THE TRAP THAT FAILED
TEN o’clock was striking from Chichester cathedral when the tramp, who
half an hour ago had been peering and prying into the secrets of Griff
Towers, made his appearance in the market-place. His clothes were even
more dusty and soiled, and a policeman who saw him stood squarely in his
path.
“On the road?” he asked.
“Yes,” whined the man.
“You can get out of Chichester as quick as you like,” said the officer.
“Are you looking for a bed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why don’t you try the casual ward at the workhouse?”
“They’re full up, sir.”
“That’s a lie,” said the officer. “Now understand, if I see you again
I’ll arrest you!”
Muttering something to himself, the squalid figure moved on toward the
Arundel Road, his shoulders hunched, his hands hidden in the depths of
his pockets.
Out of sight of the policeman, he turned abruptly to the right and
accelerated his pace. He was making for Jack Knebworth’s house. The
director heard the knock, opened the door and stood aghast at the
unexpected character of the caller.
“What do you want, bo’?” he asked.
“Mr. Brixan come back?”
“No, he hasn’t come back. You’d better give me that letter. I’ll get in
touch with him by ’phone.”
The tramp grinned and shook his head.
“No, you don’t. I want to see Brixan.”
“Well, you won’t see him here to-night,” said Jack. And then,
suspiciously: “My idea is that you don’t want to see him at all, and
that you’re hanging around for some other purpose.”
The tramp did not reply. He was whistling softly a distorted passage
from the “Indian Love Lyrics,” and all the time his right foot was
beating the time.
“He’s in a bad way, is old Brixan,” he said, and there was a certain
amount of pleasure in his voice that annoyed Knebworth.
“What do you know about him?”
“I know he’s in bad with headquarters—that’s what I know,” said the
tramp. “He couldn’t find where the letters went to: that’s the trouble
with him. But _I_ know.”
“Is that what you want to see him about?”
The man nodded vigorously.
“I know,” he said again. “I could tell him something if he was here, but
he ain’t here.”
“If you know he isn’t here,” asked the exasperated Jack, “why in blazes
do you come?”
“Because the police are chivvying me, that’s why. A copper down on the
market-place is going to pinch me next time he sees me. So I thought I’d
come up to fill in the time, that’s what!”
Jack stared at him.
“You’ve got a nerve,” he said in awe-stricken tones. “And now you’ve
filled in your time and I’ve entertained you, you can get! Do you want
anything to eat?”
“Not me,” said the tramp. “I live on the fat of the land, I do!”
His shrill Cockney voice was getting on Jack’s nerves.
“Well, good night,” he said shortly, and closed the door on his
unprepossessing visitor.
The tramp waited for quite a long time before he made any move. Then,
from the interior of his cap, he took a cigarette and lit it before he
shuffled back the way he had come, making a long detour to avoid the
centre of the town, where the unfriendly policeman was on duty. A church
clock was striking a quarter past ten when he reached the corner of the
Arundel Road, and, throwing away his cigarette, moved into the shadow of
the fence and waited.
Five minutes, ten minutes passed, and his keen eyes caught sight of a
man walking rapidly the way he had come, and he grinned in the darkness.
It was Knebworth. Jack had been perturbed by the visitor, and was on his
way to the police station to make inquiries about Michael. This the
tramp guessed, though he had little time to consider the director’s
movements, for a car came noiselessly around the corner and stopped
immediately opposite him.
“Is that you, my friend?”
“Yes,” said the tramp in a sulky voice.
“Come inside.”
The tramp lurched forward, peering into the dark interior of the car.
Then, with a turn of his wrist, he jerked open the door, put one foot on
the running-board, and suddenly flung himself upon the driver.
“_Mr. Head-Hunter, I want you!_” he hissed.
The words were hardly out of his mouth before something soft and wet
struck him in the face—something that blinded and choked him, so that
he let go his grip and fought and clawed like a dying man at the air. A
push of the driver’s foot, and he was flung, breathless, to the
side-walk, and the car sped on.
Jack Knebworth had witnessed the scene as far as it could be witnessed
in the half-darkness, and came running across. A policeman appeared from
nowhere, and together they lifted the tramp into a sitting position.
“I’ve seen this fellow before to-night,” said the policeman. “I warned
him.”
And then the prostrate man drew a long, sighing breath, and his hands
went up to his eyes.
“This is where I hand in my resignation,” he said, and Knebworth’s jaw
dropped.
It was the voice of Michael Brixan!