IN THE DEN OF THE APACHES
Cleek, once in the train, pulled out the crumpled slip of paper he had
found near the telephone in the Desmond home and reread it with knitted
brows. It was, to all appearances, a bridge score, and a heavy one at
that, but on the back was pencilled in a woman's handwriting:
"Bring pearl to old place, 14 Ratcliff Highway," and the signature
beneath it was the one word, "Margot."
His first step on reaching London again was to make his way by devious
cuts and many doublings and twistings to his rooms in Portman Square. To
his immense surprise, there was a light burning there and when, having
run swiftly and silently up the stairs, he advanced suddenly into the
room, both he and its occupant had the surprise of their lives. It was
Dollops, sitting disconsolately before the remains of a supper qualified
to disturb the digestion of an ostrich.
"Dollops!" gasped his master, shutting the door behind him and facing
the lad with astonished eyes. "Why, I thought you were at Hampton
Court!"
"Lor' lumme sir, but I jest couldn't stop there 'aving a 'oliday
without you, so I just bunked my things into the blooming boat, and 'ad
a scrap of somefin' to eat, me feeling as holler as a sandwich-board,
and back I comes," he explained, disjointedly, not meeting Cleek's keen
eyes. "I meant to go down to the Yard in the morning for to try and cade
your address out of Lennard."
"A pretty tough job that, my boy, even if he knew," said Cleek with a
little smile. "Well, since you're here, Dollops, all the better. I've
got a ticklish job ahead of me, and so, if I'm not back here before nine
o'clock to-morrow morning, you can wire to Mr. Narkom to come on to me.
These are the two addresses." He scribbled rapidly in his note-book.
"But mind, not a single syllable before. You understand me?"
"Not 'arf, guv'nor. I'll stay 'ere as mum as a mouse," was the fervent
reply.
"Good!" Cleek crossed to his locked medicine chest and drew from it a
little phial containing some dark, thick-looking liquid, and put it into
his breast-pocket. Then he whipped out his make-up box, twisted a short
thick black beard about his chin; grew, in some mysterious manner, a
choppy little moustache upon his upper lip; threw off his clothing,
threw on some others, and lo! in the twinkling of an eye he stood before
the amazed and admiring Dollops, as perfect a representation of a
typical Paris Apache as ever was.
Dollops gave a gasp of amazement, and stepped back a foot or two.
"Gor' save us, sir," he whispered in an awe-struck voice, "but if I
'adn't seen yer do it wiv my own blessed peepers I wouldn't 'ave thought
it possible. You've got it all over me the night I bust into the
Countess's Ball."
One more warning of complete silence, one more promise of fulfilment of
it, and Cleek, with that litheness which characterized all his
movements, had passed out into the night. Some five minutes later
Dollops, armed with his beloved master's biggest revolver, sallied forth
in his wake, and succeeded in following him, unseen, right up to the
door of one of the evillest-looking dens of Limehouse.
Here Cleek knocked at the door, and on its being opened by a
vicious-looking Apache, slipped quickly in. Dollops, knowing this was
beyond his powers, contented himself with watching and reconnoitring
from the outside.
Meanwhile Cleek, speaking the old Apache slang, had managed to persuade
the men that he was from Desmond House, producing as evidence the
crumpled bridge score.
"Name of a devil, yes! But what has become of Borelle? We sent him down
to fetch the pearl this morning," said one of them, leaping forward and
laying a hard hand on Cleek's arm. "At the last minute Margot was sure
it would not arrive safe if trusted to the woman--the fickle jades that
they are! But what has become of Borelle?"
Cleek shrugged a pair of nonchalant shoulders.
"Bah! how should I know?" he flung out, roughly, with a harsh laugh. "I
was told to say that the trick has succeeded, _mes frères_, and that the
jewels are coming. Perhaps _le cher Borelle_ will bring them along
later, who knows?"
Then someone opened the door. It was Margot, flushed, triumphant, a very
queen returned from a revel at Covent Garden, a band of Apaches about
her. Margot!
The disguised Cleek endeavoured to evade her sharp eyes, but that was an
impossibility, and unwillingly he was dragged out of his corner, where
he had pretended to fall asleep, overcome by the noise and the absinthe,
and made to give his story over again.
"_Hola_, then, but we must wait for the good Borelle," shouted Margot,
as she pushed him from her with a sharp slap of her hand across his
stupid face. "Drink, _mes enfants_, drink to the good day when we get
that rat, the Cracksman, into our power, that Rat who deserted us for a
pale-faced English woman. To the day!"
They lifted their glasses, draining them to the bottom, while Cleek
laughed foolishly, as though the whole thing were a great joke, then
slid back into his corner, edging his way toward the door.
Just then Borelle himself entered, carrying a bag upon which Margot fell
with all the voracity of a young tigress. She tore it open, only to find
that it contained nothing more valuable than a rather large bath
sponge--only Cleek's keen eyes noticed that it seemed rather heavy.
Like a flash Margot turned upon Borelle, her eyes flashing with anger,
but he held up a silencing hand.
"The great Cleek is handling the case, Margot," he said, swiftly. "The
pig of a Narkom is down there, and the Cracksman followed him disguised
as a Frenchman. I saw him myself, though it was almost impossible to
know him. The fat Narkom was at the booking-office. He took the train to
Portsmouth. I took a ticket fifty miles farther east. I saw the relief
on the fat pig's face, and laughed at the child's play that had deceived
him. And I saw him enter the carriage where the Frenchman sat. Is not
that proof enough? Cleek is there. Cleek! Cleek! Cleek!"
The cry went up like a ribbon of flame licking round a burning building.
It caught the whole crowd by the heels, as it were, sending them drunk
with rage. With one accord they darted toward the stranger in their
midst, and shoved him rudely toward Margot.
"What are you?" they shouted, discordantly mad with the madness of a
possible triumph, and caught at the beard upon his chin. It came away
in their hands.
"The Cracksman! _Nom de diable!_ The Cracksman at last, at last!"
screamed Margot in a very frenzy of joy. "Save yourself now, O Forty
Faces, if you can! What shall we do with him, _mes amis_? Shall it be
the knife, the poison, the rope? Oh, yes! but we have many ways of
calling King Death! Come, choose, _mes frères_, and choose quickly. I
want to see him dead with my own eyes _this_ time--dead, _dead_!"
For a second one roared for one method, and one another; but all at
once, through the din and the noise and the hoarse shouting of many
voices came the sound of snapping wood and trampling footsteps. Like a
flash the cry went up:
"The police! The police!"
They were gone in a flash, tumbling over each other through the
trap-door that suddenly sprang open at somebody's hand, and Cleek found
himself being left alone. But Margot was the last to disappear, and even
as the footsteps neared the door of their haunt she whirled round
suddenly, whipped a revolver from the breast of her frock, pointed it at
Cleek's tall figure, gave a little scream of hatred and triumph and fury
all rolled into one, and fired straight at his heart!
He dropped like a log, and lay there perfectly still, perfectly
motionless, until the little band of police, headed by Dollops, charged
into the room and found him.
Then Dollops dropped to his knees, rolled him over, looked into his
face, and then began blubbering like a baby. "My Gawd! It's Mr. Cleek!
Mr. Cleek! And they've killed him! The Gawd-forsaken blighters!" he
sobbed in an utter abandonment of grief. "Sir--sir! for Heaven's sake,
say something! Tell us you're not dead, guv'nor! It's Dollops, Dollops
who's a-asking of you!"
The still form shifted slowly, rolled over, shifted again, and then from
the half-open lips came a voice that was as the music of Heaven itself
to the boy.
"All right, you disobedient young angel, get off my back and let me get
up," said Cleek, somewhat feebly. "Madame Margot fired a very straight
shot, and if it hadn't been for the chain-armour which I put on, I'd
have been as dead as a doornail, and no mistake!"
They took Cleek outside, thrust him into the waiting motor-car, and
drove him to Scotland Yard. Here breakfast awaited him, and he was able
to wash the paint from his face and brush his hair; then, somewhat
tired, somewhat stiff, but ever the same smiling, well-groomed man, he
went down at last to the limousine, entered it, and prepared himself for
a comfortable snooze. Meanwhile, Lennard raced down to Portsmouth at a
pace that by comparison made the speed limit as slow as that of a
tortoise.
It was close on ten when the limousine dashed up to the steps of Desmond
House, and Cleek tumbled out of it, to find a much-perturbed
Superintendent, the very devil of anxiety shining in his eyes. For Cleek
had never before missed an appointment.
"Gad! I was afraid something had happened to you. I've nearly gone
frantic," Mr. Narkom said, with a little sobbing laugh of thankfulness,
and Cleek's hand sought his.
"I've had a pretty close shave, my friend," answered that gentleman with
a wry smile, "and I've a yarn to spin to you later that'll turn your
hair gray. It's a wonder mine isn't white! But I'm here, thanks to that
young monkey, Dollops. And now let me finish my task." He flashed round
on Brian Desmond, who stood near, and gave him a quick smile.
"Mr. Desmond," said he, briskly, "first of all, I want to show you how
your money was taken, and then perhaps I will show you later who took
it. So, to begin with, the library, if you please. I'm tired, I'm
'bed-hungry,' and I'm going there when I've finished, just as straight
as I can!"
But the banker needed no further bidding. He turned and fled up the
staircase, returning in a few minutes with Lady Beryl and Estelle
Jardine. They all trooped into the library.
As Mr. Narkom was about to close the door, Cleek patted his pocket with
a comical gesture of dismay.
"Blest if I haven't forgotten that book now, Mr. Narkom!" He turned
blandly to the Superintendent. "You might run down to the limousine;
you'll find a book and a bottle. I want both. It's open, I think."
The Superintendent needed no further instructions, but left the room as
quickly and as expeditiously as possible, and Cleek turned to the
Desmonds.
"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," he said, smoothly, "but now I
think I can solve the riddle of the time-lock. Mr. Desmond, you saw me
set that safe yourself, to open at what hour?"
"One o'clock," was the prompt reply.
"Quite so, and therefore it is impossible to open it until that
hour----"
But he was interrupted here by Mr. Narkom, who came tumbling into the
room, his face alight with eagerness.
"Ah," interposed Cleek, before the little man could speak. "It worked
all right, eh?"
"I should just think so," was the brisk reply. "I left the----"
"That's all right then," interrupted Cleek, with a twitch of his
eyebrow. "I was just asking Mr. Desmond to test his safe. Have you your
key? If so, try it, please."
Mr. Desmond stepped forward and inserted it. To his surprise, it turned
in the lock and the door swung slowly open.
"Good heavens!" he cried. "What does it mean? That thing should not have
moved!" He looked at the dial, which stood for one o'clock, rigid,
inscrutable.
Then he looked from Cleek to Lady Beryl, who was leaning against the
table, overcome with emotion.
"I won't have it," she burst out. "It was not Elton. I swear it wasn't!"
"Have no fear," Cleek said, quietly. "Elton Carlyle was as true as
steel, he never tampered with the lock. Perhaps Mr. Carlyle would prefer
to tell us himself, Lady Desmond."
Before any one could so much as speak a word the amazing intimation had
come true. With disordered dress and white, haggard face, the figure of
Elton Carlyle himself stood in the doorway.
A shriek burst from Estelle Jardine's white lips, and she turned to fly
to him.
"Oh, no, no, my girl; you don't make another attempt," snapped out
Cleek. "You thought you were safe this time, didn't you, and that the
dead tell no tales, eh?"
Speaking, he had sprung with a sharp movement, and immediately there was
a scream, a struggle, and a click of clamping handcuffs.
"Well, my sweet-voiced little traitress, so I've got one more of your
precious gang, have I?" Cleek snapped out, triumphantly, staring down
into her upturned face. "I suppose your precious brother, Gustave
Borelle, is at the bottom of it. Oh, yes, you may shriek, you may
scream, but I hadn't forgotten Nita Borelle any more than her brother
had forgotten Cleek!"
"Cleek!" broke out Carlyle in a weak voice. And "Cleek!" chimed in Lady
Beryl and her husband in one breath.
"Yes, just Cleek, Mr. Desmond. Mr. Carlyle, you must keep quiet and
rest. I know the effects of that drug this she-devil used on you, and
the reaction of the reviving antidote that I sent Mr. Narkom upstairs
with. You must retire to your bed for a few days. I take it that you
were busy with the accounts when that hypocrite"--he flashed a glance of
contempt at the huddled figure of Nita Borelle--"came into the room."
"That is so," said Carlyle. "She said Lady Beryl wanted to know whether
I liked a new scent, a bottle of which she had just opened. Like a
guileless fool, I buried my face in the handkerchief, which was
chock-full of chloroform; and then I felt a deadly stab in the shoulder,
and an agony which caused me to faint. And that was the end."
"And might, indeed, have been the end if she had injected but a few more
drops of the hellish compound," said Cleek, grimly.
"But how did the Eugenie pearl vanish with the other jewels? I had not
got Mr. Desmond's message about putting it in the safe."
"No, but Nita Borelle _had_. So she knew that it was upstairs in Lady
Beryl's boudoir. She must have been horribly disappointed when she found
it wasn't in the safe with the gold and the other jewels. Weren't you,
my girl? And then to learn so easily where it was!"
"But how did she get into the safe?" demanded Brian Desmond, eagerly.
"Just a moment," returned Cleek. "Wait till I show you what she got
_out_!" And he pulled out of his pocket the very sponge that Margot had
thrown down so contemptuously. The manacled woman gave a little sound
indicative of despair and rage.
"After all your work, too, eh, mademoiselle!" And Cleek, tearing aside
the substance, showed how the various stones had been pushed down the
openings of the sponge. "She must have snatched up the jewels, brought
them to the bedroom, and hidden them while you slept that drugged sleep.
How pleased she must have been to be able to add the pearl to the
collection! See, here it is," and he squeezed out the shining jewel
itself onto the table. "She wasn't too excited, though, to leave the
case beside Mr. Carlyle. Then all she had to do was to drop the sponge
out of the window directly it was dusk, and Borelle could pick it up and
walk off unseen. And now I think the riddle is solved, my friends."
"Yes, all but the safe," said Brian Desmond once more. "I don't see how
she got the money and these jewels out before five o'clock when the safe
was opened."
Cleek smiled at his host.
"That? Oh, quite simple, my dear sir, when you see the scheme. Look."
He crossed to the time-lock.
"Do you see, the dial is immovable, but a screw has been taken from the
clockwork at the back, so that the body of the clock could be shifted
round a quarter; so that when I set that clock last night for one
o'clock, I knew it could be opened with the key at ten. And mademoiselle
had so arranged it on days when it was only simply locked. She had
turned the clock so that when Mr. Desmond set the dial for five the
following day, at two o'clock her duplicate key would fit it, when she
could remove the money and jewels, re-set it to open at five, and there
you are! Only unfortunately for him Mr. Carlyle interfered with her
plan--and his interference was very nearly fatal to him. I saw that the
two little marks which should tally on the rim and the clock body were
not together, and when I tried it for myself, I knew the secret.
"Well, it is solved now, and there only remains one other thing, and
that is to dispose of this woman. Will you send for the local police,
Mr. Desmond?" Cleek flashed an inquiring look at his host, who in his
turn was mutely questioning Lady Beryl.
"Ah, Mr. Cleek," said that lady, her voice quivering with emotion, "we
all have much to thank you for; and yet I will ask but one more favour.
And that is, to be allowed to set her free. Thanks to you, no real harm
has been done. Elton is safe, the jewels are safe. Let her go, and
perhaps she will sin no more."
Cleek's eyes shone his approval, though he shook his head dissentingly.
"People of her stamp are not likely to reform, Lady Beryl. Still, I
appreciate your goodness of heart, and as the gang at Ratcliff Highway
have had to fly for their lives, perhaps, if Mr. Narkom could be
persuaded to look out of the window, the law might wink for once."
Mr. Narkom did look out of the window and the click of steel, followed
by the swift closing of the door, soon told him that "Estelle Jardine"
had disappeared from Desmond House forever.