AN AMATEUR CARPENTER
Loide left Liverpool Street with trembling limbs, and a heart full of
bitterness.
That nineteen thousand pounds he had so counted on getting at least a
part of, was safe in the possession of the New York detective, who had
been one too many for him--that was his dominant, irritating thought.
It worried him.
Gerald had played a bluff game, and with success. Loide quite believed
all he had said about his three days' freedom from arrest.
Either Gerald was an artistic liar, or the lawyer's impressions of the
ways and doings of the American police were quaintly original.
He had made up his mind to flee within three days, but the details of
his flight were not worrying him just then; he was more easily engaged
in taking a tight hold of the fact that he was a ruined man--practically
a penniless fugitive from justice--unless----
That "unless."
He had killed one man with the idea of possessing that nineteen thousand
pounds, and although the murder did not lie heavily on his conscience,
the ill success attending his effort did--very heavily.
As he walked through his office to the Mansion House station of the
electric railway, he was debating in his mind whether he should have
another shot for the nineteen thousand pounds the New York detective had
in his possession.
En route to Waterloo he made up his mind that he would. His mind did not
need much making up--the fancied rustle of those crisp Bank of England
notes helped a deal.
He lived at a place called The Elms, on the outskirts of Wimbledon. His
house stood in its own grounds, some distance away from the road, and
from other houses.
It was a property he had acquired by foreclosing a mortgage. It would be
a quiet spot in which to carry out the scheme he was mentally sitting
on.
He hoped to hatch out a nineteen thousand pound egg.
His big difficulty would lie in luring the detective to Wimbledon. And
again, as an old man, he would be at a disadvantage in any struggle.
To kill the officer would be an easy task, but that was not his
intention. Not that he hesitated at the mere taking of a life--that was
a detail--but he wanted to profit by his work.
He was tired of profitless murder. One incident of that sort he felt was
sufficient to last a long time.
He guessed that the officer would not walk about all day with nineteen
thousand pounds in his possession, that he had stored the notes away
safely.
That he had them he was convinced, and his conviction was confirmed by
the request for the letter to the Bank of England withdrawing the
stoppage.
That letter had helped to form Loide's idea.
He would imprison the detective, keep him without food or drink till he
wrote a note to the custodian of the notes requesting the handing over
of them to the bearer of the letter. Loide anticipated playing the part
of the bearer.
He reached Wimbledon station, alighted, and walked along the road.
As he did so, he reflected that within three days he would have shaken
the dust of that suburb from his feet for good and all.
At a furniture dealer's he paused. Entering the shop, he said:
"You know me?"
"Yes, sir; Mr. Loide, the lawyer."
"That's right. I am leaving the neighborhood--giving up possession of my
house."
"Sorry to hear that, sir."
"I am going to live at Brighton. I have hesitated about the expense of
moving my furniture, and now I am confirmed in my belief that it would
be best to sell it. It is getting old, and would not fit my new
house--larger rooms, you know."
"Yes, sir."
"I want you to come along with me now, and make me a cash offer for the
houseful of furniture, just as it stands. If your offer is good enough I
shall accept it, on condition that you clear the whole lot out before
to-night."
"To-night!"
"Yes, to-night. There are only nine rooms--a couple of vans would move
it all easily. However, if you don't think you can manage it, I'll try
somewhere----"
"Not at all, sir," said the man, taking off his apron, and rolling down
his shirt-sleeves; "I'll be ready in two seconds."
He scented a profitable job. Hasty matters of this kind often come in
the way of furniture dealers and brokers--generally with much profit to
the buyer.
The buyers are wont to sing gladsomely of such transactions.
Surrounding creditors usually sang in another key.
The shopman put on his coat and hat, and went with Loide to The Elms.
Loide let himself in with his key. His servants had been dismissed long
since. His meals he had obtained in the city, visiting his home purely
for sleeping purposes.
A bargain was struck. The dealer guaranteed that before six o'clock the
house should be absolutely clear of furniture--that within an hour the
two vans should drive up and clear out all.
They did. The furniture dealer was as good as his word.
Everything was cleared save three feather beds which Loide kept back.
The furniture dealer marveled at this, but he had done well over the
deal, and said nothing.
Loide placed those feather beds to his own credit--as an act of mercy.
They were to save the detective pain.
The furniture removers had completed their task and driven away. At
their heels trod Loide--in the direction of the post-office.
From there he sent a telegram to his late clerk's address. He thanked
his memory that he had remembered the address in the letter applying
for the situation.
The telegram ran:
Leaving England to-night, strange and most important
information to give you in exchange for your kindness
to-day. Come at once, trains every few minutes from
Waterloo.
LOIDE, _The Elms, Maypole Road, Wimbledon_.
He paid the one and eightpence cost of the telegram, and then sought in
the high road an ironmonger's.
There he bought two saws, a hammer, chisel, some nails, and some yards
of webbing.
At a lamp shop he purchased a pound of candles, a ready trimmed bicycle
lamp, and then hurried home with his purchases to The Elms.
Entering, he threw off his coat, and tucked up his shirt-sleeves.
Manual labor was not in his way, but he guessed from having seen workmen
prepare for their tasks in that way that it was the correct thing to
work coatless--he had some hard work ahead of him.
His bicycle lamp lighted, he set to work, drove four of his long French
nails through the floor of the passage.
The four nails formed a square--a square yard.
With his bicycle lamp in hand, he went downstairs to the wine cellar. A
stout old door yielded to the key.
Loide in his palmy days had been a lover of wine, and the cellar had
been built to his order. It was the most lofty apartment in the house.
Air and light came to it through strong iron bars, which were on a level
with the ground above. The roof was at least fourteen feet from the
floor.
On to that roof, formed--apart from the cobwebs--of the rafters
supporting the floor boards above, Loide threw the rays of his lantern.
Four bright, sharp points were sticking through the wood, dust, and
cobwebs. He grunted with satisfaction as he noted the situation of the
points of his nails.
He hurried out of the cellar, up the steps to where the heads of the
nails were, and there his real hard work began.
He bored a hole with the aid of the chisel and hammer, then inserting
the fret saw, worked through the width of one of the boards, working
against the passage wall.
This operation he repeated the other side, and in a few minutes had a
length of floor board up--a yard long.
With the larger saw he had bought, he was soon sawing through five other
boards and their supports, and there presently gaped an opening more
than a yard square.
He hurriedly put the boards together again as he had taken them up.
Going into a back room, he ripped some laths from the Venetian blinds.
These he nailed to the floor boards, fastening them together as a lid
for the hole he had made.
He tried it--it fitted well. But for his holding it, the lid would have
fallen through the hole.
He cut the parcel of webbing open, and, leaning over the hole, nailed
pieces along one side of the square beneath the floor boards.
When he had nailed the other ends of these pieces to his lid, he had a
crude but perfectly hinged flap.
Rushing up-stairs, he dragged down two of the feather beds, one after
the other, and dropped them through the hole.
That was what he counted as his mercy. He did not want to break any of
the detective's limbs.
He just wanted information about the nineteen thousand pounds.
Two pieces of lath slightly tacked under the opposite side of the hole
to prevent the lid falling through till trodden on, and he lowered the
flap on its hinges.
Apart from the sawdust around, it looked a perfect floor. He swished
away the dust, and stood up with a smile of satisfaction on his face.
He was dog tired with the work, but he had done all he needed to do. The
snare was set--the trap was waiting.
Would the bird come to his call?