mark. A woman would explain the element of chivalry that prompts Brown’s
attitude. He is under open arrest now--nobody outside is supposed to
know, but of course he can’t buy an evening paper without it being
noted. They are in hope of something more definite turning up. At
present they have pitched their suspicions on a German visitor staying
at Cliffhurst.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, Max. They must fix on someone, you know. It’s expected.
All the same they are deucedly nervous at this end about the outcome.”
“Did they say what Brown had given away?”
“Yes, egad! Do you know anything of the Croxton-Delahey torpedo?”
“A little,” admitted Carrados.
“What does it do?” asked Mr Carlyle, with the rather sublime air of
casual interest which he attached to any subject outside his own
knowledge.
“It’s rather an ingenious contrivance. It is fired like any other
uncontrolled torpedo. At the end of a straight run--anything up to ten
thousand yards at 55 knots with the superheated system--the diabolical
creature stops and begins deliberately to slash a zigzag course over any
area you have set it for. If in its roving it comes within two hundred
feet of any considerable mass of iron it promptly makes for it, cuts its
way through torpedo netting if any bars its progress, explodes its three
hundredweight of gun-cotton and finishes its existence by firing a 24
lb. thorite shell through the breach it has made.”
“’Um,” mused Mr Carlyle, “I don’t like the weapon, Max, but I would
rather that we kept it to ourselves. Well, Mr Brown has given away the
plans.”
Carrados disposed of the end of his cigar and crossed the room to his
open desk. From its appointed place he took a book inscribed
“Engagements,” touched a few pages and scribbled a line of comment here
and there. Then he turned to his guest again.
“All right. I’ll go down to Kingsmouth by the 12.17 to-morrow morning,”
he said. “Now I want you to look up the following points for me and let
me have the particulars before I go.”
Mr Carlyle again took out his pocket diary and beamed approvingly.
* * * * *
As a matter of fact the tenor of the replies he received influenced
Carrados to make some change in his plans. Accompanied by Parkinson he
left London by the appointed train on the next day, but instead of
proceeding to Kingsmouth he alighted at Cliffhurst, the pretty little
seaside resort some five miles east of the great dockport. After
securing rooms at the Rose and Plumes--an easy enough matter in
October--he directed his attendant to take him to a sheltered seat on
the winding paths below the promenade and there leave him for an hour.
“Very nicely kept, these walks and shrubberies, sir,” remarked an
affable voice from the other end of the bench. A leisurely pedestrian
whose clothes and manner proclaimed him to be an aimless holiday-maker
had sauntered along and, after a moment’s hesitation, had sat down on
the same form.
“Yes, Inspector,” replied Carrados genially. “Almost up to the standard
of our own Embankment Gardens, are they not?”
Detective-Inspector Tapling, of New Scotland Yard, went rather red and
then laughed quietly.
“I wasn’t quite sure at first if it was you, Mr Carrados,” he
apologised, moving nearer and lowering his voice. “I was to report to
you here, sir, and to give you any information and assistance you might
require.”
“How are you getting on?” inquired Carrados.
“We think that we have got hold of the right man, sir; but for reasons
that you can guess the Chief is very anxious to have no mistake this
time.”
“Muller?”
“Yes, sir. He has a furnished villa here in Cliffhurst and is very
open-handed. The time he came fits in, so far as we can tell, with the
beginning of the inquiries in Kingsmouth. Then, whatever his real name
is, it isn’t Muller.”
“He is a German?”
“Oh yes; he’s German right enough, sir. We’ve looked up telegrams to him
from Lubeck--nothing important though--and he has changed German notes
in Kingsmouth. He spends a lot of time over there--says the fishing is
better, but that’s all my eye, only the Kingsmouth boatmen get hold of
the dockyard talk and know more of the movements than the men about
here. Then there’s a lady.”
“The intermediary?”
“That’s further than we can go at the moment, but there is a lady at the
furnished villa. She’s not exactly Mrs Muller, we believe, but she lives
there, if you understand what I mean, sir.”
“Perfectly,” acquiesced Carrados in the same modest spirit.
“So that all the necessary conditions can be shown to exist,” concluded
Tapling.
“But so far you have not a single positive fact connecting Muller with
Brown?”
The Inspector admitted that he had not, but added hopefully that he was
in immediate expectation of information that would enable him to link up
the detached surmises into a conclusive chain of direct evidence.
“And if I might ask the favour of you, sir,” he continued, “you would be
doing us a great service if you would allow us to continue our
investigation for another twenty-four hours. I think that by then we
shall be able to show something solid. And if you certify what we have
done, that’s all to our credit, whereas if you take it out of our hands
now----You see what I mean, Mr Carrados, but of course it lies entirely
with you.”
Carrados assented with his usual good nature. His actual business was
only to examine the evidence before the arrest was made and to guarantee
that the Home Office should not be involved in another spy-scare fiasco.
He knew Tapling to be a reliable officer, and he did not doubt that the
line he was working was the correct one. Least of all did he wish to
deprive the man of his due credit.
“I can very well put in a day on my own account,” he accordingly
replied. “And so long as Muller is here there does not appear to be any
special urgency. I suppose the odds are that the papers have been got
away before you began to watch?”
“There is just a chance yet, we believe, sir; and the Admiralty is very
keen on recovering those torpedo plans if it’s to be done. Some of these
foreign spies like to keep the thing as much as possible in their own
hands. There’s more credit to it, and more cash, too, at headquarters if
they do. Then if it comes to a matter of touch-and-go, a letter, and
especially a letter from abroad, may be stopped on the way. You will say
that a man may be, for that matter, but there’s been another reason
against posting valuable papers about here for the past week.”
“Of course,” assented Carrados with enlightenment. “The Suffragettes
down here are out.”
“I never thought to have any of that lot helping me,” said the
Inspector, absent-mindedly stroking his right shin; “but they may have
turned the scale for us this time. There isn’t a posting place from a
rural pillar-box to the head office at Kingsmouth that has been really
safe from them. They’ve even got at the registered letters in the
sorting-rooms somehow. That’s why I think there’s a chance still.”
Parkinson’s approaching figure announced that an hour had passed.
Carrados and the Inspector rose to walk away in different directions,
but before they parted the blind man put a question that had confronted
him several times, although he had as yet given only a glancing
attention to the case.
“Now that Muller has got the plans of the torpedo, Inspector, why is he
remaining here?”
It was a simple and an obvious inquiry, but before he replied Inspector
Tapling looked round suspiciously. Then he further reduced the distance
between them and dropped his voice to a whisper.
* * * * *
St Ethelburga’s boasted the most tin-potty bell and the highest ritual
of any church in Kingsmouth. Outside it resembled a brick barn, inside a
marble palace, and its ministration overworked a vicar and two
enthusiastic curates. It stood at the corner of Jubilee Street and Lower
Dock Approach, a conjunction that should render further description of
the neighbourhood superfluous.
The Rev. Byam Hosier, the senior curate, whose magnetic eloquence filled
St Ethelburga’s from chancel steps to porch, lodged in Jubilee Street,
and there Mr Carrados found him at ten o’clock on the following morning.
The curate had just finished his breakfast, and the simultaneous
correction of a batch of exercise books. He apologised for the disorder
without justifying himself by explaining the cause, for instead of being
a laggard Mr Hosier had already taken an early celebration, and
afterwards allowed himself to be intercepted on his way back to attend
to a domestic quarrel, a lost cat, and the arrangements for a funeral.
“I got your note last night, Mr Carrados,” he said, after guiding his
guest to a seat, for Parkinson had been dismissed to make himself
agreeable elsewhere. “I am glad to show you my small collection, and
still more so to have an opportunity of thanking you for the help you
have given me from time to time.”
Carrados lightly disclaimed the obligation. It was the first time the
two had met, though, as the outcome of a review article, they had
frequently corresponded. The clergyman went to his single cabinet, took
out the top tray and put it down before his visitor on the now available
table.
“Pherae,” he said.
“May I touch the surfaces?” asked the blind man.
“Oh, certainly. Pray do. I am sorry----” He did not quite know what to
say before the spectacle of the blind expert, with his eyes fixed
elsewhere, passing a critical touch over the details that he himself
loved to gaze upon.
In this one thing the Rev. Byam was fastidious. His clothes were
generally bordering on the shabby, and he allowed himself to wear boots
that shocked or amused the feminine element in the first half-dozen pews
of St Ethelburga’s. He might--as he frequently did, indeed--make a
breakfast of weak tea, bread and butter and marmalade without any sense
of deficiency, but in the matter of Greek coins his taste was exacting
and his standard exact. His one small mahogany cabinet was pierced for
five hundred specimens, and it was far from full, but every coin was the
exquisite production of the golden era of the world’s creative art.
It did not take Carrados three minutes to learn this. Occasionally he
dropped a word of comment or inquiry, but for the most part tray
succeeded tray in fascinated silence.
“Still Larissa,” announced the clergyman, sliding out the last tray.
Under each coin was a circular ticket with written particulars of the
specimen accompanying it. For some time Carrados took little interest in
these commentaries, but presently Hosier noticed that his guest was
submitting many of them to a close but quiet scrutiny.
“Excuse my asking, Mr Carrados,” he said at length, “but are you quite
blind?”
“Quite,” was the unconcerned reply. “Why?”
“Because I noticed that you held some of the labels close to your eyes
and I fancied that perhaps----”
“It is my way.”
“Forgive my curiosity----”
“I can assure you, Mr Hosier, that other people are much more touchy
about my blindness than I am. Now will you do me a kindness? I should
like a copy of the inscriptions on half-a-dozen of these gems.”
“With pleasure.” The curate discovered pen and ink and paper and waited.
“This didrachm of the nymph Larissa wearing earrings; this of Artemis
and the stag; this, and this, and this.” The trays had been left
displayed upon the table and Carrados’s hand selected from them with
unerring precision.
Hosier took the chosen coins and noted down the legends in their bold
Greek capitals. “Shall I describe the type of each as well?” he asked.
“Thank you,” assented his visitor. “If you don’t mind writing that also
in capitals and not blotting I shall read it so much the easier.”
He accepted the sheet of paper and delicately touched the lettering
along each line.
“I have a friend who will be equally interested in this,” he remarked,
taking out his pocket-book.
The clergyman had turned to remove a tray from the table when a sheet of
paper, fluttering to the ground, caught his eye. He picked it up and was
returning it into the blind man’s hand when he stopped in a sudden
arrest of every movement.
“Good heavens, Mr Carrados!” he exclaimed in an agitated voice, “how
does this come in your possession?”
“Your note?”
“You know that it is mine?”
“Yes--now,” replied Carrados quietly. “It was sent to me by the
Admiral-Superintendent of the Yard here. He wished to communicate with
the writer.”
“I am bewildered at the suddenness of this,” protested the poor young
man in some distress. “Let me tell you the circumstances--such at least
as do not violate my promise.”
He procured himself a glass of water from the sideboard, drank half of
it and began to pace the room nervously as he talked.
“On Wednesday last, after taking Evensong at the church, I was leaving
the vestry when a lady stepped forward and asked if she might speak to
me privately. It is a request which a clergyman cannot refuse, Mr
Carrados, but I endeavoured first to find out what she required, because
people frequently come to one or another of us on business that really
has to do with the clerk, or the organist, or something of that sort.
“She assured me that it was a personal matter and that no other official
would do.
“The lights had by this time been extinguished in the church, and
doubtless the apparitor had left. I gave her my address here and asked
her if she would call in ten or twenty minutes. I preferred that she
should present herself in the ordinary way.
“There is no need to go into extraneous details. The unhappy lady wished
to unburden her conscience by making explicit confession, and she had
come to me in consequence of a sermon which she had heard me preach on
the Sunday before.
“It is not expedient to weigh considerations of time or circumstance in
such a case. I allowed her to proceed, and she made her confession under
the seal of inviolable confidence. It involved other persons besides
herself. I besought her to undo as far as possible the great harm she
had done by making a full statement to the authorities, but this she was
too weak--too terrified--to do. This clumsy warning of mine”--he pointed
to the paper now lying on the table between them--“was the utmost
concession that I could wring from her.”
He stopped and looked at his visitor with a troubled face that seemed to
demand some sort of assent to the dilemma.
“You are an Englishman, Mr Hosier, and you know what this might mean in
a conflict--you know that one of our most formidable weapons has been
annexed.”
“My dear sir!” rapped out the distressed curate, “don’t you think that I
haven’t worried about that? But behind the Englishman stands something
more primitive, more just--the man. I gave my assurance as a man, and
the Admiralty can go hang!”
“Besides,” he added, in petulant reaction, “the poor woman is dying, and
then everyone can know. Of course it may be too late.”
“Do you mind telling me if the lady gave you the names of her
accomplices?”
“How can I tell you, Mr Carrados? It may identify her in some way. I am
too confounded by your unexpected appearance in the affair to know what
is important and what is not.”
“It will not implicate her. I have no concern there.”
“Then, yes, she did. She gave me every detail.”
“I ask because a man is suspected and on the point of arrest. He may be
innocent. I have no deeper motive, but if the one for whom she is
working is not a German called, or passing as, Muller, you might have
some satisfaction in exonerating him.”
The curate reflected a moment.
“He is not, Mr Carrados,” he replied decidedly. “But please don’t ask me
anything more.”
“Very well, I won’t,” said Carrados, rising. “Our numismatic
conversation has taken a strange turn, Mr Hosier. There is a text for
you--Money at the root of everything! By the way, I can do you one
trifling service.” He picked up the anonymous letter, tore it across and
held it out. “You have done all you could. Burn this and then you are
clear of the matter.”
“Thanks, thanks. But won’t it get you into trouble with the Admiralty?”
“I make my own terms,” replied Carrados. “Now Mr Hosier, I have been an
ill-omened bird, but I had no suspicion of this when I came. The ‘long
arm’ has landed us this time. Will you come and dine with me one day
this week, and I promise you not a single reference to this troublesome
business?”
“You are very good,” assented Hosier.
“I am at Cliffhurst----”
“Cliffhurst?” was Hosier’s quick exclamation.
“Yes, at the Rose and Plumes.”
“I--I am very sorry, Mr Carrados,” stammered the curate, “but, after
all, I am afraid that I must cry off. This week----”
“If the distance takes up too much of your time, may I send a car?”
“No, no, it isn’t that--at least, of course, one has to consider time
and work. Thank you, Mr Carrados; you are very kind, but, really, if you
don’t mind----”
Carrados courteously accepted the refusal without further pressure. He
turned the momentary embarrassment by hoping that Hosier would not fail
to call on him when next in London, and the curate availed himself of
the compromise to protest the pleasure that it would afford him.
Parkinson was summoned and the strangely developed visit came to an end.
Parkinson doubtless found his master a dull companion on the way back.
Carrados had to rearrange his ideas from the preconception which he had
so far tentatively based on Inspector Tapling’s report, and he was faced
by the necessity of discovering whose presence made the Rose and Plumes
Hotel inexplicably distasteful to Mr Hosier just then. Only two flashes
of conversation broke the journey, both of which may be taken as showing
the trend of Max Carrados’s mind, and demonstrating the sound common
sense exhibited by his henchman.
“It is a mistake they often make, Parkinson, to begin looking with a
fixed idea of what they are going to find.”
“Yes, sir.”
And, ten minutes later:
“But I don’t know that it would be safe yet to ignore the obvious
altogether.”
“No, sir,” replied Parkinson.
* * * * *
“Not guilty, my lord!”
That was the link for which Carrados had been waiting patiently each day
since his visit to Kingsmouth; or, more exactly, since the sound of a
voice heard in the hotel on his return had stirred a memory that he
could not materialise. Parkinson had described the man with photographic
exactness and still recognition was balked. Tapling, who found himself
at a deadlock before the furnished villa, both by reason of his want of
progress and at Carrados’s recommendation, contributed his observation,
which was guardedly negative. Everyone about knew Mr Slater--“a
pleasant, open-handed gentleman, with a word and a joke for all”--but no
one knew anything of him, as, indeed, who should know of a leisurely
bird of passage staying for a little time at a seaside hotel?
Then across the lounge rang the mock-serious repartee, and enlightenment
cut into the patient listener’s brain like a flash of inspiration.
These were the three telegrams which immediately came into existence as
a result of that ray, deciphered here from their code obscurity:
“_To_ GREATOREX, TURRETS, RICHMOND, SURREY.
“Extract _Times_ full report trial Henry Frankworth, convicted
embezzlement early 1906, and forward express.--CARRADOS.”
“_To_ WRATTESLEY, HOME OFFICE, WHITEHALL, S.W.
“Will you please have Lincoln authorities instructed to send me
confidential report antecedents Henry Frankworth, embezzler, native
Trudstone that county. Urgent.--WYNN CARRADOS.”
“_To_ CARLYLE, 72A BAMPTON ST., W.C.
“MY DEAR LOUIS,--Why not come down week-end talk things over?
Meanwhile make every effort discover subsequent history Henry
Frankworth convicted embezzlement Central Criminal Court early 1906.
Beedel will furnish police records. Pressing.--MAX.”
On his way upstairs a few hours later Carrados looked in at the
reception office to inquire if there were any letters.
“By the by,” he remarked, after he had turned to leave, “I wonder if you
happen to have a room a little--just a little--farther away from the
drawing-room?”
“Certainly, sir,” replied the clerk. “Does the playing annoy you? They
do keep it up rather late sometimes, don’t they?”
“No, it doesn’t annoy me,” admitted Carrados; “on the contrary, I am
passionately fond of it. But it tempts me into lying awake listening
when I ought to be asleep.”
The young lady laughed pleasantly. It was her business to be agreeable.
“You are considerate!” she rippled. “Well, there’s the further corridor;
or, of course, a floor above----”
“The floor above would do nicely. Not on the front if possible. The sea
is rather noisy.”
“Second floor, west corridor.” She glanced at her keyboard. “No. 15?”
“Is that the side overlooking the----?”
“The High Street,” she prompted.
“I am such a poor sleeper,” he apologised.
“No. 21 on the other side, overlooking the gardens?” she suggested.
“I am sure that will do admirably,” he said, with the gratitude that is
always so touching from the blind. “Thank you for taking so much trouble
to pick it for me. Good-night.”
“I will have your things transferred to-morrow,” she nodded after him.
An hour later Mr Slater, generally the last man to leave the lounge,
strolled across to the office for his key.
“No. 22, sir, isn’t it?” she hazarded, unhooking it without waiting for
the number.
“Good little girl,” he assented approvingly. “What a brain beneath that
fascinating aureola. Eh bien, au revoir, petite! You ought to be about
snuffing the candle yourself, my dear.”
The young lady laughed just as pleasantly. It was her business to be
equally agreeable to all.
* * * * *
Mr Carrados was sitting in an alcove of the lounge on the following
morning when Parkinson brought him a letter. It proved to be the extract
from _The Times_, written on the special typewriter. The day was bright
and inviting and the room was deserted. On his master’s instruction
Parkinson sat down and waited while the blind man rapidly deciphered the
half-dozen sheets of typewriting.
“You have been with me to the Old Bailey several times,” remarked
Carrados, as he slowly replaced the document. “Do you remember an
occasion in February 1906?”
Parkinson looked unnecessarily wise, but was unable to acquiesce.
Carrados gave him another guide.
“A man named Frankworth was sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment
for an ingenious system of theft. He had also fraudulently disposed of
information to trade rivals of his employer.”
“I apprehend the circumstances now, sir.”
“Can you recall the appearance of the prisoner?”
Parkinson thought that he could, but he did not rise to the suggestion
and Carrados was obliged to follow the direct line.
“Have you seen anyone lately--here in the hotel--who might be
Frankworth?”
“I can’t say that I have, sir.”
“Take Mr Slater now. Shave off his beard and moustache.”
Parkinson began to look respectfully uncomfortable.
“Do you mean, sir----”
“By an effort of the imagination, Parkinson. Close your eyes and picture
Mr Slater as a clean-shaven man, some years younger, standing in the
dock----”
“Yes, sir. There is a distinct resemblance.”
With this Max Carrados had to be satisfied for the time. Long memory was
not Parkinson’s strong point, but he had his own pre-eminent gift, and
of this his master was to have an immediate example that outweighed
every possible deficiency.
“Speaking of Mr Slater, sir, I noticed a curious thing that I intended
to mention, as you told me to be particularly observant.”
Carrados nodded encouragingly.
“I was talking to Herbert early this morning as he cleaned the boots. He
is a very bigoted Free Trader, sir, and is thinking of becoming a
Mormon, and I was speaking to him about it. Presently he came to No.
22’s--Mr Slater’s. They were muddy, for Mr Slater went out for a walk
last night--I saw him as he returned. But the boots that Mr Slater put
out to be cleaned last night were not the boots that he went out in and
got wet, although they were exactly the same make.”
“That is certainly curious,” admitted Carrados slowly. “There was only
one pair put out?”
“That is all, sir; and they were not the boots that Mr Slater has worn
every day since I began to notice him particularly. He always does wear
the same pair, morning, noon and night.”