CLEEK: The Man of the Forty Faces
By THOMAS W. HANSHEW
AUTHOR OF "Cleek of Scotland Yard," "The Riddle of the Night," Etc.
1912
CLEEK: THE MAN OF THE FORTY FACES
PROLOGUE
THE AFFAIR OF THE MAN WHO CALLED HIMSELF HAMILTON CLEEK
The thing wouldn't have happened if any other constable than Collins had
been put on point duty at Blackfriars Bridge that morning. For Collins
was young, good-looking, and--knew it. Nature had gifted him with a
susceptible heart and a fond eye for the beauties of femininity. So when
he looked round and saw the woman threading her way through the maze of
vehicles at "Dead Man's Corner," with her skirt held up just enough to
show two twinkling little feet in French shoes, and over them a
graceful, willowy figure, and over that an enchanting, if rather too
highly tinted face, with almond eyes and a fluff of shining hair under
the screen of a big Parisian hat--that did for him on the spot.
He saw at a glance that she was French--exceedingly French--and he
preferred English beauty, as a rule. But, French or English, beauty is
beauty, and here undeniably was a perfect type, so he unhesitatingly
sprang to her assistance and piloted her safely to the kerb, revelling
in her voluble thanks, and tingling as she clung timidly but rather
firmly to him.
"Sair, I have to give you much gratitude," she said in a pretty, wistful
sort of way, as they stepped on to the pavement. Then she dropped her
hand from his sleeve, looked up at him, and shyly drooped her head, as
if overcome with confusion and surprise at the youth and good looks of
him. "Ah, it is nowhere in the world but Londres one finds these
delicate attentions, these splendid sergeants de ville," she added, with
a sort of sigh. "You are wonnerful--you are mos' wonnerful, you Anglais
poliss. Sair, I am a stranger; I know not ze ways of this city of
amazement, and if monsieur would so kindly direct me where to find the
Abbey of the Ves'minster--"
Before P.C. Collins could tell her that if that were her destination,
she was a good deal out of her latitude; indeed, even before she
concluded what she was saying, over the rumble of the traffic there rose
a thin, shrill piping sound, which to ears trained to the call of it
possessed a startling significance.
It was the shrilling of a police whistle, far off down the Embankment.
"Hullo! That's a call to the man on point!" exclaimed Collins, all alert
at once. "Excuse me, mum. See you presently. Something's up. One of my
mates is a-signalling me."
"Mates, monsieur? Mates? Signalling? I shall not understand the vords.
But yes, vat shall that mean--eh?"
"Good Lord, don't bother me now! I--I mean, wait a bit. That's the call
to 'head off' someone, and--By George! There he is now, coming head on,
the hound, and running like the wind!"
For of a sudden, through a break in the traffic, a scudding figure had
sprung into sight--the figure of a man in a grey frock-coat and a
shining "topper," a well-groomed, well-set-up man, with a small,
turned-up moustache and hair of that peculiar purplish-red one sees only
on the shell of a roasted chestnut. As he swung into sight, the distant
whistle shrilled again; far off in the distance voices sent up cries of
"Head him off!" "Stop that man!" _et cetera_; then those on the pavement
near to the fugitive took up the cry, joined in pursuit, and in a
twinkling, what with cabmen, tram-men, draymen, and pedestrians
shouting, there was hubbub enough for Hades.
"A swell pickpocket, I'll lay my life," commented Collins, as he squared
himself for an encounter and made ready to leap on the man when he came
within gripping distance. "Here! get out of the way, madmazelly.
Business before pleasure. And, besides, you're like to get bowled over
in the rush. Here, chauffeur!"--this to the driver of a big, black
motor-car which swept round the angle of the bridge at that moment, and
made as though to scud down the Embankment into the thick of the
chase--"pull that thing up sharp! Stop where you are! Dead still. At
once, at once, do you hear? We don't want you getting in the way. Now,
then"--nodding his head in the direction of the running man--"come on
you bounder; I'm ready for you!"
And, as if he really heard that invitation, and really was eager to
accept it, the red-headed man did "come on" with a vengeance. And all
the time, "madmazelly," unheeding Collins's advice, stood calmly and
silently waiting.
Onward came the runner, with the whole roaring pack in his wake, dodging
in and out among the vehicles, "flooring" people who got in his way,
scudding, dodging, leaping, like a fox hard pressed by the
hounds--until, all of a moment he spied a break in the traffic, leapt
through it, and--then there was mischief. For Collins sprang at him like
a cat, gripped two big, strong-as-iron hands on his shoulders, and had
him tight and fast.
"Got you, you ass!" snapped he, with a short, crisp, self-satisfied
laugh. "None of your blessed squirming now. Keep still. You'll get out
of your coffin, you bounder, as soon as out of my grip. Got you--got
you! Do you understand?"
The response to this fairly took the wind out of him.
"Of course I do," said the captive, gaily; "it's part of the programme
that you should get me. Only, for Heaven's sake, don't spoil the film by
remaining inactive, you goat! Struggle with me--handle me roughly--throw
me about. Make it look real; make it look as though I actually did get
away from you, not as though you let me. You chaps behind there, don't
get in the way of the camera--it's in one of those cabs. Now, then,
Bobby, don't be wooden! Struggle--struggle, you goat, and save the
film!"
"Save the what?" gasped Collins. "Here! Good Lord! Do you mean to
say--?"
"Struggle--struggle--struggle!" cut in the man impatiently. "Can't you
grasp the situation? It's a put-up thing: the taking of a kinematograph
film--a living picture--for the Alhambra to-night! Heavens above,
Marguerite, didn't you tell him?"
"Non, non! There was not ze time. You come so quick, I could not. And
he--ah, le bon Dieu!--he gif me no chance. Officair, I beg, I entreat of
you, make it real! Struggle, fight, keep on ze constant move.
Zere!"--something tinkled on the pavement with the unmistakable sound of
gold--"zere, monsieur, zere is the half-sovereign to pay you for ze
trouble, only, for ze lof of goodness, do not pick it up while the
instrument--ze camera--he is going. It is ze kinematograph, and you
would spoil everything!"
The chop-fallen cry that Collins gave was lost in a roar of laughter
from the pursuing crowd.
"Struggle--struggle! Don't you hear, you idiot?" broke in the red-headed
man irritably. "You are being devilishly well paid for it, so for
goodness' sake make it look real. That's it! Bully boy! Now, once more
to the right, then loosen your grip so that I can push you away and make
a feint of punching you off. All ready there, Marguerite? Keep a clear
space about her, gentlemen. Ready with the motor, chauffeur? All right.
Now, then, Bobby, fall back, and mind your eye when I hit out, old chap.
One, two, three--here goes!"
With that he pushed the chop-fallen Collins from him, made a feint of
punching his head as he reeled back, then sprang toward the spot where
the Frenchwoman stood, and gave a finish to the adventure that was
highly dramatic and decidedly theatrical. For "mademoiselle," seeing him
approach her, struck a pose, threw out her arms, gathered him into
them--to the exceeding enjoyment of the laughing throng--then both
looked back and behaved as people do on the stage when "pursued,"
gesticulated extravagantly, and, rushing to the waiting motor, jumped
into it.
"Many thanks, Bobby; many thanks, everybody!" sang out the red-headed
man. "Let her go, chauffeur. The camera men will pick us up again at
Whitehall, in a few minutes' time."
"Right you are, sir," responded the chauffeur gaily. Then "toot-toot"
went the motor-horn as the gentleman in grey closed the door upon
himself and his companion, and the vehicle, darting forward, sped down
the Embankment in the exact direction whence the man himself had
originally come, and, passing directly through that belated portion of
the hurrying crowd to whom the end of the adventure was not yet known,
flew on and--vanished.
And Collins, stooping to pick up the half-sovereign that had been thrown
him, felt that after all it was a poor price to receive for all the
jeers and gibes of the assembled onlookers.
"Smart capture, Bobby, wasn't it?" sang out a deriding voice that set
the crowd jeering anew. "You'll git promoted, you will! See it in all
the evenin' papers--oh, yus! ''Orrible hand-to-hand struggle with a
desperado. Brave constable has 'arf a quid's worth out of an infuriated
ruffin!' My hat! won't your missis be proud when you take her to see
that bloomin' film?"
"Move on, now, move on!" said Collins, recovering his dignity, and
asserting it with a vim. "Look here, cabby, I don't take it kind of you
to laugh like that; they had you just as bad as they had me. Blow that
Frenchy! She might have tipped me off before I made such an ass of
myself. I don't say that I'd have done it so natural if I had known,
but--Hullo! What's that? Blowed if it ain't that blessed whistle again,
and another crowd a-pelting this way; and--no!--yes, by Jupiter!--a
couple of Scotland Yard chaps with 'em. My hat! what do you suppose that
means?"
He knew in the next moment. Panting and puffing, a crowd at their heels,
and people from all sides stringing out from the pavement and trooping
after them, the two "plain-clothes" men came racing through the grinning
gathering and bore down on P.C. Collins.
"Hullo, Smathers, you in this, too?" began he, his feelings softened by
the knowledge that other arms of the law would figure on that film with
him at the Alhambra to-night. "Now, what are you after, you goat? That
French lady, or the red-headed party in the grey suit?"
"Yes, yes, of course I am. You heard me signal you to head him off,
didn't you?" replied Smathers, looking round and growing suddenly
excited when he realized that Collins was empty-handed, and that the
red-headed man was not there. "Heavens! you never let him get away, did
you? You grabbed him, didn't you--eh?"
"Of course I grabbed him. Come out of it. What are you giving me, you
josser?" said Collins with a wink and a grin. "Ain't you found out even
yet, you silly? Why, it was only a faked-up thing--the taking of a
kinematograph picture for the Alhambra. You and Petrie ought to have
been here sooner and got your wages, you goats. I got half a quid for my
share when I let him go."
Smathers and Petrie lifted up their voices in one despairing howl.
"When you what?" fairly yelled Smathers. "You fool! You don't mean to
tell me that you let them take you in like that--those two? You don't
mean to tell me that you had him--had him in your hands--and then let
him go? You did? Oh! you seventy-seven kinds of a double-barrelled ass!
Had him--think of it!--had him, and let him go! Did yourself out of a
share in a reward of two hundred quid when you'd only to shut your hands
and hold on to it!"
"Two hundred quid? Two hun--W-what are you talking about? Wasn't it
true? Wasn't it a kinematograph picture, after all?"
"No, you fool, no!" howled Smathers, fairly dancing with despair. "Oh,
you blithering idiot! You ninety-seven varieties of a fool! Do you know
who you had in your hands? Do you know who you let go? It was that devil
'Forty Faces'--'The Vanishing Cracksman'--the man who calls himself
'Hamilton Cleek'; and the woman was his pal, his confederate, his
blessed stool-pigeon--'Margot, the Queen of the Apache'; and she came
over from Paris to help him in that clean scoop of Lady Dresmer's jewels
last week!"
"Heavens!" gulped Collins, too far gone to say anything else, too deeply
dejected to think of anything but that he had had the man for whom
Scotland Yard had been groping for a year--the man over whom all
England, all France, all Germany wondered--close shut in the grip of his
hands and then had let him go. The biggest and boldest criminal the
police had ever had to cope with, the almost supernatural genius of
crime, who defied all systems, laughed at all laws, mocked at all the
Vidocqs, and Dupins, and Sherlock Holmeses, whether amateur or
professional, French or English, German or American, that ever had been
or ever could be pitted against him, and who, for sheer devilry, for
diabolical ingenuity and for colossal impudence, as well as for a
nature-bestowed power that was simply amazing, had not his match in all
the universe.
Who or what he really was, whence he came, whether he was English,
Irish, French, German, Yankee, Canadian, Italian or Dutchman, no man
knew and no man might ever hope to know unless he himself chose to
reveal it. In his many encounters with the police he had assumed the
speech, the characteristics, and, indeed, the facial attributes of each
in turn, and assumed them with an ease and a perfection that were simply
marvellous, and had gained for him the sobriquet of "Forty Faces" among
the police, and of "The Vanishing Cracksman" among the scribes and
reporters of newspaperdom. That he came, in time, to possess another
name than these was due to his own whim and caprice, his own bald,
unblushing impudence; for, of a sudden, whilst London was in a fever of
excitement and all the newspapers up in arms over one of the most daring
and successful coups, he chose to write boldly to both editors and
police complaining that the title given him by each was both vulgar and
cheap.
"You would not think of calling Paganini a 'fiddler,'" he wrote; "why,
then, should you degrade me with the coarse term of 'cracksman'? I claim
to be as much an artist in my profession as Paganini was in his, and I
claim also a like courtesy from you. So, then, if in the future it
becomes necessary to allude to me--and I fear it often will--I shall be
obliged if you do so as 'The Man Who Calls Himself Hamilton Cleek.' In
return for that courtesy, gentlemen, I promise to alter my mode of
procedure, to turn over a new leaf, as it were, to give you at all times
hereafter distinct information, in advance, of such places as I elect
for the field of my operations, and of the time when I shall pay my
respects to them, and, on the morning after each such visit, to bestow
some small portion of the loot upon Scotland Yard as a souvenir of the
event."
And to that remarkable programme he rigidly adhered from that time
forth--always giving the police twelve hours' notice, always evading
their traps and snares, always carrying out his plans in spite of them,
and always, on the morning after, sending some trinket or trifle to
Superintendent Narkom at Scotland Yard, in a little pink cardboard box,
tied up with rose-coloured ribbon, and marked "With the compliments of
The Man Who Calls Himself Hamilton Cleek."
The detectives of the United Kingdom, the detectives of the Continent,
the detectives of America--each and all had measured swords with him,
tried wits with him, spread snares and laid traps for him, and each and
all had retired from the field vanquished.
And this was the man that he--Police Constable Samuel James Collins--had
actually had in his hands; nay, in his very arms, and then had given up
for half a sovereign and let go!
"Oh, so help me! You make my head swim, Smathers, that you do!" he
managed to say at last. "I had him--I had the Vanishing Cracksman--in my
blessed paws--and then went and let that French hussy--But look here; I
say, now, how do you know it was him? Nobody can go by his looks; so how
do you know?"
"Know, you footler!" growled Smathers, disgustedly. "Why shouldn't I
know when I've been after him ever since he left Scotland Yard half an
hour ago?"
"Left what? My hat! You ain't a-going to tell me that he's been there?
When? Why? What for?"
"To leave one of his blessed notices, the dare-devil. What a detective
he'd a made, wouldn't he, if he'd only a-turned his attention that way,
and been on the side of the law instead of against it? He walked in bold
as brass, sat down, and talked with the superintendent over some
cock-and-bull yarn about a 'Black Hand' letter that he said had been
sent to him, and asked if he couldn't have police protection whilst he
was in town. It wasn't until after he'd left that the super he sees a
note on the chair where the blighter had been sitting, and when he
opened it, there it was in black and white, something like this:
"'The list of presents that have been sent for the wedding to-morrow of
Sir Horace Wyvern's eldest daughter make interesting reading,
particularly that part which describes the jewels sent--no doubt as a
tribute to her father's position as the greatest brain specialist in the
world--from the Austrian Court and the Continental principalities. The
care of such gems is too great a responsibility for the bride. I
propose, therefore, to relieve her of it to-night, and to send you the
customary souvenir of the event to-morrow morning. Yours faithfully,
"'The Man Who Calls Himself Hamilton Cleek.
"That's how I know, dash you! Superintendent sent me out after him, hot
foot; and after a bit I picked him up in the Strand, toddling along with
that French hussy as cool as you please. But, blow him! he must have
eyes all round his head, for he saw me just as soon as I saw him, and he
and Frenchy separated like a shot. She hopped into a taxi and flew off
in one direction; he dived into a crowd and bolted in another, and
before you could say Jack Robinson he was doubling and twisting, jumping
into cabs and jumping out again--all to gain time, of course, for the
woman to do what he'd put her up to doing--and leading me the devil's
own chase through the devil's own tangle till he was ready to bunk for
the Embankment. And you let him go, you blooming footler! Had him and
let him go, and chucked away a third of £200 for the price of half a
quid!"
And long after Smathers and Petrie had left him, and the wondering crowd
had dispersed, and point duty at "Dead Man's Corner" was just point duty
again and nothing more, P.C. Collins stood there, chewing the cud of
bitter reflection over those words, and trying to reckon up just how
many pounds and how much glory had been lost to him.
II
"But, damme, sir, the thing's an outrage! I don't mince my words, Mr.
Narkom--I say plump and plain the thing's an outrage, a disgrace to the
police, an indignity upon the community at large; and for Scotland Yard
to permit itself to be defied, bamboozled, mocked at in this appalling
fashion by a paltry burglar--"
"Uncle, dear, pray don't excite yourself in this manner. I am quite sure
that if Mr. Narkom could prevent the things--"
"Hold your tongue, Ailsa--I will not be interfered with! It's time that
somebody spoke out plainly and let this establishment know what the
public has a right to expect of it. What do I pay my rates and taxes
for--and devilish high ones they are, too, b'gad--if it's not to
maintain law and order and the proper protection of property? And to
have the whole blessed country terrorised, the police defied, and
people's houses invaded with impunity by a gutter-bred brute of a
cracksman is nothing short of a scandal and a shame! Call this sort of
tomfoolery being protected by the police? God bless my soul! one might
as well be in charge of a parcel of doddering old women and be done with
it!"
It was an hour and a half after that exciting affair at "Dead Man's
Corner." The scene was Superintendent Narkom's private room at
headquarters, the dramatis personae, Mr. Maverick Narkom himself, Sir
Horace Wyvern, and Miss Ailsa Lorne, his niece, a slight, fair-haired,
extremely attractive girl of twenty, the only and orphaned daughter of a
much-loved sister, who, up till a year ago, had known nothing more
exciting in the way of "life" than that which is to be found in a small
village in Suffolk, and falls to the lot of an underpaid vicar's only
child. A railway accident had suddenly deprived her of both parents,
throwing her wholly upon her own resources, without a penny in the
world. Sir Horace had gracefully come to the rescue and given her a home
and a refuge, being doubly repaid for it by the affection and care she
gave him and the manner in which she assumed control of a household
which hitherto had been left wholly to the attention of servants, Lady
Wyvern having long been dead, and her two daughters of that type which
devotes itself entirely to the pleasures of society and the demands of
the world. A regular pepper-box of a man--testy, short-tempered,
exacting--Sir Horace had flown headlong to Superintendent Narkom's
office as soon as that gentleman's note, telling him of the Vanishing
Cracksman's latest threat, had been delivered, and, on Miss Lorne's
advice, had withheld all news of it from the members of his household
and brought her with him.
"I tell you that Scotland Yard must do something--must! must! must!"
stormed he as Narkom, resenting that stigma upon the institution,
puckered up his lips and looked savage. "That fellow has always kept his
word--always, in spite of your precious band of muffs--and if you let
him keep it this time, when there's upwards of £40,000 worth of jewels
in the house, it will be nothing less than a national disgrace, and you
and your wretched collection of bunglers will be covered with deserved
ridicule."
Narkom swung round, smarting under these continued taunts, these
"flings" at the efficiency of his prided department, his nostrils
dilated, his temper strained to the breaking-point.
"Well, he won't keep it this time--I promise you that!" he rapped out
sharply. "Sooner or later every criminal, no matter how clever, meets
his Waterloo--and this shall be his! I'll take this affair in hand
myself, Sir Horace. I'll not only send the pick of my men to guard the
jewels, but I'll go with them; and if that fellow crosses the threshold
of Wyvern House to-night, by the Lord, I'll have him. He will have to be
the devil himself to get away from me! Miss Lorne"--recollecting himself
and bowing apologetically--"I ask your pardon for this strong
language--my temper got the better of my manners."
"It does not matter, Mr. Narkom, so that you preserve my cousin's
wedding-gifts from that appalling man," she answered with a gentle
inclination of the head and with a smile that made the superintendent
think she must certainly be the most beautiful creature in all the
world, it so irradiated her face and added to the magic of her glorious
eyes. "It does not matter what you say, what you do, so long as you
accomplish that."
"And I will accomplish it--as I'm a living man, I will! You may go home
feeling assured of that. Look for my men some time before dusk, Sir
Horace--I will arrive later. They will come in one at a time. See that
they are admitted by the area door, and that, once in, not one of them
leaves the house again before I put in an appearance. I'll look them
over when I arrive to be sure that there's no wolf in sheep's clothing
amongst them. With a fellow like that--a diabolical rascal with a
diabolical gift for impersonation--one can't be too careful. Meantime,
it is just as well not to have confided this news to your daughters,
who, naturally, would be nervous and upset; but I assume that you have
taken some one of the servants into your confidence in order that nobody
may pass them and enter the house under any pretext whatsoever?"
"No, I have not. Miss Lorne advised against it, and, as I am always
guided by her, I said nothing of the matter to anybody."
"Was that wrong, do you think, Mr. Narkom?" queried Ailsa anxiously. "I
feared that if they knew they might lose their heads, and that my
cousins, who are intensely nervous and highly emotional, might hear of
it, and add to our difficulties by becoming hysterical and demanding our
attention at a time when we ought to be giving every moment to watching
for the possible arrival of that man. And as he has always lived up to
the strict letter of his dreadful promises heretofore, I knew that he
was not to be expected before nightfall. Besides, the jewels are locked
up in the safe in Sir Horace's consulting-room, and his assistant, Mr.
Merfroy, has promised not to leave it for one instant before we return."
"Oh, well, that's all right, then. I dare say there is very little
likelihood of our man getting in whilst you and Sir Horace are here, and
taking such a risk as stopping in the house until nightfall to begin his
operations. Still, it was hardly wise, and I should advise hurrying back
as fast as possible and taking at least one servant--the one you feel
least likely to lose his head--into your confidence, Sir Horace, and
putting him on the watch for my men. Otherwise, keep the matter as quiet
as you have done, and look for me about nine o'clock. And rely upon this
as a certainty: the Vanishing Cracksman will never get away with even
one of those jewels if he enters that house to-night, and never get out
of it unshackled!"
With that, he suavely bowed his visitors out and rang up the pick of his
men without an instant's delay.
Promptly at nine o'clock he arrived, as he had promised, at Wyvern
House, and was shown into Sir Horace's consulting-room, where Sir Horace
himself and Miss Lorne were awaiting him, and keeping close watch before
the locked door of a communicating apartment in which sat the six men
who had preceded him. He went in and put them all and severally through
a rigid examination--pulling their hair and beards, rubbing their faces
with a clean handkerchief in quest of any trace of "make-up" or disguise
of any sort, examining their badges and the marks on the handcuffs they
carried with them to make sure that they bore the sign which he himself
had scratched upon them in the privacy of his own room a couple of hours
ago.
"No mistake about this lot," he announced, with a smile. "Has anybody
else entered or attempted to enter the house?"
"Not a soul," replied Miss Lorne. "I didn't trust anybody to do the
watching, Mr. Narkom--I watched myself."
"Good. Where are the jewels? In that safe?"
"No," replied Sir Horace. "They are to be exhibited in the
picture-gallery for the benefit of the guests at the wedding breakfast
to-morrow, and as Miss Wyvern wished to superintend the arrangement of
them herself, and there would be no time for that in the morning, she
and her sister are in there laying them out at this moment. As I could
not prevent that without telling them what we have to dread, I did not
protest against it; but if you think it will be safer to return them to
the safe after my daughters have gone to bed, Mr. Narkom--"
"Not at all necessary. If our man gets in, their lying there in full
view like that will prove a tempting bait, and--well, he'll find there's
a hook behind it. I shall be there waiting for him. Now go and join the
ladies, you and Miss Lorne, and act as though nothing out of the common
was in the wind. My men and I will stop here, and you had better put out
the light and lock us in, so that there may be no danger of anybody
finding out that we are here. No doubt Miss Wyvern and her sister will
go to bed earlier than usual on this particular occasion. Let them do
so. Send the servants to bed, too. You and Miss Lorne go to your beds at
the same time as the others--or, at least, let them think that you have
done so; then come down and let us out."
To this Sir Horace assented, and, taking Miss Lorne with him, went at
once to the picture-gallery and joined his daughters, with whom they
remained until eleven o'clock. Promptly at that hour, however, the house
was locked up, the bride-elect and her sister went to bed--the servants
having already gone to theirs--and stillness settled down over the
darkened house. At the end of a dozen minutes, however, it was faintly
disturbed by the sound of slippered feet coming along the passage
outside the consulting-room, then a key slipped into the lock, the door
was opened, the light switched on, and Sir Horace and Miss Lorne
appeared before the eager watchers.
"Now, then, lively, my men--look sharp!" whispered Narkom. "A man to
each window and each staircase, so that nobody may go up or down or in
or out without dropping into the arms of one of you. Confine your
attention to this particular floor, and if you hear anybody coming, lay
low until he's within reach, and you can drop on him before he bolts. Is
this the door of the picture-gallery, Sir Horace?"
"Yes," answered Sir Horace, as he fitted a key to the lock. "But surely
you will need more men than you have brought, Mr. Narkom, if it is your
intention to guard every window individually, for there are four to this
room--see!"
With that he swung open the door, switched on the electric light, and
Narkom fairly blinked at the dazzling sight that confronted him. Three
long tables, laden with crystal and silver, cut glass and jewels, and
running the full length of the room, flashed and scintillated under the
glare of the electric bulbs which encircled the cornice of the gallery,
and clustered in luminous splendour in the crystal and frosted silver of
a huge central chandelier, and spread out on the middle one of these--a
dazzle of splintered rainbows, a very plain of living light--lay caskets
and cases, boxes and trays, containing those royal gifts of which the
newspapers had made so much and the Vanishing Cracksman had sworn to
make so few.
Mr. Narkom went over and stood beside the glittering mass, resting his
hand against the table and feasting his eyes upon all that opulent
splendour.
"God bless my soul! it's superb, it's amazing," he commented. "No wonder
the fellow is willing to take risks for a prize like this. You are a
splendid temptation; a gorgeous bait, you beauties; but the fish that
snaps at you will find that there's a nasty hook underneath in the shape
of Maverick Narkom. Never mind the many windows, Sir Horace. Let him
come in by them, if that's his plan. I'll never leave these things for
one instant between now and the morning. Good night, Miss Lorne. Go to
bed and to sleep--you do the same, Sir Horace. My lay is here!"
With that he stooped and, lifting the long drapery which covered the
table and swept down in heavy folds to the floor, crept out of sight
under it, and let it drop back into place again.
"Switch off the light and go," he called to them in a low-sunk voice.
"Don't worry yourselves, either of you. Go to bed, and to sleep if you
can."
"As if we could," answered Miss Lorne agitatedly. "I shan't be able to
close an eyelid. I'll try, of course, but I know I shall not succeed.
Come, uncle, come! Oh, do be careful, Mr. Narkom; and if that horrible
man does come--"
"I'll have him, so help me God!" he vowed. "Switch off the light, and
shut the door as you go out. This is 'Forty Faces'' Waterloo at last."
And in another moment the light snicked out, the door closed, and he was
alone in the silent room.
For ten or a dozen minutes not even the bare suggestion of a noise
disturbed the absolute stillness; then of a sudden, his trained ear
caught a faint sound that made him suck in his breath and rise on his
elbow, the better to listen--a sound which came, not without the house,
but from within, from the dark hall where he had stationed his men, to
be exact. As he listened he was conscious that some living creature had
approached the door, touched the handle, and by the swift, low rustle
and the sound of hard breathing, that it had been pounced upon and
seized. He scrambled out from beneath the table, snicked on the light,
whirled open the door, and was in time to hear the irritable voice of
Sir Horace say, testily: "Don't make an ass of yourself by your
over-zealousness. I've only come down to have a word with Mr. Narkom,"
and to see him standing on the threshold, grotesque in a baggy suit of
striped pyjamas, with one wrist enclosed as in a steel band by the
gripped fingers of Petrie.
"Why didn't you say it was you, sir?" exclaimed that crestfallen
individual, as the flashing light made manifest his mistake. "When I
heard you first, and see you come up out of that back passage, I made
sure it was him; and if you'd a struggled, I'd have bashed your head as
sure as eggs."
"Thank you for nothing," he responded testily. "You might have
remembered, however, that the man's first got to get into the place
before he can come downstairs. Mr. Narkom," turning to the
superintendent, "I was just getting into bed when I thought of something
I'd neglected to tell you; and as my niece is sitting in her room with
the door open, and I wasn't anxious to parade myself before her in my
night clothes, I came down by the back staircase. I don't know how in
the world I came to overlook it, but I think you ought to know that
there's a way of getting into the picture gallery without using either
the windows or the stairs, and that way ought to be both searched and
guarded."
"Where is it? What is it? Why in the world didn't you tell me in the
first place?" exclaimed Narkom irritably, as he glanced round the place
searchingly. "Is it a panel? a secret door? or what? This is an old
house, and old houses are sometimes a very nest of such things."
"Happily, this one isn't. It's a modern innovation, not an ancient
relic, that offers the means of entrance in this case. A Yankee occupied
this house before I bought it from him--one of those blessed shivery
individuals his country breeds, who can't stand a breath of cold air
indoors after the passing of the autumn. The wretched man put one of
those wretched American inflictions, a hot-air furnace, in the cellar,
with huge pipes running to every room in the house--great tin
monstrosities bigger round than a man's body, ending in openings in the
wall, with what they call 'registers,' to let the heat in, or shut it
out as they please. I didn't have the wretched contrivance removed or
those blessed 'registers' plastered up. I simply had them papered over
when the rooms were done up (there's one over there near that settee),
and if a man got into this house, he could get into that furnace thing
and hide in one of those flues until he got ready to crawl up it as
easily as not. It struck me that perhaps it would be as well for you to
examine that furnace and those flues before matters go any further."
"Of course it would. Great Scott! Sir Horace, why didn't you think to
tell me of this thing before?" said Narkom, excitedly. "The fellow may
be in it at this minute. Come, show me the wretched thing."
"It's below--in the cellar. We shall have to go down the kitchen stairs,
and I haven't a light."
"Here's one," said Petrie, unhitching a bull's-eye from his belt and
putting it into Narkom's hand. "Better go with Sir Horace at once, sir.
Leave the door of the gallery open and the light on. Fish and me will
stand guard over the stuff till you come back, so in case the man is in
one of them flues and tries to bolt out at this end, we can nab him
before he can get to the windows."
"A good idea," commented Narkom. "Come on, Sir Horace. Is this the way?"
"Yes, but you'll have to tread carefully, and mind you don't fall over
anything. A good deal of my paraphernalia--bottles, retorts and the
like--is stored in the little recess at the foot of the staircase, and
my assistant is careless and leaves things lying about."
Evidently the caution was necessary, for a minute or so after they had
passed on and disappeared behind the door leading to the kitchen
stairway, Petrie and his colleagues heard a sound as of something being
overturned and smashed, and laughed softly to themselves. Evidently,
too, the danger of the furnace had been grossly exaggerated by Sir
Horace, for when, a few minutes later, the door opened and closed, and
Narkom's men, glancing toward it, saw the figure of their chief
reappear, it was plain that he was in no good temper, since his features
were knotted up into a scowl, and he swore audibly as he snapped the
shutter over the bull's-eye and handed it back to Petrie.
"Nothing worth looking into, superintendent?"
"No--not a thing!" he replied. "The silly old josser! pulling me down
there amongst the coals and rubbish for an insane idea like that! Why,
the flues wouldn't admit the passage of a child; and even then, there's
a bend--an abrupt 'elbow'--that nothing but a cat could crawl up. And
that's a man who's an authority on the human brain! I sent the old silly
back to bed by the way he came, and if--"
There he stopped, stopped short, and sucked in his breath with a sharp,
wheezing sound. For, of a sudden, a swift pattering footfall and a
glimmer of moving light had sprung into being and drawn his eyes upward;
and there, overhead, was Miss Lorne coming down the stairs from the
upper floor in a state of nervous excitement, and with a bedroom candle
in her shaking hand, a loose gown flung on over her nightdress, and her
hair streaming over her shoulders in glorious disarray.
He stood and looked at her, with ever-quickening breath, with
ever-widening eyes, as though the beauty of her had wakened some dormant
sense whose existence he had never suspected; as though, until now, he
had never known how fair it was possible for a woman to be, how fair,
how lovable, how much to be desired; and whilst he was so looking she
reached the foot of the staircase and came pantingly toward him.
"Oh, Mr. Narkom, what was it--that noise I heard?" she said in a tone of
deepest agitation. "It sounded like a struggle--like the noise of
something breaking--and I dressed as hastily as I could and came down.
Did he come? Has he been here? Have you caught him? Oh! why don't you
answer me, instead of staring at me like this? Can't you see how
nervous, how frightened, I am? Dear Heaven! will no one tell me what has
happened?"
"Nothing has happened, miss," answered Petrie, catching her eye as she
flashed round on him. "You'd better go back to bed. Nobody's been here
but Sir Horace. The noise you heard was me a-grabbing of him, and he and
Mr. Narkom a-tumbling over something as they went down to look at the
furnace."
"Furnace? What furnace? What are you talking about?" she cried
agitatedly. "What do you mean by saying that Sir Horace came down?"
"Only what the superintendent himself will tell you, miss, if you ask
him. Sir Horace came downstairs in his pyjamas a few minutes ago to say
as he'd recollected about the flues of the furnace in the cellar being
big enough to hold a man, and then him and Mr. Narkom went below to have
a look at it."
She gave a sharp and sudden cry, and her face went as pale as a dead
face.
"Sir Horace came down?" she repeated, moving back a step and leaning
heavily against the bannister. "Sir Horace came down to look at the
furnace? We have no furnace!"
"What!"
"We have no furnace, I tell you, and Sir Horace did not come down. He is
up there still. I know--I know, I tell you--because I feared for his
safety, and when he went to his room I locked him in!"
"Superintendent!" The word was voiced by every man present, and six
pairs of eyes turned toward Narkom with a look of despairing
comprehension.
"Get to the cellar. Head the man off! It's he--the Cracksman!" he
shouted out. "Find him! Get him! Nab him, if you have to turn the house
upside down!"
They needed no second bidding, for each man grasped the situation
instantly, and in a twinkling there was a veritable pandemonium.
Shouting and scrambling like a band of madmen, they lurched to the door,
whirled it open, and went flying down the staircase to the kitchen and
so to a discovery which none might have foreseen. For, almost as they
entered they saw lying on the floor a suit of striped pyjamas, and close
to it, gagged, bound, helpless, trussed up like a goose that was ready
for the oven, gyves on his wrists, gyves on his ankles, their chief,
their superintendent, Mr. Maverick Narkom, in a state of collapse, and
with all his outer clothing gone!
"After him! After that devil, and a thousand pounds to the man that gets
him!" he managed to gasp as they rushed to him and ripped loose the gag.
"He was here when we came! He has been in the house for hours. Get him!
get him! get him!"
They surged from the room and up the stairs like a pack of stampeded
animals; they raced through the hall and bore down on the
picture-gallery in a body, and, whirling open the now closed door, went
tumbling headlong in.
The light was still burning. At the far end of the room a window was
wide open, and the curtains of it fluttered in the wind. A collection of
empty cases and caskets lay on the middle table, but man and jewels were
alike gone! Once again the Vanishing Cracksman had lived up to his
promise, up to his reputation, up to the very letter of his name, and
for all Mr. Maverick Narkom's care and shrewdness, "Forty Faces" had
"turned the trick" and Scotland Yard was "done!"
III
Through all the night its best men sought him, its dragnets fished for
him, its tentacles groped into every hole and corner of London in quest
of him, but sought and fished and groped in vain. They might as well
have hoped to find last summer's partridges or last winter's snow as any
trace of him. He had vanished as mysteriously as he had appeared, and no
royal jewels graced the display of Miss Wyvern's wedding gifts on the
morrow.
But it was fruitful of other "gifts," fruitful of an even greater
surprise, that "morrow." For the first time since the day he had given
his promise, no "souvenir" from "The Man Who Called Himself Hamilton
Cleek," no part of last night's loot came to Scotland Yard; and it was
while the evening papers were making screaming "copy" and glaring
headlines out of this that the surprise in question came to pass.
Miss Wyvern's wedding was over, the day and the bride had gone, and it
was half-past ten at night, when Sir Horace, answering a hurry call from
headquarters, drove post haste to Superintendent Narkom's private room,
and passing in under a red and green lamp which burned over the doorway,
entered and met that "surprise."
Maverick Narkom was there alone, standing beside his desk, with the
curtains of his window drawn and pinned together, and at his elbow an
unlighted lamp of violet-coloured glass, standing and looking
thoughtfully down at something which lay before him. He turned as his
visitor entered and made an open-handed gesture toward it.
"Look here," he said laconically, "what do you think of this?"
Sir Horace moved forward and looked; then stopped and gave a sort of
wondering cry. The electric bulbs overhead struck a glare of light down
on the surface of the desk, and there, spread out on the shining oak,
lay a part of the royal jewels that had been stolen from Wyvern House
last night.
"Narkom! You got him, then--got him after all?"
"No, I did not get him. I doubt if any man could, if he chose not to be
found," said Narkom bitterly. "I did not recover these jewels by any act
of my own. He sent them to me; gave them up voluntarily."
"Gave them up? After he had risked so much to get them? God bless my
soul, what a man! Why, there must be quite half here of what he took."
"There is half--an even half. He sent them to-night, and with them this
letter. Look at it, and you will understand why I sent for you and asked
you to come alone."
"There's some good in even the devil, I suppose, if one but knows how to
reach it and stir it up," Sir Horace read. "I have lived a life of crime
from my very boyhood because I couldn't help it, because it appealed to
me, because I glory in risks and revel in dangers. I never knew where it
would lead me--I never thought, never cared--but I looked into the
gateway of heaven last night, and I can't go down the path to hell any
longer. Here is an even half of Miss Wyvern's jewels. If you and her
father would have me hand over the other half to you, and would have
'The Vanishing Cracksman' disappear forever, and a useless life
converted into a useful one, you have only to say so to make it an
accomplished thing. All I ask in return is your word of honour (to be
given to me by signal) that you will send for Sir Horace Wyvern to be at
your office at eleven o'clock to-night, and that you and he will grant
me a private interview unknown to any other living being. A red and
green lantern hung over the doorway leading to your office will be the
signal that you agree, and a violet light in your window will be the
pledge of Sir Horace Wyvern. When these two signals, these two pledges,
are given, I shall come in and hand over the remainder of the jewels,
and you will have looked for the first time in your life upon the real
face of 'The Man Who Calls Himself Hamilton Cleek.'"
"God bless my soul! What an amazing creature--what an astounding
request!" exclaimed Sir Horace, as he laid the letter down. "Willing to
give up £20,000 worth of jewels for the mere sake of a private
interview! What on earth can be his object? And why should he include
me?"
"I don't know," said Narkom in reply. "It's worth something, at all
events, to be rid of 'The Vanishing Cracksman' for good and all; and he
says that it rests with us to do that. It's close to eleven now. Shall
we give him the pledge he asks, Sir Horace? My signal is already hung
out; shall we agree to the conditions and give him yours?"
"Yes, yes, by all means," Sir Horace made answer. And lighting the
violet lamp, Narkom flicked open the pinned curtains and set it in the
window.
For ten minutes nothing came of it, and the two men, talking in whispers
while they waited, began to grow nervous. Then somewhere in the distance
a clock started striking eleven, and without so much as a warning sound,
the door flashed open, flashed shut again, a voice that was undeniably
the voice of breeding and refinement said quietly: "Gentlemen, my
compliments. Here are the diamonds and here am I!" and the figure of a
man, faultlessly dressed, faultlessly mannered, with the slim-loined
form, the slim-walled nose, and the clear-cut features of the born
aristocrat, stood in the room.
His age might lie anywhere between twenty-five and thirty-five, his eyes
were straight-looking and clear, his fresh, clean-shaven face was
undeniably handsome, and, whatever his origin, whatever his history,
there was something about him, in look, in speech, in bearing, that
mutely stood sponsor for the thing called "birth."
"God bless my soul!" exclaimed Sir Horace, amazed and appalled to find
the reality so widely different from the image he had drawn. "What
monstrous juggle is this? Why, man alive, you're a gentleman! Who are
you? What's driven you to a dog's life like this?"
"A natural bent, perhaps; a supernatural gift, certainly, Sir Horace,"
he made reply. "Look here! Could any man resist the temptation to use it
when he was endowed by Nature with the power to do this?" His features
seemed to writhe and knot and assume in as many moments a dozen
different aspects. "I've had the knack of doing that since the hour I
could breathe. Could any man 'go straight' with a fateful gift like that
if the laws of Nature said that he should not?"
"And do they say that?"
"That's what I want you to tell me--that's why I have requested this
interview. I want you to examine me, Sir Horace, to put me through those
tests you use to determine the state of mind of the mentally fit and
mentally unfit; I want to know if it is my fault that I am what I am,
and if it is myself I have to fight in future, or the devil that lives
within me. I'm tired of wallowing in the mire. A woman's eyes have lit
the way to heaven for me. I want to climb up to her, to win her, to be
worthy of her, and to stand beside her in the light."
"Her? What 'her'?"
"That's my business, Mr. Narkom, and I'll take no man into my confidence
regarding that."
"Yes, my friend, but 'Margot'--how about her?"
"I'm done with her! We broke last night, when I returned and she
learned--never mind what she learned! I'm done with her--done with the
lot of them. My life is changed forever."
"In the name of Heaven, man, who and what are you?"
"Cleek--just Cleek; let it go at that," he made reply. "Whether it's my
name or not is no man's business; who I am, what I am, whence I came, is
no man's business either. Cleek will do--Cleek of the Forty Faces. Never
mind the past; my fight is with the future, and so--examine me, Sir
Horace, and let me know if I or Fate's to blame for what I am."
Sir Horace did.
"Absolutely Fate," he said, when, after a long examination, the man put
the question to him again. "It is the criminal brain fully developed,
horribly pronounced. God help you, my poor fellow; but a man simply
could not be other than a thief and a criminal with an organ like that.
There's no hope for you to escape your natural bent except by death. You
can't be honest. You can't rise--you never will rise; it's useless to
fight against it!"
"I will fight against it! I will rise! I will! I will! I will!" he cried
out vehemently. "There is a way to put such craft and cunning to
account; a way to fight the devil with his own weapons and crush him
under the weight of his own gifts, and that way I'll take!"
"Mr. Narkom"--he whirled and walked toward the superintendent, his hand
outstretched, his eager face aglow--"Mr. Narkom, help me! Take me under
your wing. Give me a start--give me a chance--give me a lift on the way
up!"
"Good heaven, man, you--you don't mean--?"
"I do--I do! So help me heaven, I do. All my life I've fought against
the law--now let me switch over and fight with it. I'm tired of being
Cleek, the thief; Cleek, the burglar. Make me Cleek, the detective, and
let us work together, hand in hand, for a common cause and for the
public good. Will you, Mr. Narkom? Will you?"
"Will I? Won't I!" said Narkom, springing forward and gripping his hand.
"Jove! what a detective you will make. Bully boy! Bully boy!"
"It's a compact, then?"
"It's a compact--Cleek."
"Thank you," he said in a choked voice. "You've given me my chance; now
watch me live up to it. The Vanishing Cracksman has vanished forever,
Mr. Narkom, and it's Cleek, the detective--Cleek of the Forty Faces from
this time on. Now, give me your riddles--I'll solve them one by one."
CHAPTER I
The sound came again--so unmistakably, this time, the sound of a
footstep in the soft, squashy ooze on the Heath, there could be no
question regarding the nature of it. Miss Lorne came to an instant
standstill and clutched her belongings closer to her with a shake and a
quiver; and a swift prickle of goose-flesh ran round her shoulders and
up and down the backs of her hands. There was good, brave blood in her,
it is true; but good, brave blood isn't much to fall back upon if you
happen to be a girl without escort, carrying a hand-bag containing
twenty-odd pounds in money, several bits of valuable jewellery--your
whole earthly possessions, in fact--and have lost your way on Hampstead
Heath at half-past eight o'clock at night, with a spring fog shutting
you in like a wall and shutting out everything else but a "mackerel"
collection of clouds that looked like grey smudges on the greasy-silver
of a twilit sky.
She looked round, but she could see nothing and nobody. The Heath was a
white waste that might have been part of the scenery in Lapland for all
there was to tell that it lay within reach of the heart and pulse of the
sluggish leviathan London. Over it the vapours of night crowded, an
almost palpable wall of thick, wet mist, stirred now and again by some
atmospheric movement which could scarcely be called a wind, although, at
times, it drew long, lacey filaments above the level of the denser mass
of fog and melted away with them into the calm, still upper air.
Miss Lorne hesitated between two very natural impulses--to gather up her
skirts and run, or to stand her ground and demand an explanation from
the person who was undoubtedly following her. She chose the latter.
"Who is there? Why are you following me? What do you want?" she flung
out, keeping her voice as steady as the hard, sharp hammering of her
heart would permit.
The question was answered at once--rather startlingly, since the
footsteps which caused her alarm, had all the while proceeded from
behind, and slightly to the left of her. Now there came a hurried rush
and scramble on the right; there was the sound of a match being
scratched, a blob of light in the grey of the mist, and she saw standing
in front of her, a ragged, weedy, red-headed youth, with the blazing
match in his scooped hands.
He was thin to the point of ghastliness. Hunger was in his pinched face,
his high cheekbones, his gouged jaws; staring like a starved wolf,
through the unnatural brightness of his pale eyes, from every gaunt
feature of him.
"'Ullo!" he said with a strong Cockney accent, as he came up out of the
fog, and the flare of the match gave him a full view of her, standing
there with her lips shut hard, and, the hand-bag clutched up close to
her with both hands. "You wot called, was it? Wot price me for
arnswerin' of you, eh?"
"Yes, it was I that called," she replied, making a brave front of it.
"But I do not think it was you that I called to. Keep away, please.
Don't come any nearer. What do you want?" "Well, I'll take that blessed
'and-bag to go on with; and if there aren't no money in it--tumble it
out--let's see--lively now! I'll feed for the rest of this week--Gawd,
yuss!"
She made no reply, no attempt to obey him, no movement of any sort. Fear
had absolutely stricken every atom of strength from her. She could do
nothing but look at him with big, frightened eyes, and shake.
"Look 'ere, aren't you a-goin' to do it quiet, or are you a-goin' to
mike me tike the blessed thing from you?" he asked.
"I'll do it if you put me to it--my hat! yuss! It aren't my gime--I'm
wot you might call a hammer-chewer at it, but when there's summink
inside you, wot tears and tears and tears, any gime's worth tryin' that
pulls out the claws of it."
She did not move even yet. He flung the spent match from him, and made a
sharp step toward her, and he had just reached out his hand to lay hold
of her, when another hand--strong, sinewy, hard-shutting as an iron
clamp--reached out from the mist, and laid hold of him; plucking him by
the neckband and intruding a bunch of knuckles and shut fingers between
that and his up-slanted chin.
"Now, then, drop that little game at once, you young monkey!" struck in
the sharp staccato of a semi-excited voice. "Interfering with young
ladies, eh? Let's have a look at you. Don't be afraid, Miss
Lorne--nobody's going to hurt you."
Then a pocket torch spat out a sudden ray of light; and by it both the
half-throttled boy and the wholly frightened girl could see the man who
had thus intruded himself upon their notice.
"Oh, it is you--it is you again, Mr. Cleek?" said Ailsa with something
between a laugh and a sigh of relief as she recognized him.
"Yes, it is I. I have been behind you ever since you left the house in
Bardon Road. It was rash of you to cross the heath at this time and in
this weather. I rather fancied that something of this kind would be
likely to happen, and so took the liberty of following you."
"Then it was you I heard behind me?"
"It was I--yes. I shouldn't have intruded myself upon your notice if you
hadn't called out. A moment, please. Let's have a look at this young
highwayman, who so freely advertises himself as an amateur."
The light spat full into the gaunt, starved face of the young man and
made it stare forth doubly ghastly. He had made no effort to get away
from the very first. Perhaps he understood the uselessness of it, with
that strong hand gripped on his ragged neckband. Perhaps he was, in his
way, something of a fatalist--London breeds so many among such as he:
starved things that find every boat chained, every effort thrust back
upon them unrewarded. At any rate, from the moment he had heard the girl
give to this man a name which every soul in England had heard at one
time or another during the past two years, he had gone into a sort of
mild collapse, as though realising the utter uselessness of battling
against fate, and had given himself up to what was to be.
"Hello," said Cleek, as he looked the youth over. "Yours is a face I
don't remember running foul of before, my young beauty. Where did you
come from?"
"Where I seem like to be goin' now you've got your currant-pickers on
me--Hell," answered the boy, with something like a sigh of despair.
"Leastways, I been in Hell ever since I can remember anyfink, so I
reckon I must have come from there."
"What's your name?"
"Dollops. S'pose I must a had another sometime, but I never heard of it.
Wot's that? Yuss--most nineteen. _Wot?_ Oh, go throw summink at
yourself! I aren't too young to be 'ungry, am I? And where's a cove
goin' to _find_ this 'ere 'honest work' you're a-talkin' of? I'm fair
sick of the gime of lookin' for it. Besides, you don't see parties as
goes in for the other thing walkin' round with ribs on 'em like
bed-slats, and not even the price of a cup of corfy in their pockets, do
you? No fear! I wouldn't've 'urt the young lydie; but I tell you strite,
I'd a took every blessed farthin' she 'ad on her if you 'adn't've
dropped on me like this."
"Got down to the last ditch--down to the point of desperation, eh?"
"Yuss. So would you if you 'ad a fing inside you tearin' and tearin'
like I 'ave. Aren't et a bloomin' crumb since the day before yusterday
at four in the mawnin' when a gent in an 'ansom--drunk as a lord, he
was--treated me and a parcel of others to a bun and a cup of corfy at a
corfy stall over 'Ighgate way. Stood out agin bein' a crook as long as
ever I could--as long as ever I'm goin' to, I reckon, now _you've_ got
your maulers on me. I'll be on the list after this. The cops 'ull know
me; and when you've got the nime--well, wot's the odds? You might as
well 'ave the gime as well, and git over goin' empty. All right, run me
in, sir. Any'ow, I'll 'ave a bit to eat and a bed to sleep in to-night,
and that's one comfort--"
Cleek had been watching the boy closely, narrowly, with an
ever-deepening interest; now he loosened the grip of his fingers and let
his hand drop to his side.
"Suppose I don't 'run you in,' as you put it? Suppose I take a chance
and lend you five shillings, will you do some work and pay it back to me
in time?" he asked.
The boy looked up at him and laughed in his face.
"Look 'ere, Gov'nor, it's playin' it low down to lark wiv a chap jist
before you're goin' to 'ang 'im," he said. "You come off your blessed
perch."
"Right," said Cleek. "And now you get up on yours and let us see what
you're made of." Then he put his hand into his trousers pocket; there
was a chink of coins and two half-crowns lay on his outstretched palm.
"There you are--off with you now, and if you are any good, turn up some
time to-night at No. 204, Clarges Street, and ask for Captain Horatio
Burbage. He'll see that there's work for you. Toddle along now and get a
meal and a bed. And mind you keep a close mouth about this."
The boy neither moved nor spoke nor made any sound. For a moment or two
he stood looking from the man to the coins and from the coins back to
the man; then, gradually, the truth of the thing seemed to trickle into
his mind and, as a hungry fox might pounce upon a stray fowl, he grabbed
the money and--bolted.
"Remember the name and remember the street," Cleek called after him.
"You take your bloomin' oath I will!" came back through the enfolding
mist; "Gawd, yuss!"--Just that; and the youth was gone.
"I wonder what you will think of me, Miss Lorne," said Cleek, turning to
her; "taking a chance like this; and, above all, with a fellow who would
have stripped you of every jewel and every penny you have with you if
things hadn't happened as they have?"
"And I can very ill afford to lose anything _now_--as I suppose you
know, Mr. Cleek. Things have changed sadly for me since that day Mr.
Narkom introduced us at Ascot," she said, with just a shadow of
seriousness in her eyes. "But as to what I think regarding your action
toward that dreadful boy.... Oh, of course, if there is a chance of
saving him from a career of crime, I think one owes him that as a duty.
In the circumstances, the temptation was very great. It must be a
horrible thing to be so hungry that one is driven to robbery to satisfy
the longing for food."
"Yes, very horrible--very, very indeed. I once knew a boy who stood as
that boy stands--at the parting of the ways; when the good that was in
him fought the last great fight with the Devil of Circumstances. If a
hand had been stretched forth to help that boy at that time ... Ah,
well! it wasn't. The Devil took the reins and the game went _his_ way.
If five shillings will put the reins into that boy's hands to-night and
steer him back to the right path, so much the better for him and--for
me. I'll know if he's worth the chance I took to-morrow. Now let us talk
about something else. Will you allow me to escort you across the heath
and see you safely on your way home? Or would you prefer that I should
remain in the background as before?"
"How ungrateful you must think me, to suggest such a thing as that," she
said with a reproachful smile. "Walk with me if you will be so kind. I
hope you know that this is the third time you have rendered me a service
since I had the pleasure of meeting you. It is very nice of you; and I
am extremely grateful. I wonder you find the time or--well, take the
trouble," rather archly; "a great man like you."
"Shall I take off my hat and say 'thank you, ma'am'; or just the
hackneyed 'Praise from Sir Hubert is praise indeed'?" he said with a
laugh as he fell into step with her and they faced the mist and the
distance together. "I suppose you are alluding to my success in the
famous Stanhope Case--the newspapers made a great fuss over that, Mr.
Narkom tells me. But--please. One big success doesn't make a 'great man'
any more than one rosebush makes a garden."
"Are you fishing for a compliment? Or is that really natural modesty? I
had heard of your exploits and seen your name in the papers, oh, dozens
of times before I first had the pleasure of meeting you; and since then
... No, I shan't flatter you by saying how many successes I have seen
recorded to your credit in the past two years. Do you know that I have a
natural predilection for such things? It may be morbid of me--is
it?--but I have the strongest kind of a leaning toward the tales of
Gaboriau; and I have always wanted to know a really great
detective--like Lecocq, or Dupin. And that day at Ascot when Mr. Narkom
told me that he would introduce me to the famous 'Man of the Forty
Faces' ... Mr. Cleek, why do they call you 'the Man of the Forty Faces'?
You always look the same to me."
"Perhaps I shan't, when we come to the end of the heath and get into the
public street, where there are lights and people," he said. "That I
always look the same in your eyes, Miss Lorne, is because I have but one
face for you, and that is my real one. Not many people see it, even
among the men of The Yard whom I occasionally work with. You do,
however; so does Mr. Narkom, occasionally. So did that boy,
unfortunately. I had to show it when I came to your assistance, if only
to assure you that you were in friendly hands and to prevent you taking
fright and running off into the mist in a panic and losing yourself
where even I might not be able to find you. That is why I told the boy
to apply for work to 'Captain Burbage of Clarges Street.' _I_ am Captain
Burbage, Miss Lorne. Nobody knows that but my good friend Mr. Narkom
and, now, you."
"I shall respect it, of course," she said. "I hope I need not assure you
of that, Mr. Cleek."
"You need assure me of nothing, Miss Lorne," he made reply. "I owe so
much more to you than you are aware, that--Oh, well, it doesn't matter.
You asked me a question a moment ago. If you want the answer to it--look
here."
He stopped short as he spoke; the pocket-torch clicked faintly and from
the shelter of a curved hand, the glow of it struck upward to his face.
It was not the same face for ten seconds at a time. What Sir Horace
Wyvern had seen in Mr. Narkom's private office at Scotland Yard on that
night of nights more than two years ago, Sir Horace Wyvern's niece saw
now.
"Oh!" she said, with a sharp intaking of the breath as she saw the
writhing features knot and twist and blend. "Oh, don't! It is uncanny!
It is amazing. It is awful!" And, after a moment, when the light had
been shut off and the man beside her was only a shape in the mist: "I
hope I may never see you do it again," she merely more than whispered.
"It is the most appalling thing. I can't think how you do it--how you
came by the power to do such a thing."
"Perhaps by inheritance," said Cleek, as they walked on again. "Once
upon a time, Miss Lorne, there was a--er--lady of extremely high
position who, at a time when she should have been giving her thoughts
to--well, more serious things, used to play with one of those curious
little rubber faces which you can pinch up into all sorts of distorted
countenances--you have seen the things, no doubt. She would sit for
hours screaming with laughter over the droll shapes into which she
squeezed the thing. Afterward, when her little son was born, he
inherited the trick of that rubber face as a birthright. It may have
been the same case with me. Let us say it was, and drop the subject,
since you have not found the sight a pleasing one. Now tell me
something, please, that I want to know about you."