THE GET-AWAY
Dearborn slipped the revolver in his pocket, unlocked the door, and
stepped out. The little man who acted as porter was standing, his
mouth agape.
“What’s wrong?” he said quickly. “Who’s shooting?”
“Go out and fetch the police,” said John Dearborn calmly. “Somebody
has been killed.”
“Oh, my heaven!” whispered the little man.
“There are two policemen at the end of the road. Hurry,” said John
Dearborn sharply, and listened to the flip-flap of the messenger’s
slippers as he shuffled up the street.
Dearborn waited awhile, then entered the front room and closed the
door, standing against it listening. He heard the rush of feet,
distinguished the policemen, heard them clump through the passage, and
the chatter of an idle bystander or two behind them; then he opened
the door. A policeman was bending over Blind Jake.
“That’s him all right,” he said. “Jim, clear these people out and
stand on duty at the door until the inspector comes. You’d better blow
your whistle.”
A police whistle shrilled through Lissom Lane, and the little knot of
curiosity-mongers who had been turned unceremoniously from the scene
of the tragedy grouped about the door.
“What’s happened?” asked Mr. Dearborn, and the policeman smiled
good-naturedly.
“Now, postman,” he said, “you go along and deliver your letters.” And
John Dearborn flung his bag over his shoulder.
For he had chosen the uniform of a letter-carrier, and it had proved a
most effective cloak. He got away within a few minutes of Larry’s
arrival. The detective was on his way to interview Mr. John Dearborn,
and the handcuffs he had in his pocket were expressly intended for
that gentleman.
Larry saw the little crowd about the door and knew that something
unusual had happened. He came to the study and looked silently upon
the massive body of his enemy. Blind Jake had died immediately. He had
never known what had struck him, or guessed the vile treachery of the
employer he had served so well.
“The man must be in the house somewhere, sir,” said the policeman.
“This little fellow heard the shots, and the superintendent sent him
out to get a policeman. We both came down together, me and my mate.”
“Was the front door left unguarded at all?” asked Larry.
“Only for a second, sir,” said the policeman. “We both came in
together.”
“That was the second our friend got away,” said Larry. “I don’t think
it’s any use searching the house.”
He was accompanied by the officers who had been charged to effect the
arrest of Dearborn, and their inspection and examination of the room
produced nothing of importance.
Larry drove back to the Yard and interviewed the Chief Commissioner.
Then he went to the girl.
“I’ve heard the news,” she said quietly. “Sergeant Harvey has just
been in. Do you think Dearborn’s killed him?”
“Dearborn is David Judd,” said Larry.
“Dr. Judd’s brother?” she said in surprise. “But he’s dead.”
He shook his head.
“That elaborate funeral was well staged, and I am perfectly certain
that David even went to the length of providing the body. He is a very
thorough gentleman. You remember Lew telling us of his brother who
disappeared, a fine-looking fellow with a beard?” She nodded. “That is
the man we shall find in David Judd’s grave,” he said.
“Is Dr. Judd----” she began, and there was no need to finish the
sentence.
“Dr. Judd is in it up to the neck,” said Larry. “The story of Dearborn
is explained very easily. Dearborn was a partner of Judd’s, and
something that happened at the office--either some crime or some
murder, perhaps, which David had manœuvred in order to draw
insurance--had come to the knowledge of one of the clerks. This man
stole a large sum of money and went to Montpellier, and from there
began to blackmail David. David went after him and shot him. Probably
the murder was unpremeditated, because David is not the sort of man
who would shoot in the open square. But at any rate he did shoot, and
he was seen by Flash Fred, who reached the body in time to learn from
the dying man the name of his murderer. To a man of Fred’s calibre,
that meant that he had an income for life, and he hastened back to
London, saw Dr. Judd, and probably stated the terms on which he would
keep his mouth shut. Judd decided that David should conveniently die;
and David, you remember, was a fine-looking man with a beard. Of their
hirelings or acquaintances they chose Lew’s brother as being the
nearest in physical appearance to David, and he was unceremoniously
destroyed and buried as David. Incidentally, a very large sum of money
was drawn from the underwriters on the heavy insurance policy which
had been issued to David.
“They must have had this scheme in mind for some time, for a month
before David’s death Dr. Judd had completed the purchase of Todd’s
Home. It was not so much a charitable institution as a business
proposition, for Todd’s Home had deteriorated into a kind of superior
doss-house, frequented by the lowest of the low amongst the blind
mendicants of London. It was there that the famous Dark Eyes had their
headquarters, and it was from them that David must have learnt of
Todd’s.
“The Home was bought, and the day after David’s ‘death’ the Rev. John
Dearborn appeared as the new superintendent. It is perfectly true that
he cleared out all the bad characters and had certain structural
alterations made; but he only did this because he wanted to clear the
taint from Todd’s Home, to give it a good character, and to employ the
house as his headquarters without fear of police visitations. When the
laundry company went broke, it was Judd who bought the premises, and
the alterations were carried out by David himself with the assistance
of his gang. David, I might remark, is an architect and built the
house in which his brother lives. We know they employed foreign
workmen, and that that house was built for one specific purpose,” he
said gravely.
“With the laundry premises in their possession the Dark Eyes came back
to Lissom Lane, and came and went amongst the blind, who could not see
them and who were ignorant of their presence.”
“What about Dr. Judd?” she asked.
“I am arresting him,” said Larry. “And I am arresting him in the very
place from whence your father disappeared--in that famous Box A at the
Macready Theatre.”
“Will he be there?” she asked in surprise.
He nodded.
“He is there almost every evening,” he said quietly.
“But why not take him now?” she asked, puzzled.
“Because Box A and its mystery have yet to be cleared up,” said Larry;
“and I have an idea that I shall clear it.”
At eight o’clock that night he walked into the vestibule of the
Macready Theatre.
“Dr. Judd, sir?” said the attendant. “Yes, he’s in Box A. Is he
expecting you?”
Larry nodded. Harvey was for accompanying him, but the other shook his
head.
“I’ll go alone,” said Larry.
He went swiftly down the passage and, stopping only for a second
outside Box A, he turned the knob of the door and stepped in.
Dr. Judd’s eyes were fixed on the stage, and the detective had stopped
to speak to him when something dropped on his head, something fleecy
and warm. It felt like a bag lined with wool. It had been saturated
with a chemical which took his breath away and momentarily paralyzed
him. Then he felt a string pulled tightly round his neck, and whipped
out his pistol. Before he could use it, it was gripped. Something
sharp hit the hand that held it, and he let go with a cry of pain,
muffled in the bag. Every breath he took choked him. He struck out,
but his arms were seized from behind, and he was flung forward on the
floor. Dimly he heard the voice of Dearborn:
“The atomizer, Peter!”
A nozzle was pressed under his chin into the bag, and something
pungent was sprayed under his nostrils. He tried to fight his way out
of their grip, but a knee was in the middle of his back, and then he
lost consciousness.
“You’re really a genius, David,” said Dr. Judd almost ecstatically.
“So perfectly timed, so beautifully done! Wonderful, dear fellow,
wonderful!”
“Open the door and look out, Peter,” said David, and the doctor
obeyed.
The passage was empty. Immediately opposite the door of Box A a
curtain was draped on the wall, and through this he disappeared, and
there came a rush of cold air as he opened the fire-exit door which
led to the side street, where a car was waiting.
A minute later David Judd had picked up the detective as easily as
though he were a child, had lifted him into the interior of the
limousine, and had taken the place at the wheel.
He came to the house in Chelsea, and brought the car with a sweep
straight to the closed gates of the covered driveway. In that solid
gate were the two big circles, and before David Judd’s car were two
steel bars that projected beyond the line of the lamps and just
beneath. Slowly and skilfully he brought the car up the inclined slope
from the roadway, so that the ends of the two bars rested in the
“peep-holes.” Then he drove the machine forward. There was a click and
the gates swung open. The car rolled in, and as the wheels passed over
a narrow transverse platform that gave slightly under its weight, the
doors closed again.
David Judd stopped opposite the door that looked like a window, opened
it and, lifting Larry in his arms, passed inside. The lights were
burning on the stairs leading to the cell, the doors of which were
wide open.
He threw the detective on the bed, picked up the bronze anklet and
snapped it about one of Larry’s ankles; and then, and only then, did
he pull off the heavy leather bag which covered Larry Holt’s head. It
stank of formalhyadine, and he threw it into the bathroom.
Larry’s face was purple; he had all the symptoms of one who had been
strangled, but as the night air reached him he gasped. David leant
over and felt his pulse, opened his eyelids and smiled.
He went out softly, locking the two doors, and paused at the first
landing, to enter what Sergeant Harvey had called the “machinery
room.” He turned over a switch and the electric ventilating apparatus
hummed drowsily.
David went again into the yard, stopping only to lock the doors behind
him. He had no time to lose; the engines of his car were still
running, and he jumped into his seat and began to go slowly backward.
As the wheels reached the narrow weighbridge, the gates opened again.
They would remain open twenty seconds and would then close of
themselves; and the car had hardly backed on to the road before they
came together noiselessly.
Swiftly the car sped back. This time it turned northward and jolted to
a standstill opposite Larry Holt’s flat.