Who is The Crimson Circle?
Yale learnt no more details than those he had already read, and took
a taxi to his city office, which he had not visited for two days.
The escape of Thalia Drummond was a much more important affair than
Parr seemed to think. Parr! An awful thought occurred to Derrick Yale.
John Parr! That stolid, stupid-looking man--it was impossible! He
shook his head, yet put his mind resolutely to the task of piecing
together every incident in which Inspector Parr had figured, and in
the end:
“Impossible!” he muttered again, as he walked slowly up the stairs to
his office, declining the invitation of the lift-boy.
The first thing he noticed when he unlocked the door was that the
letter-box was empty. It was a very large letter-box, with a patent
flap device, designed so that it was impossible for an outside
pilferer to extract any of its contents. The wire cage reached almost
to the floor, and letters that came through the slot in the door had
to fall through revolving aluminium blades, which made the letter
thief’s task a hopeless one. And the letter-box was empty! There was
not so much as a tradesman’s circular.
He closed the door quietly and went into his own room. He took no more
than a pace into the interior and then stopped. Every drawer in his
desk was open. The little steel safe by the side of the fireplace,
concealed from view by the wooden panelling, had been unlocked, and
the door was now open. He looked under the desk. There was a tiny
cupboard, which only an expert could have found, and here Derrick Yale
had kept the more intimate documents connected with the Crimson Circle
case.
He saw nothing but a broken panel and the mark of the chisel that had
wrenched it free.
He sat for a long time in his chair, staring out of the window. There
was no need to ask who was the artist. He could guess that.
Nevertheless, he made a few perfunctory inquiries, and the lift boy
supplied him with all the information he needed.
“Yes, sir, your secretary has been this morning, the pretty young
lady. She came in soon after the offices were open. She was only here
about an hour, and then she left.”
“Did she carry a bag?”
“Yes, sir. A little bag,” said the boy.
“Thank you,” said Derrick Yale, and went back to head-quarters, to
pour into the phlegmatic Mr. Parr’s ear a tale of rifled desk and
stolen documents.
“Now, I’m going to tell you, Parr, what I have told nobody else, not
even the Commissioner,” said Yale. “We think of the Crimson Circle
organisation as being run by a man. I happen to know that this girl
has met the man who initiated her into the mysteries of the gang,
whatever they are. But I also know that, so far from being the master,
this mysterious gentleman in the motor-car, takes his orders, as
everybody else does, from the real centre of the organisation--which
is Thalia Drummond!”
“Good Lord!” said the inspector.
“You wonder why I had her in my office? I told you it was because I
thought she would bring us closer to the Circle. And I was right.”
“But why dismiss her?” asked the other quickly.
“Because she had done something which merited dismissal,” said Yale,
“and if I had not fired her then and there, she would have known that
I was keeping her in my office with an object. I might have saved
myself the trouble, apparently,” he smiled, “because this morning’s
work proves that she knew what my game was.” His thin, delicate face
darkened, and then he said almost sharply: “When you have told your
story to-night to the Prime Minister and his friends, I have a little
story to tell which I think will surprise you.”
“Nothing you can say will ever surprise me,” said Mr. Parr.
The third shock which Derrick Yale received that day came on his
return home. The first half of his surprise was to find that his
servant was out. The one woman he employed did not sleep on the
premises, but she was supposed to remain in the flat until nine
o’clock in the evening. It was exactly six when Derrick Yale came in
to find the place in darkness.
He turned on the light and made a tour of the rooms. Apparently, the
sitting-room was the only apartment which had been disturbed, but
here, whoever the intruder had been and he could guess her name, she
had been very thorough and painstaking. It was not necessary for him
to seek out the servant and discover what had happened. She had been
called away from the house by a message purporting to come from
him--he guessed that much. And whilst she was away Thalia Drummond had
examined the contents of the flat at her leisure.
“A clever young woman!” said Derrick without malice, for he could
admire even the genius which was employed against himself. She had
lost no time. Within twelve hours she had broken gaol, ransacked both
his office and his flat, and had removed documents which had a vital
bearing upon the Crimson Circle.
He dressed himself leisurely, wondering what would be her next move.
Of his own he was certain. Within twenty-four hours Inspector Parr
would be a broken man. From a drawer in his dressing-room he took a
revolver, looked at it for a moment speculatively, and slipped it into
his hip pocket. There was going to be a startling and a sensational
end to the chase of the Crimson Circle, an end wholly unforeseen by
the spectators of the tragic game.
In the wide lobby of the Prime Minister’s house he found a guest, the
excuse for whose presence he could not fathom. Jack Beardmore had
certainly been a sufferer from the activities of the Crimson Circle,
but he had no part in the latter incidents.
“I suppose you are surprised to see me, Mr. Yale,” laughed Jack, as he
took the other’s hand, “but you’re not more surprised than I am to be
invited to a meeting of the Cabinet.”
He chuckled.
“Who invited you?--Parr?”
“To be exact, the Prime Minister’s secretary. But I think Parr must
have had something to do with the invitation. Don’t you feel scared in
this company?”
“Not very,” smiled Derrick, slapping the other on the back.
A youthful private secretary bustled in and ushered them into the
severe drawing-room, where a dozen gentlemen were talking in two
groups.
The Prime Minister came forward to meet the detective.
“Inspector Parr has not arrived.” He looked questioningly at Jack. “I
presume this is Mr. Beardmore?” he said. “The inspector particularly
asked that you should be present. I suppose he has some light to throw
upon poor James Beardmore’s death--by the way, your father was a great
friend of mine.”
The inspector came in at that moment. He wore a dress suit which had
seen better days, a low collar with an awkwardly-tied bow, and he
seemed an incongruous figure in that atmosphere of intellect and
refinement. Following him came the grey-moustached Commissioner, who
nodded curtly to his junior and led the Prime Minister aside.
The two were engaged in a whispered conversation for a little time,
and then the colonel came across to where Yale was standing with Jack.
“Have you any idea what sort of a lecture Parr is going to give?” he
said, a little impatiently. “I was quite under the impression that he
was making a statement by invitation, but from what the Prime Minister
tells me, it was Parr who suggested he should give the history of the
Crimson Circle. I hope he isn’t going to make a fool of himself.”
“I don’t think he will, sir.” It was Jack’s quiet voice that had
interrupted, and the Commissioner looked at him inquiringly until Yale
introduced the young man.
“I agree with Mr. Beardmore,” said Derrick Yale. “I have not the
slightest expectation of Mr. Parr making a fool of himself, in fact,
I think he is going to fill up a number of gaps and bridge over
seemingly irreconcilable circumstances, and I am ready to fill in a
number of spaces which he may leave blank.”
The company seated itself, and the Prime Minister beckoned the
inspector forward.
“If you don’t mind, sir, I’ll stay where I am,” he said. “I’m not an
orator, and I should like to tell this yarn as if I were telling it to
any one of you.”
He cleared his throat and began speaking. At first his words were
hesitant and he paused again and again to find the right phrase, but
as he warmed to his subject he spoke more quickly and lucidly.
“The Crimson Circle,” he began, “is a man named Lightman, a criminal
who committed several murders in France, was condemned to death, but
was saved by an accident from execution. His full name is Ferdinand
Walter Lightman, and on the date of his attempted execution his age
was twenty-three years and four months. He was transported to Cayenne,
and escaped from that settlement after murdering a warder, and it is
believed got away to Australia. A man answering his description, but
giving another name, was working for a storekeeper in Melbourne for
eighteen months, and was afterwards in the employment of a squatter
named Macdonald for two years and five months. He left Australia in a
hurry, a warrant having been issued against him by the local police
for attempting to blackmail his employer.
“What happened to him subsequently we have not been able to trace
until there appeared in England an unknown and mysterious blackmailer
who signed himself the Crimson Circle, and who, by careful
organisation and a display of remarkable patience and energy, gathered
around him a large number of assistants, all of whom were unknown to
one another. His _modus operandi_” (the inspector stumbled at the
phrase) “was to find out somebody in a responsible position, who was
either in need of money or in fear of prosecution for some offence
which he or she had committed. He made the most careful inquiries
before he approached his recruit, who was finally interviewed in a
closed car driven by the Crimson Circle himself. Usually the
rendezvous was one of the London squares which had the advantage of
having four or five exits and a further advantage of being poorly
lighted. You gentlemen are probably aware that the residential squares
of London are the worst illuminated streets in the metropolis.
“Another class of recruit the Crimson Circle was very eager to secure
was the convicted criminal. In this way he dragged in Sibly, an
ex-sailor of a particularly low intelligence, who was already
suspected of having committed murder, and who was the very man for the
Crimson Circle’s purpose. In this way he secured Thalia Drummond----”
he paused--“a thief, and an associate of thieves. In this way, too, he
found the black man who murdered the railway director. For his own
purpose he put in Brabazon the banker, and would have taken Felix Marl
only, unfortunately for Marl, they had been associated together in the
very crime for which Lightman nearly lost his life. More unfortunate
still, Marl recognised Lightman when he met him in England, and this
is the reason why Marl was eventually destroyed, the murderer
employing perhaps the most ingenious method that has ever been used by
a homicidal criminal.
“You can well understand, gentlemen,” he went on. They were following
the little man with strained interest. “The Crimson Circle----”
“Why did he call himself Crimson Circle?” It was Derrick Yale who
asked the question, and for a little while the inspector was silent.
“He called himself Crimson Circle,” he said slowly, “because it was a
name he had amongst his fellow convicts. About his neck was a red
birth-mark--and I’ll blow the top of your head off if you move!”
The heavy calibre Webley he held in his hand covered Derrick Yale.
“Put your hands right up!” said the inspector, and then suddenly he
reached out his hand and tore away the high white collar which covered
Yale’s neck.
There was a gasp. Red, blood-red, as though it were painted by human
agency, a circle of crimson ran about the throat of Derrick Yale.