KATE CAME TO THE FLAT
“At 9:40 on the night of the 15th instant I was present at Sebo’s
Club. The room was full of diners and amongst them was Mr. Reginald
Boltover and a girl giving the name of Miss Vera Flemming, who was in
reality Kate Westhanger. At 9:52 an Italian named Emil Tolmini,
employed as a waiter at Sebo’s Club, attempted to stab Kate Westhanger
but was prevented and taken into custody. In the course of the
struggle in which he was disarmed he sustained a slight scalp wound
and permission was given for him to be taken to the kitchen to have
the wound dressed. I regret to state that he succeeded in making his
escape. He is a convict on license (record No. P.C.A./C.C.C. 85943).
He is an old associate of the Crime Street gang and was obviously
attempting to avenge himself upon the girl for some injury, real or
imaginary, which he had suffered.
“I made no attempt to warn Mr. Boltover as to the character of his
companion, but subsequently calling at his flat in Piccadilly on the
pretence that I wished to get information about the attempted murder,
I discovered that he had been introduced to the girl at a theatre
where she was posing as a chorus girl. She had evidently laid a deep
plan to meet him, for what reason it is not clear. He is a very
wealthy man and it may be necessary at a later stage to warn him, but
at present I have taken upon myself the responsibility of refraining
from that act.”
Michael Pretherston ended off the report with his neat signature,
folded it and inserted it into an official envelope which he addressed
to his chief. By good fortune he met that brilliant man coming into
Scotland House as Michael was going out.
“I think you did right,” said T.B., after he had heard the story; “I
wonder what her game is? I have a good mind to detail a man to take
the whole case up.”
“Let me do it,” said Michael, eagerly.
T.B. Smith pursed his lips.
“You are rather a big man for a job like that, Michael,” he said, “it
may turn out to be nothing more than a common or garden chorus girl’s
romance.”
“Kate isn’t the chorus girl type,” said Michael, “if it is big enough
for her to be in it, it is quite big enough for me.”
The chief thought for a moment.
“Very well then,” he said at length, “you can take on the job. Do it
by yourself if you possibly can, I haven’t any men to spare. But keep
in touch with me. Blowing a whistle won’t be of any service to you if
these people mean business and get after you.”
He hesitated again.
“Confound Kate!” he said. “I suppose you have circulated a description
of the ice-cream merchant?”
All Latin criminals came under this generic description with T.B.
Michael nodded.
“Well, good luck,” said the chief, “but be careful!”
When the young man had gone T.B. beckoned to an officer who was
passing.
“You’re the very man, Barr,” he said; “pick up Mr. Pretherston and
don’t lose him--you may choose your own opposite number.”
The sergeant saluted and hurried out after his charge.
Michael went back to his rooms with a light heart. It was the kind of
job that he liked better than any other. He had not told the chief all
his suspicions. Kate’s game was a big one. High-flyer as she was, she
was out for a height record--that he realised. There was some
association between her month with Lord Flanborough and the careful
cultivation of Reggie Boltover’s acquaintance. When he came to think
of it she must have met Boltover while she was still with Flanborough.
He had taken it for granted that the girl was a resident secretary but
possibly he had arrived at this conclusion in error. So it proved next
morning when he called Lord Flanborough’s house on the telephone and
had a private conversation with the butler. The young lady, during the
time she had been at Felton House, had left every afternoon at four
o’clock.
A little talk with the stage manager at the theatre showed that the
girl had never attended any of the morning rehearsals and had missed
one of the matinées. Michael saw this part of the scheme plainly
enough. Kate, through her spies, had discovered that Boltover had an
acquaintance who had a friend at the theatre. She had come to the
stage with no other object than making a friend of the girl who all
unwittingly was the instrument by which she was to meet Reggie.
The detective knew that this was no chance acquaintance. He followed
the manœuvres of Kate through all their devious paths. He took the
opportunity in the afternoon to call upon Reggie at his office which
was something between a board room and a boudoir.
Reggie’s theoretical interests were multifarious. He was the nominal
head of a dozen different corporations which his industrious father
had created for his profit. In practice he knew very little about any
of them and nothing about some.
“I hope your lady was not alarmed,” said Michael, with spurious
anxiety.
“Oh, no, the lady was not alarmed; oh, no,” said Reggie, shaking his
head violently. “Oh, dear no. She was not alarmed. Of course, it would
have been different if she had been alone, but being with me,
naturally she--er she--er was not alone.”
“Naturally,” agreed Michael.
“No, she was not alarmed,” said Mr. Boltover, “in fact, she was very
cool, remarkably cool. I have never seen anybody so cool.”
“I hope when you see her again,” said Michael, “you will tell her I
asked.”
“Certainly,” said Mr. Boltover heartily; “certainly I shall tell her
you asked.” And he added after a moment, “When I meet her again.”
“She seemed, if you will forgive the impertinence, so interested in
everything,” encouraged Michael.
“You are quite right,” said Reggie eagerly, “you are perfectly right.
That just describes her. She is interested in everything.”
“It is nice to meet people who are interested in one’s business,”
Michael went on artlessly. “I never mind people being interested in my
business, do you?”
“Oh, dear no,” replied Mr. Boltover in alarm, as though the very
thought that anybody should be discouraged from an interest in his
affairs, caused him acute mental unhappiness; “oh, dear no. Certainly
not. Not at all.”
“Of course,” smiled Michael, “she could not very well understand all
the complexities of your business, Mr. Boltover--it is such an
enormous one.”
“Well,” hesitated the other, “I don’t know. I am not so sure. She is a
very intelligent young lady. I was talking to her about my business
when this dreadful affair happened and she was so calm that she just
went on talking about it, don’t you know. My business, I mean. I
thought it was a most remarkable instance of coolness. I was telling
one of our directors to-day about it, and he thought it was a
remarkable instance of coolness. Yes, even when I was taking her home
she told me a lot about herself and--things. Her grandfather is a very
wealthy man, a financier. I didn’t know that.”
Michael might have said that he too was unaware of the fact, but he
knew just the moment when a tactless interpolation might dry up the
fount of Mr. Boltover’s eloquence.
“Very intelligent lady indeed,” wandered Mr. Boltover, “oh, yes, I was
talking about her grandfather--he is a very rich man. She thought that
he might be able to take one of our properties off our hands. I was
awfully surprised. Naturally, I did not think she had any money being
in the chorus and all that--I hope I haven’t been indiscreet?” he
asked anxiously. “You possibly did not know that she was on the
stage.”
“Oh, yes, I did,” said Michael with a smile; “you have betrayed
nothing, Mr. Boltover.”
“I am awfully glad,” replied the other, relieved; “what was I saying,
about her grandfather, yes. I think I might sell him that property. I
hate parting with properties--we have refused quite a number of good
offers--sheer sentiment, don’t you know?”
“But perhaps this is not a paying property.”
“Oh, no, not at all,” said Mr. Boltover; “by no manner of means
whatever. Still we don’t like parting with them. Of course, I talk a
lot of rot about people wanting to buy the works and I always tell
that great joke about a lunatic--ha, ha--but really it isn’t true. No,
not really true, oh, no.”
Michael had never heard the great joke about the lunatic. What he was
anxious to hear were details of Kate’s projected purchase but in this
he was foiled. There was precious little of the business man about Mr.
Reggie Boltover but one lesson he had learnt, and learnt thoroughly,
and that was the art of silence. His revered father was wont to say,
“If you never open your mouth, Reggie, nobody will know what an ass
you are,” and in business, at any rate, Reggie most religiously lived
up to this injunction.
What was the girl’s object?
Michael was puzzled. Strangely enough the obvious never occurred to
him, or if it did he dismissed it without a second consideration. He
did not look upon Kate as the type that would find any amusement,
whatever the profit might be, in the inveigling of a young fool to the
altar. Kate wanted the excitement, not the money. That was her
history. He had first met her when he was in the Special Department
and it had been over a little matter of a King’s messenger’s despatch
bag which on a cross-channel journey had mysteriously disappeared,
though it was practically handcuffed to the owner’s wrist, that he had
first become acquainted with the girl. He was interested in her, but
only mildly so, because, at the time, he arrived at a somewhat hasty
judgment. It was later, when the strong-room of the “Muranic” was
forced and twenty-five packets of diamonds vanished in mid-ocean and
when he had been in charge of the investigations which had resulted in
the imprisonment of Colonel Westhanger, that he had first formed a
true estimate of the girl’s character--an estimate which he had had
cause to modify, but never to change.
Michael lived in a big block of flats near Baker Street, where he
maintained a somewhat elaborate establishment for an inspector of
police. He had, however, a private income of his own which he had
inherited from his maternal grandmother and as he was a man of simple
tastes and very few extravagant needs, he was able to live very
comfortably indeed. He reached his home a little before 8 o’clock and
was astonished as he came through the lobby of the flat to meet
Beston, his man-servant, clad in fine raiment and going forth.
“Hello, Beston, where are you off to?” he asked in surprise.
The man touched his hat cheerfully.
“I am going to the theatre, sir, and thank you very much for the
tickets,” he said. “Cook went ten minutes ago and I stayed behind to
tidy things up.”
“Oh, cook went ten minutes ago, did she?” said Michael. “That’s good.
When did the tickets arrive?”
“About an hour ago, sir, by a district messenger. It was very kind of
you to wire to us that you were sending them.”
Michael laughed softly.
“Your surprise at my consideration hurts me, Beston,” he said. “I
always do things like that. By the way, did they spell your name
correctly in the telegram?”
“I think so, sir,” said the man in surprise, fumbled in his pocket and
produced the orange slip.
“I am sending you two tickets for the theatre to-night. May not be
home until to-morrow. Pretherston.”
Thus read the wire, which had been handed in at the Strand Office.
Beston sensed some difficulty.
“I hope it’s all right, sir,” he asked anxiously.
“Quite all right,” replied Michael with a cheerful nod. “Don’t wait
for me now, I shall not be in very long.”
He mounted the carpeted stairs, opened the door of his flat and closed
it carefully behind him. He went straight to his study, pulled down
the blinds and drew the thick curtains across the windows, then he
turned on the light, took up the telephone and gave a Treasury number.
“Is that Sergeant Pears?” he asked. “Is there a telegram waiting at
the Yard for me?”
“Yes, sir,” said the sergeant’s voice.
Michael winked at the wall.
“Do you mind opening and reading it?”
There was a little pause and then the sergeant repeated into the
receiver:
“To Inspector Michael Pretherston, Scotland House. Come up by the
earliest train. Am staying at Adelphi. T.B.”
“Handed in at Manchester, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir,” said the sergeant, “at three-fifteen.”
“Is the chief in Manchester?”
“Yes, sir; he went by the morning train.”
“Excellent,” said Michael, “thank you very much, sergeant.”
He hung up the receiver.
This was Kate’s work--the beautiful detail of it, the knowledge she
possessed of T.B. Smith’s movement. She had probably sent a man up on
the same train with the chief and had given him the telegram in
advance, with exact instructions as to the minute it was to be handed
in. Yes, it was Kate. Yet (he became uncomfortable at the thought) it
was not like her to leave things to chance. How came she to miss him
at the Yard? He returned to the telephone and again called up his
assistant.
“What time did the telegram arrive?” he asked.
The sergeant’s voice was apologetic.
“I am very sorry, sir, I am afraid it arrived while you were here,
this afternoon. It was given to a messenger to take in to you and in
some extraordinary way the constable forgot it. I have reprimanded
him.”
“That’s all right,” said Michael, relieved.
His relief, curiously founded, he might have found it difficult to
explain. It was the relief which the matador feels when he sees the
bull, which steps so proudly into the ring, will put up a good fight.
It was the relief of the huntsman when a strong fox breaks from
covert. He wanted Kate and that extraordinary organization, which he
had set himself to conquer, to be at its best that his victory might
be the more satisfactory.
He looked at his watch. It was five minutes past eight. He knew that
his visitor would give the servants an hour and he must employ that
hour profitably. He began to write rapidly on a pad of scribbling
paper, tearing off the sheets as fast as he had filled them. He had
been working for an hour when he heard a bell tinkle. Some one was at
the front door. He switched out the light, walked into the passage (he
had already removed his shoes) and listened. Whoever was coming had
sent an agent in advance to discover whether the flat was empty. Again
the bell rang. Michael made no sign. It rang a third and last time.
The detective made his way stealthily to the window and slipped behind
the curtains. He had left his study door open, so that he could hear
every sound. He had ten minutes to wait before the faint click of the
lock told him that the door had been opened. He knew that the visitor
would come to the study last, and he proved to be right. Three minutes
passed--as near as he could judge--before he caught the flash of a
lamp which was directed cautiously to the curtained window. The light
passed slowly along the floor until it reached the skirting, travelled
round until it found the lower edge of the drawn curtain. Through the
slit he had cut in the heavy velvet hangings Michael witnessed the
search. Presently the light went out after focussing itself upon the
electric switch. There was a click and the room was illuminated.
The girl who stood by the desk was soberly dressed and was apparently
in no hurry. She pulled her gloves off slowly, whilst she allowed her
eyes to rove over the littered table. Half a dozen sheets of writing
attracted her attention and when her gloves were removed she picked
the papers up, pulled the big writing chair to the table and sat down
to read. She read the notes through carefully and once she smiled.
When she had finished she put them down, leaned back in the chair and
looked around the room, then,
“Come out, Mike,” she said.
Michael stepped forth without embarrassment.
“I was nearly deceived,” she said, “with your precious account of the
happening at Sebo’s and then I realized that this could not have been
written more than five minutes before. You forgot to blot the last
sheet and the ink is still damp.”
She rubbed her fingers over to prove the fact.
“Why aren’t you in Manchester?” she asked.
The staggering question nearly took his breath away.
“Well, if you aren’t the real Kate!” he said admiringly.
“I’m in your chair I’m afraid,” she said.
“Not a bit.”
He dropped into a deep settee.
“Now tell me all the news. But before we go any farther,” he said with
mock concern, “wouldn’t you like a chaperone?”
“Don’t worry,” she replied, “I have a chaperone.”
“Not in my flat I hope,” he said in a tone of alarm. “You, I can
trust, Kate, but the idea of your low thieving friends being up
against all my movable goods gives me a little pain.”
She fished in her bag and produced a little gold case. She opened it
and took out a cigarette.
“You won’t have one, of course?”
“Not one of yours, Kate,” he said reproachfully. “No, I’ll have one of
my own if you don’t mind.”
“I think you are very rude,” she said with a lift of her brows.
“It’s better to be rudely awake than politely asleep,” he said
meaningly. “When one has to deal with clever criminals one has to take
all sorts of precautions.”
She laughed and looked at him curiously.
“I wonder what made you a policeman?”
“Nature,” he said promptly.
She was puzzled.
“I don’t quite get your humor,” she said.
“Nature provides all things with some form of protection. It gives the
oyster its shell and the tiger its stripes. It gives the squid his
ink-sack and the shark his teeth. Nature always produces antidotes.
When criminals are stupid they have stupid policemen to deal with
them. When criminals are extraordinarily clever, Nature provides the
police force with an officer of unusual intelligence. I came to the
police in blind obedience to the laws of Nature.”
She laughed softly in his face.
“It’s so nice to be able to discuss things with a man of sensibility,”
she said. “Of course, some of my friends are awfully clever and uncle
is very philosophical, but then they all take a very one-sided view of
things, and I think it’s so much better to hear the other side of
every question. You can get two views on all subjects except crime,”
she went on. “If you believe in Darwin’s theory you can meet hosts of
clever people who bitterly oppose it. If you are a Christian Scientist
you can meet hosts of Theosophists. Even if you are a firm believer in
monogamy you can generally hire a Mormon to argue on the other side.
It is only when we come down to crime that you meet the truly insular
view, held by people who know nothing whatever about its finesse, or
the genius necessary to break the laws without leaving a big hole to
show where you went in and another to show where you came out. That is
why I like you, Mike,” she said frankly.
“Any appreciation is very gratifying to me,” said Michael, “but that
which is so enthusiastic that it leads my admirer to break into my
flat to ravish my secret thoughts, is a little overwhelming.”
“I wanted to know what you were saying about me,” she said, “though I
ought to have known that you would not leave things about for me to
read--still,” she justified herself, “to do myself justice, I did not
expect to find your confidential reports on your desk.”
There was a big safe in one corner of the room.
“I was going to open that.”
She nodded toward the strong-box.
“You saw me the other night,” she turned the conversation suddenly.
“At Sebo’s--yes,” he said, “I saw you.”
“What did you think?” she asked quietly.
“I thought you were with the loquacious Mr. Boltover for a special
reason of your own,” he said slowly.
“He _is_ an orator,--isn’t he?” she agreed,--“but he’s quite a nice
boy, really. God didn’t give him brains and it’s not fair to make fun
of a man’s deficiencies.”
“What did you want of Reggie?” asked Michael.
“I just wanted to know all about him,” she said, “that kind of people
are always interesting to me.”
“What did you want of Reggie?” he asked again.
“How insistent you are!” she laughed.
She got up and began strolling about the room, taking down books from
the big bookshelf and examining their titles.
“What catholic tastes you have, Mike--and Tennyson, too. How
depraved!”
“You will find a Browning somewhere,” he said carelessly.
“That’s more encouraging,” she smiled. “It’s an awfully comfortable
room. Quite like the room I thought you would have.”
She looked at a book plate on the cover of one volume.
“You were at Winchester, I see. So was uncle.”
“The poison and the antidote!”
“You are not fair with uncle. He’s a mental degenerate, too. Crime is
a disease with him.”
“And with you?” said Michael quickly.
“It’s a hobby. It’s a tremendous excitement.”
She put the book down and turned to him.
“You don’t know what it’s like. To work things out and make them
happen, to cover a couple of sheets of paper with writing and then see
all sorts of things move in obedience to those instructions, to see
thousands and tens of thousands of pounds change hands, to know that
men are going long journeys, that special trains are being run, that
telegraph wires are humming all over the Continent, that a dozen
brilliant thief-catchers are working and worrying in a vain attempt to
undo all that twenty or thirty lines of writing have done.”
“This will be used in evidence against you,” warned Michael
flippantly.
The girl was not posing. Of that he was convinced. Her big grey eyes
were brighter, her whole face was alight with the excitement of the
thought, her voice had a new thrill. She was exalted, transfigured at
the thought of the power which her shrewd brain gave to her.
“What did you want of Reggie?” he asked again.
The light faded out of her eyes and she was her normal self again.
“Oh, I wanted to pick his pocket,” she said mockingly; “or, no, I know
something better--I wanted to marry him. He’s worth two millions.”
“I don’t think you will ever marry for money,” said Michael.
“What makes you say that?” she asked quickly.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“That is the estimate I have formed of you. I may be wrong.”
“I shall never marry,” she said with decision. “I’m not of the
marrying kind. I hate men in some ways. I hate them so much, that it
gives me a real joy to take away the one thing in the world that they
really love. You know the Claude Duval tradition--I mean the idealized
Claude Duval of tradition, not the sneak-thief valet of actuality--of
robbing the rich and never robbing the poor--well, I rob men, and I
never rob women.”
“In fact you rob the people who have the money,” said Michael. “That
isn’t clever.”
“No, but it sounds awfully good. I’m thinking of including it in the
great speech I shall deliver one of these days at the Old Bailey.”
“What did you want from Reggie?” he asked.
“You are almost monotonous,” she laughed. “Well, I wanted
information.”
She turned and again he saw that bright light in her eye and that
eager look in her face.
“I will tell you, Michael Pretherston,” she said, pointing a white
finger toward him. “We will play fair. I am going to do a big thing. I
am going to make the most wonderful steal that the world has ever
known. That is why I found Reggie. That is why I made a martyr of
myself and endured the boredom of Lord Flanborough’s society.”
She clapped her hands like a child.
“It’s a big thing, Michael, but it’s full of complications,
wonderfully full of strategy, and I am going to do it all with your
assistance.”
He jumped up and flung out his hand.
“Put it there, Kate,” he said.
“This is going to be the big thing for both of us and I am going to be
the victor. If you win you have whatever you’re after. If I win, you
have me,” she said with a little laugh.
He looked at her in silence.
“I can almost see you gripping my arm and pushing me into the steel
pen,” she said. “I can see you sitting in court in a brown--no, a
blue--overcoat, with your hat nicely balanced on your knees, looking
up at me in the dock and wondering how I am going to take it.”
A cloud passed over his face.
“You’re a pessimistic little devil,” he growled. “No, I wasn’t
thinking about that.”
“What were you thinking about?” she asked, her eyes wide open in
surprise.
“I was thinking I’d marry you,” he said.
She looked at him in amusement.
“You’re mad, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he said; “didn’t you know?”
“Marry you!” she said scornfully. “Great Heavens!”
“You might do worse,” he said with his cheerful smile.
“Can you name anything I could do that would be more hopelessly
degrading than marry a policeman?”
“Yes,” he said, “you might be an old maid and keep cats. You take it
for granted, of course,” he went on, “that I am letting you go now.”
“Naturally,” she replied, “I have given you something to live for.”
“You may be right,” he said quietly and opened the door for her.
They walked down the felt covered passage to the front door.
“I owe you something,” she said as they stood in the doorway. “The
young man from the South nearly put an end to my promising career.”
“A little thing like that is hardly worth mentioning. Good night,
Kate, are you sure it is safe for you to be out alone so late?”
She made a little face at him and went tripping down the stairs. She
turned into the street, but had not gone two paces when a hand caught
her arm.
“Excuse me,” said a voice.
By the light of a street lamp she recognized her captor as a detective
sergeant from Scotland Yard.
Before she could protest a voice spoke from the darkness of the
balcony above and it was the voice of Michael.
“All right, sergeant,” he said.
She shook herself free of the man and looked wrathfully up at the dim
figure.
“I forgot you’d have your nurse handy, Michael,” she jeered.
“Good night, dear,” said the voice from the balcony and to her intense
annoyance she felt an extraordinary sensation wholly new to her, but
which with her quick woman’s wit she correctly diagnosed, as she
hurried angrily along the street.
For Kate Westhanger had blushed for the first time in her life.