uncertainty. "It is entirely your undertaking, Mr Carrados. It
is the merest fiction bringing me into it at all."
"Perhaps in the circumstances," suggested Bellmark nervously--"you
remember the circumstances, Elsie?--Mr Carrados would be willing to
regard it as a loan----"
"No, no!" cried Elsie impulsively. "There must be no half measures. We
know that a thousand pounds would be nothing to Mr Carrados, and he
knows that a thousand pounds are everything to us." Her voice reminded
the blind man of the candle-snuffing recital. "We will take this great
gift, Mr Carrados, quite freely, and we will not spoil the generous
satisfaction that you must have in doing a wonderful and a splendid
service by trying to hedge our obligation."
"But what can we ever do to thank Mr Carrados?" faltered Bellmark
mundanely.
"Nothing," said Elsie simply. "That is it."
"But I think that Mrs Bellmark has quite solved that," interposed
Carrados.
THE GAME PLAYED IN THE DARK
"It's a funny thing, sir," said Inspector Beedel, regarding Mr Carrados
with the pensive respect that he always extended towards the blind
amateur, "it's a funny thing, but nothing seems to go on abroad now but
what you'll find some trace of it here in London if you take the trouble
to look."
"In the right quarter," contributed Carrados.
"Why, yes," agreed the inspector. "But nothing comes of it nine times
out of ten, because it's no one's particular business to look here or
the thing's been taken up and finished from the other end. I don't mean
ordinary murders or single-handed burglaries, of course, but"--a modest
ring of professional pride betrayed the quiet enthusiast--"real
First-Class Crimes."
"The State Antonio Five per cent. Bond Coupons?" suggested Carrados.
"Ah, you are right, Mr Carrados." Beedel shook his head sadly, as though
perhaps on that occasion someone ought to have looked. "A man has a fit
in the inquiry office of the Agent-General for British Equatoria, and
two hundred and fifty thousand pounds' worth of faked securities is the
result in Mexico. Then look at that jade fylfot charm pawned for
one-and-three down at the Basin and the use that could have been made
of it in the Kharkov 'ritual murder' trial."
"The West Hampstead Lost Memory puzzle and the Baripur bomb conspiracy
that might have been smothered if one had known."
"Quite true, sir. And the three children of that Chicago
millionaire--Cyrus V. Bunting, wasn't it?--kidnapped in broad daylight
outside the New York Lyric and here, three weeks later, the dumb girl
who chalked the wall at Charing Cross. I remember reading once in a
financial article that every piece of foreign gold had a string from it
leading to Threadneedle Street. A figure of speech, sir, of course, but
apt enough, I don't doubt. Well, it seems to me that every big crime
done abroad leaves a finger-print here in London--if only, as you say,
we look in the right quarter."
"And at the right moment," added Carrados. "The time is often the
present; the place the spot beneath our very noses. We take a step and
the chance has gone for ever."
The inspector nodded and contributed a weighty monosyllable of
sympathetic agreement. The most prosaic of men in the pursuit of his
ordinary duties, it nevertheless subtly appealed to some half-dormant
streak of vanity to have his profession taken romantically when there
was no serious work on hand.
"No; perhaps not 'for ever' in one case in a thousand, after all,"
amended the blind man thoughtfully. "This perpetual duel between the Law
and the Criminal has sometimes appeared to me in the terms of a game of
cricket, inspector. Law is in the field; the Criminal at the wicket. If
Law makes a mistake--sends down a loose ball or drops a catch--the
Criminal scores a little or has another lease of life. But if _he_ makes
a mistake--if he lets a straight ball pass or spoons towards a steady
man--he is done for. His mistakes are fatal; those of the Law are only
temporary and retrievable."
"Very good, sir," said Mr Beedel, rising--the conversation had taken
place in the study at The Turrets, where Beedel had found occasion to
present himself--"very apt indeed. I must remember that. Well, sir, I
only hope that this 'Guido the Razor' lot will send a catch in our
direction."
The 'this' delicately marked Inspector Beedel's instinctive contempt for
Guido. As a craftsman he was compelled, on his reputation, to respect
him, and he had accordingly availed himself of Carrados's friendship for
a confabulation. As a man--he was a foreigner: worse, an Italian, and if
left to his own resources the inspector would have opposed to his
sinuous flexibility those rigid, essentially Britannia-metal, methods of
the Force that strike the impartial observer as so ponderous, so
amateurish and conventional, and, it must be admitted, often so
curiously and inexplicably successful.
The offence that had circuitously brought "il Rasojo" and his "lot"
within the cognizance of Scotland Yard outlines the kind of story that
is discreetly hinted at by the society paragraphist of the day,
politely disbelieved by the astute reader, and then at last laid
indiscreetly bare in all its details by the inevitable princessly
"Recollections" of a generation later. It centred round an impending
royal marriage in Vienna, a certain jealous "Countess X." (here you have
the discretion of the paragrapher), and a document or two that might be
relied upon (the aristocratic biographer will impartially sum up the
contingencies) to play the deuce with the approaching nuptials. To
procure the evidence of these papers the Countess enlisted the services
of Guido, as reliable a scoundrel as she could probably have selected
for the commission. To a certain point--to the abstraction of the
papers, in fact--he succeeded, but it was with pursuit close upon his
heels. There was that disadvantage in employing a rogue to do work that
implicated roguery, for whatever moral right the Countess had to the
property, her accomplice had no legal right whatever to his liberty. On
half-a-dozen charges at least he could be arrested on sight in as many
capitals of Europe. He slipped out of Vienna by the Nordbahn with his
destination known, resourcefully stopped the express outside Czaslau and
got away across to Chrudim. By this time the game and the moves were
pretty well understood in more than one keenly interested quarter.
Diplomacy supplemented justice and the immediate history of Guido became
that of a fox hunted from covert to covert with all the familiar earths
stopped against him. From Pardubitz he passed on to Glatz, reached
Breslau and went down the Oder to Stettin. Out of the liberality of his
employer's advances he had ample funds to keep going, and he dropped and
rejoined his accomplices as the occasion ruled. A week's harrying found
him in Copenhagen, still with no time to spare, and he missed his
purpose there. He crossed to Malmo by ferry, took the connecting night
train to Stockholm and the same morning sailed down the Saltsjon,
ostensibly bound for Obo, intending to cross to Revel and so get back to
central Europe by the less frequented routes. But in this move again
luck was against him and receiving warning just in time, and by the
mysterious agency that had so far protected him, he contrived to be
dropped from the steamer by boat among the islands of the crowded
Archipelago, made his way to Helsingfors and within forty-eight hours
was back again on the Frihavnen with pursuit for the moment blinked and
a breathing-time to the good.
To appreciate the exact significance of these wanderings it is necessary
to recall the conditions. Guido was not zigzagging a course about Europe
in an aimless search for the picturesque, still less inspired by any
love of the melodramatic. To him every step was vital, each tangent or
rebound the necessary outcome of his much-badgered plans. In his pocket
reposed the papers for which he had run grave risks. The price agreed
upon for the service was sufficiently lavish to make the risks worth
taking time after time; but in order to consummate the transaction it
was necessary that the booty should be put into his employer's hand.
Half-way across Europe that employer was waiting with such patience as
she could maintain, herself watched and shadowed at every step. The
Countess X. was sufficiently exalted to be personally immune from the
high-handed methods of her country's secret service, but every approach
to her was tapped. The problem was for Guido to earn a long enough
respite to enable him to communicate his position to the Countess and
for her to go or to reach him by a trusty hand. Then the whole fabric of
intrigue could fall to pieces, but so far Guido had been kept
successfully on the run and in the meanwhile time was pressing.
"They lost him after the _Hutola_," Beedel reported, in explaining the
circumstances to Max Carrados. "Three days later they found that he'd
been back again in Copenhagen but by that time he'd flown. Now they're
without a trace except the inference of these 'Orange peach blossom'
agonies in _The Times_. But the Countess has gone hurriedly to Paris;
and Lafayard thinks it all points to London."
"I suppose the Foreign Office is anxious to oblige just now?"
"I expect so, sir," agreed Beedel, "but, of course, my instructions
don't come from that quarter. What appeals to _us_ is that it would be a
feather in our caps--they're still a little sore up at the Yard about
Hans the Piper."
"Naturally," assented Carrados. "Well, I'll see what I can do if there
is real occasion. Let me know anything, and, if you see your chance
yourself, come round for a talk if you like on--to-day's Wednesday?--I
shall be in at any rate on Friday evening."
Without being a precisian, the blind man was usually exact in such
matters. There are those who hold that an engagement must be kept at all
hazard: men who would miss a death-bed message in order to keep literal
faith with a beggar. Carrados took lower, if more substantial, ground.
"My word," he sometimes had occasion to remark, "is subject to
contingencies, like everything else about me. If I make a promise it is
conditional on nothing which seems more important arising to counteract
it. That, among men of sense, is understood." And, as it happened,
something did occur on this occasion.
He was summoned to the telephone just before dinner on Friday evening to
receive a message personally. Greatorex, his secretary, had taken the
call, but came in to say that the caller would give him nothing beyond
his name--Brebner. The name was unknown to Carrados, but such incidents
were not uncommon, and he proceeded to comply.
"Yes," he responded; "I am Max Carrados speaking. What is it?"
"Oh, it is you, sir, is it? Mr Brickwill told me to get to you direct."
"Well, you are all right. Brickwill? Are you the British Museum?"
"Yes. I am Brebner in the Chaldean Art Department. They are in a great
stew here. We have just found out that someone has managed to get access
to the Second Inner Greek Room and looted some of the cabinets there. It
is all a mystery as yet."
"What is missing?" asked Carrados.
"So far we can only definitely speak of about six trays of Greek
coins--a hundred to a hundred and twenty, roughly."
"Important?"
The line conveyed a caustic bark of tragic amusement.
"Why, yes, I should say so. The beggar seems to have known his business.
All fine specimens of the best period. Syracuse--Messana--Croton--
Amphipolis. Eumenes--Evainetos--Kimons. The chief quite wept."
Carrados groaned. There was not a piece among them that he had not
handled lovingly.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
"Mr Brickwill has been to Scotland Yard, and, on advice, we are not
making it public as yet. We don't want a hint of it to be dropped
anywhere, if you don't mind, sir."
"That will be all right."
"It was for that reason that I was to speak with you personally. We are
notifying the chief dealers and likely collectors to whom the coins, or
some of them, may be offered at once if it is thought that we haven't
found it out yet. Judging from the expertness displayed in the
selection, we don't think that there is any danger of the lot being
sold to a pawnbroker or a metal-dealer, so that we are running very
little real risk in not advertising the loss."
"Yes; probably it is as well," replied Carrados. "Is there anything that
Mr Brickwill wishes me to do?"
"Only this, sir; if you are offered a suspicious lot of Greek coins, or
hear of them, would you have a look--I mean ascertain whether they are
likely to be ours, and if you think they are communicate with us and
Scotland Yard at once."
"Certainly," replied the blind man. "Tell Mr Brickwill that he can rely
on me if any indication comes my way. Convey my regrets to him and tell
him that I feel the loss quite as a personal one.... I don't think that
you and I have met as yet, Mr Brebner?"
"No, sir," said the voice diffidently, "but I have looked forward to the
pleasure. Perhaps this unfortunate business will bring me an
introduction."
"You are very kind," was Carrados's acknowledgment of the compliment.
"Any time ... I was going to say that perhaps you don't know my
weakness, but I have spent many pleasant hours over your wonderful
collection. That ensures the personal element. Good-bye."
Carrados was really disturbed by the loss although his concern was
tempered by the reflection that the coins would inevitably in the end
find their way back to the Museum. That their restitution might involve
ransom to the extent of several thousand pounds was the least poignant
detail of the situation. The one harrowing thought was that the booty
might, through stress or ignorance, find its way into the melting-pot.
That dreadful contingency, remote but insistent, was enough to affect
the appetite of the blind enthusiast.
He was expecting Inspector Beedel, who would be full of his own case,
but he could not altogether dismiss the aspects of possibility that
Brebner's communication opened before his mind. He was still concerned
with the chances of destruction and a very indifferent companion for
Greatorex, who alone sat with him, when Parkinson presented himself.
Dinner was over but Carrados had remained rather longer than his custom,
smoking his mild Turkish cigarette in silence.
"A lady wishes to see you, sir. She said you would not know her name,
but that her business would interest you."
The form of message was sufficiently unusual to take the attention of
both men.
"You don't know her, of course, Parkinson?" inquired his master.
For just a second the immaculate Parkinson seemed tongue-tied. Then he
delivered himself in his most ceremonial strain.
"I regret to say that I cannot claim the advantage, sir," he replied.
"Better let me tackle her, sir," suggested Greatorex with easy
confidence. "It's probably a sub."
The sportive offer was declined by a smile and a shake of the head.
Carrados turned to his attendant.
"I shall be in the study, Parkinson. Show her there in three minutes.
You stay and have another cigarette, Greatorex. By that time she will
either have gone or have interested me."
In three minutes' time Parkinson threw open the study door.
"The lady, sir," he announced.
Could he have seen, Carrados would have received the impression of a
plainly, almost dowdily, dressed young woman of buxom figure. She wore a
light veil, but it was ineffective in concealing the unattraction of the
face beneath. The features were swart and the upper lip darkened with
the more than incipient moustache of the southern brunette. Worse
remained, for a disfiguring rash had assailed patches of her skin. As
she entered she swept the room and its occupant with a quiet but
comprehensive survey.
"Please take a chair, Madame. You wished to see me?"
The ghost of a demure smile flickered about her mouth as she complied,
and in that moment her face seemed less uncomely. Her eye lingered for a
moment on a cabinet above the desk, and one might have noticed that her
eye was very bright. Then she replied.
"You are Signor Carrados, in--in the person?"
Carrados made his smiling admission and changed his position a
fraction--possibly to catch her curiously pitched voice the better.
"The great collector of the antiquities?"
"I do collect a little," he admitted guardedly.
"You will forgive me, Signor, if my language is not altogether good.
When I live at Naples with my mother we let boardings, chiefly to
Inglish and Amerigans. I pick up the words, but since I marry and go to
live in Calabria my Inglish has gone all red--no, no, you say, rusty.
Yes, that is it; quite rusty."
"It is excellent," said Carrados. "I am sure that we shall understand
one another perfectly."
The lady shot a penetrating glance but the blind man's expression was
merely suave and courteous. Then she continued:
"My husband is of name Ferraja--Michele Ferraja. We have a vineyard and
a little property near Forenzana." She paused to examine the tips of her
gloves for quite an appreciable moment. "Signor," she burst out, with
some vehemence, "the laws of my country are not good at all."
"From what I hear on all sides," said Carrados, "I am afraid that your
country is not alone."
"There is at Forenzana a poor labourer, Gian Verde of name," continued
the visitor, dashing volubly into her narrative. "He is one day digging
in the vineyard, the vineyard of my husband, when his spade strikes
itself upon an obstruction. 'Aha,' says Gian, 'what have we here?' and
he goes down upon his knees to see. It is an oil jar of red earth,
Signor, such as was anciently used, and in it is filled with silver
money.
"Gian is poor but he is wise. Does he call upon the authorities? No, no;
he understands that they are all corrupt. He carries what he has found
to my husband for he knows him to be a man of great honour.
"My husband also is of brief decision. His mind is made up. 'Gian,' he
says, 'keep your mouth shut. This will be to your ultimate profit.' Gian
understands, for he can trust my husband. He makes a sign of mutual
implication. Then he goes back to the spade digging.
"My husband understands a little of these things but not enough. We go
to the collections of Messina and Naples and even Rome and there we see
other pieces of silver money, similar, and learn that they are of great
value. They are of different sizes but most would cover a lira and of
the thickness of two. On the one side imagine the great head of a pagan
deity; on the other--oh, so many things I cannot remember what." A
gesture of circumferential despair indicated the hopeless variety of
design.
"A biga or quadriga of mules?" suggested Carrados. "An eagle carrying
off a hare, a figure flying with a wreath, a trophy of arms? Some of
those perhaps?"
"_Si, si bene_," cried Madame Ferraja. "You understand, I perceive,
Signor. We are very cautious, for on every side is extortion and an
unjust law. See, it is even forbidden to take these things out of the
country, yet if we try to dispose of them at home they will be seized
and we punished, for they are _tesoro trovato_, what you call treasure
troven and belonging to the State--these coins which the industry of
Gian discovered and which had lain for so long in the ground of my
husband's vineyard."
"So you brought them to England?"
"_Si_, Signor. It is spoken of as a land of justice and rich nobility
who buy these things at the highest prices. Also my speaking a little of
the language would serve us here."
"I suppose you have the coins for disposal then? You can show them to
me?"
"My husband retains them. I will take you, but you must first give
_parola d'onore_ of an English Signor not to betray us, or to speak of
the circumstance to another."
Carrados had already foreseen this eventuality and decided to accept it.
Whether a promise exacted on the plea of treasure trove would bind him
to respect the despoilers of the British Museum was a point for
subsequent consideration. Prudence demanded that he should investigate
the offer at once and to cavil over Madame Ferraja's conditions would be
fatal to that object. If the coins were, as there seemed little reason
to doubt, the proceeds of the robbery, a modest ransom might be the
safest way of preserving irreplaceable treasures, and in that case
Carrados could offer his services as the necessary intermediary.
"I give you the promise you require, Madame," he accordingly declared.
"It is sufficient," assented Madame. "I will now take you to the spot.
It is necessary that you alone should accompany me, for my husband is so
distraught in this country, where he understands not a word of what is
spoken, that his poor spirit would cry 'We are surrounded!' if he saw
two strangers approach the house. Oh, he is become most dreadful in his
anxiety, my husband. Imagine only, he keeps on the fire a cauldron of
molten lead and he would not hesitate to plunge into it this treasure
and obliterate its existence if he imagined himself endangered."
"So," speculated Carrados inwardly. "A likely precaution for a simple
vine-grower of Calabria! Very well," he assented aloud, "I will go with
you alone. Where is the place?"
Madame Ferraja searched in the ancient purse that she discovered in her
rusty handbag and produced a scrap of paper.
"People do not understand sometimes my way of saying it," she explained.
"_Sette_, Herringbone----"
"May I----?" said Carrados, stretching out his hand. He took the paper
and touched the writing with his finger-tips. "Oh yes, 7 Heronsbourne
Place. That is on the edge of Heronsbourne Park, is it not?" He
transferred the paper casually to his desk as he spoke and stood up.
"How did you come, Madame Ferraja?"
Madame Ferraja followed the careless action with a discreet smile that
did not touch her voice.
"By motor bus--first one then another, inquiring at every turning. Oh,
but it was interminable," sighed the lady.
"My driver is off for the evening--I did not expect to be going out--but
I will 'phone up a taxi and it will be at the gate as soon as we are."
He despatched the message and then, turning to the house telephone,
switched on to Greatorex.
"I'm just going round to Heronsbourne Park," he explained. "Don't stay,
Greatorex, but if anyone calls expecting to see me, they can say that I
don't anticipate being away more than an hour."