IMMIGRATION OF THE UNGODLY
Storm breakfasted with Hannassay on the morning his lordship left for
his holiday. It was an unexpected invitation, but Lord Hannassay
came to the reason of it without delay.
"I have made arrangements for you to be given complete charge of the
case," he said. "You will probably get the official intimation when
you reach the Yard."
His usual abruptness of manner was conspicuously absent. He spoke
restrainedly and rather artificially, like a man who has planned out
his speech in advance and intends to adhere rigidly to a premeditated
sequence of words.
"You will have _carte blanche_, and you may use any means you think
fit within--and, by special arrangement, without--the law to round up
the Alpha Triangle. I am convinced that the menace with which we are
faced is the greatest in the history of crime."
"I'm glad to have your support," said Storm. "I more than scent
rodents myself! But I thought I was in for some job persuading the
authorities I wasn't an alarmist."
The peer nodded absently and stirred his coffee. He seemed hardly to
have heard Kit's remark, and when he spoke again it was in the same
mechanical way as before, as though he neither anticipated nor
required interruption.
"Strictly between ourselves, Captain Arden, I know the secret of the
Alpha Triangle." He pushed away his plate and lighted a cigar.
"That, I think, should surprise you. You will ask, also, why I do
not place my information at the service of the police. There is a
reason for that--a reason which I cannot explain to you now, but
which will be clear to you when, and if, you run the gang to earth.
The Alpha Triangle is an organisation which came into existence
originally for the purposes of revenge--the purpose for which it was
organised by a genius who, I sometimes think, is mad. You have, of
course, been interested in the murder--it was murder, by the way--of
Joubert, a few months ago. That was the first crime of the Triangle,
and yet I offer for your contemplation the paradox that until five
minutes before the murder there was no Alpha Triangle."
Storm sat without comment, although he was literally amazed at the
confession he had just heard. Lord Hannassay, whose eyes throughout
had been fixed vacantly on the opposite wall, after the fashion of a
child repeating a lesson, looked at him suddenly and surprised that
look of consternation.
"Exactly--I am deliberately admitting that I am, in a sense, an
accessory," he said with a smile. "I must ask you to accept the
extraordinary situation, the cause of which will be apparent to you
at the successful conclusion of your labours. The Alpha Triangle,
then," he went on, "from being a purely revengeful society, became an
acquisitively criminal one. I ask you to take my word on that score,
for although the Triangle has committed no acquisitive crimes up to
date, I have every reason to believe that it will make up for the
deficiency in the future. This transition, already an accomplished
fact--in the spirit, if not in the deed--must have already occurred
to you as a probability. What, indeed, could be more natural than
that such an organisation, having established a powerful and
unscrupulous society for taking its vengeances, should visualise the
possibilities for material gain latent in such a society? The power
is there--a power, Captain Arden, which, if you knew its magnitude
and the utter, cold, superhuman inflexibility of the man who controls
it, might make even you, in spite of your reputation for physical
prowess and indomitable courage, turn back from the task you seem so
eager to undertake."
For all the precise, calculated levelness of Lord Hannassay's voice,
there was an earnestness behind his pedantic sentences that pricked
the small hairs on the nape of Storm's neck like a chill wind. And
yet this was a purely reflex sensation, for Storm smiled lightly and
flicked the ash from his cigarette with leisured care.
"I'll take the risk," he drawled.
Lord Hannassay nodded slowly.
"I thought you would," he said. "You're the sort that would."
"And that's not what they call 'sand,' either," said Storm, and his
mocking smile flitted elusively across his lips. "I'll give it you,
Lord Hannassay, straight, that I'd rather tackle anything else under
the sun than this Triangle business. And I could throw in my
hand--I'm not a detective, and I'm not even in Special Branch
regularly. I stay on simply because it's a challenge. I've got some
sort of a reputation among disreputable people--_Storm won't be beat
till he's buried, and maybe not then_, they'll tell you. And they've
got it all wrong! It's pride--arrogance--conceit--anything you care
to call it. But all it stews down to is just that I'm too bucked
with myself--it'd break my heart to have to admit I was beaten! I'd
sooner go down fighting, because if I'm beaten that way I'll never
have to admit it."
He spoke without a trace of affectation, and yet it was an analysis
he had never made to anyone in his life before. Later, Lord
Hannassay knew the reason for that frankness, yet even at the time
Storm's simple directness appealed to him.
The peer rose and held out his hand.
"I call that 'sand,'" he said quietly. "Captain Arden, you have my
very best wishes. I'm--scared of that Triangle. It's got me
jumpy--that's honest." He had relapsed into his old jerky style.
"It's bigger than I ever dreamed such a thing could be. Queer thing:
sometimes I don't care, sometimes I wish I could speak. Probably
you'll be killed; sometimes I'm sorry, sometimes it doesn't seem to
matter. Yet I like you extraordinarily. Look an easy man to
frighten?"
Storm viewed the splendid physique, seemingly unimpaired by age, and
his glance wandered to the masterful poise of the big head on the
broad shoulders. He smiled as he shook his head.
"I'm afraid," said Lord Hannassay with a grim matter-of-factness that
was more startling than any emotional outburst.
"Is that serious?" Storm asked incredulously, and Hannassay nodded.
"Same as you--I'd like to be out of it. Sooner or later, I think,
I'll have to pay for my knowledge of it. And yet, if I placed that
knowledge at your disposal, even on your assurance that it would go
no further, I should be little better off. The Triangle is supremely
callous--you understand that, Captain Arden? A human life--half a
dozen, if you like--_that_!"
He snapped his fingers contemptuously. Storm concentrated on blowing
three smoke rings interlinked with accurate symmetry.
"Who is Bulsaid?" he asked carelessly.
He had expected to create a sensation, and in this he was not
disappointed. Hannassay froze into a rock-like immobility. His pale
blue eyes were like chips of ice, brittle and glistening.
"Bulsaid," he whispered.
"Bulsaid--the man who was supplanted by Joe Blaythwayt at school,
whose mean little soul conceived even at that age an undying hatred
of those who passed him in the race. Bulsaid, the man whom Sir John
Marker beat at the Clayston bye-election in March, 1897. Bulsaid,
the scientist whose seriousness and anarchical views caused him to be
ragged rather unmercifully at Oxford, particularly by a man named
James Mattock--a man of good family but with too much money, a
popular, noisy, carefree youngster whom Bulsaid came to add to the
list of enemies his warped mind never forgot. Bulsaid, the man who
has you, Lord Hannassay, in his clutches, and who will perhaps never
let you go. Bulsaid, the brilliant scholar, the fanatic, the
unforgiving hater, the embittered, half-mad genius--Hugo Arden
Bulsaid, my father!"
The Under Secretary said nothing, but the ramrod set of his giant
frame was now only superficial, for Storm saw that the whole man was
vibrant with tiny tremors. Every line on that stern, dominant face
was graven deeper and sterner, and little chips of hot steel glinted
behind the icy blue eyes.
"Hugo Arden Bulsaid," said Storm slowly, "the man who made Oscar
Raegenssen, and who will break him; the man who'll kill me one day,
if I don't kill him!"
"So you know," breathed Hannassay. "And I needn't have been so
secretive about my knowledge."
He placed his thin cigar between his white teeth and walked across to
the window, whence he could look out on the green beauty of Hyde Park
dappled with the golden glory of the morning sun.
"Yes.... I know," said Storm after a silence, and the peer turned.
"Captain Arden," he said, "do you hate your father?"
Storm shook his head.
"No--it's just the luck of the game." He paused. "But you hate him."
"I hate him, I think, more than I had ever believed it was possible
to hate a man," said Hannassay with a cold gentleness that was like
the caress of vitriol. "I hate him from the ultimate depths of my
soul. I would kill him without compunction and without fear this day
... but for one thing."
Storm pitched the stump of his cigarette into a flowerpot and
buttoned his coat. In those trivial actions he dispelled the tense
gloom of the atmosphere as the dawning sunshine breaks up the miasma
of a swamp--it was a quality born of his clean, fresh wholesomeness.
"I must be going," he said cheerily. "Hope you have a good holiday."
Lord Hannassay did not ring for the butler, but himself escorted his
guest to the door and opened it. He held out his hand and took Kit
Arden's in a firm grip.
"_Au revoir_," said Storm, but Hannassay's head made a slight,
half-amused negative movement.
"_Adieu_," he said. "A premonition, Captain Arden.... We shall
never meet again.... Good-bye!"
Storm drove back to New Scotland Yard, and found the indefatigable
Teal waiting for him. That stout detective was working his jaws
rhythmically, and a folded copy of the morning paper was propped up
on Storm's table before him, while a litter of papers and printed
forms of all colours were spread across the blotter.
"There's a few notes you asked for," he remarked. "I've been looking
through them."
He rose ponderously, and Storm took his place at the desk.
"I can see somebody's been at them," said Storm gently, and proceeded
to attempt to restore order. "Those files of the _Record_ arrived
yet?"
"They're at the bottom."
Storm swept the chaos to one side and opened the package which lay
beneath. Then he smoothed out the two newspapers he found and began
to skim methodically through the pages. It was some minutes before
he found the passage he had expected to find, and then the form of it
was entirely unsuspected. It consisted of the book reviews, and most
of the space was occupied by criticisms of a certain work.
"You read this, Teal," he observed after a while, "and then tell
Uncle Joe to give up literature as a career. He's no idea what
budding authors have to put up with!"
The commentary was one of the most scathing Storm had ever read. At
the head of it was the title _Devolution_, by Hugo Bulsaid; and, a
little lower down, appeared the name of the reviewer--signed, as he
had anticipated, John Cardan. There was one paragraph:
We are, frankly, amazed that a firm of such standing as Messrs.
Barry and Stokes should have suffered such a fit of judicial
aberration as to place on the market a work of such incredible
worthlessness. We are equally astounded that a man of such
scientific prestige as Mr. Bulsaid should have wasted his time in
preparing it.
The article went on to discuss the worthlessness of the book in
detail, and, judging by the quotations from it with which the remarks
were interlarded, it seemed that there was some excuse for the
reviewer's violence.
"Anyone but Bulsaid would have started a libel action," Storm
murmured.
The tirade concluded with these words:
There is, we know, a great freedom allowed to the printed word, but
this freedom was originated that social problems might be clearly and
adequately discussed, and that reforms, where necessary, might be
suggested without fear. It was not granted in order that such works
as "Devolution" might be published. "Devolution" is not only a
degrading book; it is a revolting book. The subject is unclean, the
theme might have been adopted from the ravings of a lunatic, the
treatment is of a coarseness unrelieved by the faintest sparkle of
wit or logic, and to the mentality of the author can only be applied
the adjective "septic." The only way in which one can regard this
work is as a joke--and then the joke is in such poisonous taste that,
one hopes, it would scarcely be tolerated in a Wapping taproom.
Storm passed the sheet over to Teal, and the stolid detective read it
dispassionately.
"I hope you never read _Devolution_," Kit said when Teal had finished.
"I was a respectably married man by that time," said Mr. Teal
virtuously. "And, anyway, what sort of jokes don't they tolerate in
Wapping taprooms? I've never been into one--fat men didn't ought to
drink."
"I seem to have heard that homily before," remarked Storm. "Anyway,
not many people did read it--it was withdrawn shortly after that
review. Here's the record."
He glanced through the second paper and finally folded it down at a
certain paragraph and passed it across the desk.
"And yet it was all hot air," he said. "I've made inquiries, and as
far as anyone can ascertain, Bulsaid led an impeccably moral life
both before and after he married. I think that book marks the
beginning of his definite insanity. Later, his madness turned into
another channel, and consequently became far less obvious."
He collected the scattered documents which he had pushed aside, and
began to run through them, classifying them as he did so, and
discarding those which did not bear directly on his investigation.
Then he drew a clean sheet of paper towards him and made some notes,
and when he had finished he called Teal over to study the result.
"I know all about Bulsaid," he said, speaking slowly and quietly, as
was his fashion when he was outlining his thoughts aloud. "But
Bulsaid isn't the Triangle by any means! There are men in the
Triangle who've been brought in to serve the ends of the Triangle,
but who've become its masters. Not openly--that's not what I mean.
But work's got to be found for them, and money's got to be found for
them, or else they'll turn on their leader. Bulsaid started the
Triangle, and now Bulsaid's the unconfessed slave of the men he
leads."
It was a curious thing that, although it was Teal, acting on the
suggestion of Joe Blaythwayt, who had revealed to Storm the identity
of his father, the relationship had never since then been mentioned
between them.
"Here's the list," said Storm, indicating the notes he had made, "of
the crook emigrants into this country, as supplied to us by the
American, French, and German police. I'll bracket them off: Con
men"---he ticked one group with his pencil--"yeggs ... whizzers ...
knockers-off ... blackmailers ... dope merchants ... jewel thieves
... and so forth and so on. All the usual bunch who come over in the
season--and the numbers are about average. But look at these, who
generally stay at home: eleven killers from Germany; sixteen ditto
from Paris, Toulon and Marseilles; twenty-seven synthetic American
gunmen. That makes fifty-four criminals who value the life of a man
at approximately two cents---all in, or 'believed to be in,' London.
Tell me why, Teal! Here's the report of the Chief of the _Sûreté:
'Sans doute, quelqu'un a causé...._' Sorry, you don't talk the
lingo, do you?
"Undoubtedly, someone has been talking of the opportunities which
presents violent crime in England. We have been able to trace some
of the movements of this unknown, and we are convinced that his words
have induced numbers of our criminals to quit our shores.
That's a literal translation. In England, old Lafleuve means that
some coot's been touting for thugs!" He turned over other papers.
"Much the same from Germany. New York says:
"Knowing the rarity of violent crime in England, and the efficiency
of the police in suppressing such as exists, we beg to suggest that
you search for an organisation which contemplates an attack on London
which might easily have disastrous consequences by reason of its very
unexpectedness. Our information leads us to suspect the existence of
some such organisation, since there is abundant evidence of the
persuasive suggestions of some agent, whom we have been unable to
trace and identify, and since it is unlikely that men such as those
we name on the enclosed list would leave in a body without a definite
plan in mind.
Teal, who said respectability was dull?"
"I'll put through an all-station call for these men--you've got the
descriptions," said Teal conventionally.
Storm lighted a cigarette with a grace which he contrived to make
inexpressibly cynical.
"Put through all the calls you like," he said languidly. "I'll bet
you ten thousand bucks to half a secondhand Limberger you don't get
more than six of 'em that way! Personally, I'm going to commit two
felonies in the course of the next forty-eight hours, and I'll
guarantee to find out more about the Triangle that way than you will
in forty-eight years with the help of the _Police News_ and the
_Weekly List_ and the rest of the bunch, and the whole dogstrung
C.I.D. into the bargain!"
He cast around for an excuse to ring up Susan, and, finding none,
called her number and hoped that the Lord would provide.
"Yes, of course I'm all right," he said in answer to her first
question, and felt a pleasant tingle at the thought that this should
have been her initial interest. "One reason I rung up was to find
out if you'd decided to accept Terry's invitation to stay with them
till Hannassay's back. I wish you would."
In the new spirit of selfishness that had come upon him in the past
few days, this was an inquiry of minor importance; and yet, having
made it, he was seriously concerned about the reply he would receive.
"I have accepted it," she told him, and he was relieved.
"I'd like you to move in to-day," he said. "I'm sorry if that rushes
you, but you've got to realise that there is a certain amount of
danger, and if you're killed or anything, I shall get it in the neck.
I'll give Terry a ring, and he'll come round and fix everything for
you. He loves work," added Storm mendaciously.
"I suppose it can be managed," she said, for in spite of his
flippancy she recognised his determination, and knew of old the
futility of opposing him. Also, when Storm gave orders he had an
uncanny knack of being always right.
"Do we lunch with Uncle Joe?" he teased her.
"I shall probably lunch with Mr. Mannering," she mocked him back.
"No, really, I'm sorry you're in such a hurry for me to move. I
wanted to go to Moraine's and see the jewels."
"What jewels?"
"Haven't you seen the papers?"
"Haven't had time yet, I usually breakfast in pyjamas, if that
personal detail interests you. Getting up so early to go out to
breakfast spoilt my interest in the latest horrors other people have
been suffering! I'll get hold of Terry now--and I'll be round with
him. That boy wants watching!"
He hung up the receiver and took the paper from Teal's hand. The
detective, with a perspicacity which indicated that he had not turned
a politely deaf ear to the telephone conversation, had already found
the place and folded the sheet so as to display it. It was an
announcement that the final instalment of the Russian Crown jewels
were to be sold by auction at Moraine's on the morrow, and would be
on view from ten to four on this particular day, and for one day
only. The regalia had already been broken up, and the stones alone,
valued at something like four hundred thousand pounds, would be sold.
"That's a lot of money," murmured Storm thoughtfully. "Teal, get on
the 'phone and find out how many men are watching Moraine's."
Mr. Teal obeyed heavily, and in a few moments he had the required
information. He cupped one hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone
and imparted the facts without interest.
"Eight?" repeated Storm. "That's a hell of a lot--I don't think!
Tell 'em to turn out the reserves. I want fifty men at Moraine's in
thirty minutes, and they've got to be armed!"