NCl3
Joe Blaythwayt waddled into the sitting-room. He turned and gaped at
the detective.
"Loud Speaking Telephones?" he repeated in an awed whisper. "My dear
sir--my Very Dear Sir--I--er--I--I--I----" His fishlike mouth closed
with a smack. "Why, what a coincidence! Finding you here, I mean.
I didn't know you were friends of Jimmy's."
A gargantuan grin overspread Teal's homely features with the slow
ponderous momentum of an incoming tide. Jimmy; James Norman Mattock.
The connection with Joan Sands had eluded Mr. Teal, but now it had
been suggested to him his mind invested it with all the immutable
actuality of proven fact. The truth sounds almost sacrilegious, but
it is that Claud Eustace Teal, flushed with the joy of discovery, was
composing a little song on the lines of a well-known nursery rhyme.
It ran something like this--
Mattock had a little Joan
Whose soul was blushing poor,
And everywhere lamb Mattock went
His Joan went on before.
Mr. Teal was not a great poet, but he had a wonderful knack of
getting a stranglehold on axioms.
"Funny that Jimmy never occurred to me," he said. "Let's take
another look at that flat."
A novel lay on one chair, and when Storm picked it up to read the
title a thin yellow envelope fell out. It was addressed to J.N.
Mattock, and the postmark showed that it had been mailed in Putney at
2 p.m. the previous day. Storm smoothed put the slip of expensive
creamy notepaper which it contained.
Raegenssen having disappeared, the office can probably dispense with
your services for a few hours.
You and Sands will take the Torbay Limited from Paddington on the
morning you receive this. You will go to Torquay and stay at the Spa
Hotel. You will return to London by the noon express the next day.
£15 is enclosed for your expenses.
The signature was the device of the Alpha Triangle.
Storm passed the letter over to Teal, and when the detective had read
it he pursed his lips.
"He's the sort of snake who would have an alibi handy," was Mr.
Teal's sour comment.
The voice they had heard over the telephone was certainly that of a
man--but whose? Mattock's? Blaythwayt's? Teal could arrive at no
plausible solution. And an odd dozen little Triangles had slithered
through their fingers that night, winning clear on the blindest, most
hopeless bluff that had ever been put up in the history of New
Scotland Yard. The detective was anything but satisfied with his
evening's work, and proceeded to vent his spleen on the unhappy Joe.
"Who told you to come butting in here?" he wanted to know. "I'll
tell you, Joe, you dillytanty bloodhounds rile me. Now, just you
warble me that little fairy tale I asked you for--and put in an
opening chorus saying why you come rubing round this manor at twenty
to midnight."
"Really, there's no need for you to be so offensive, Teal,"
Blaythwayt protested miserably. "I happened to be in court when
Mattock was brought up after the Triangle got Mecklen away from the
station--I go round the police courts when I've got any time to
spare. It's the best method of seeing Life in the Raw." Joe's tone
suggested the suppression of nameless horrors witnessed in the
metropolitan courts of summary jurisdiction. "And I'm interested in
this case, as you know, so I shadowed Mattock home. Then I had to
hurry away, but I wanted to ask him a few questions, so I came along
to-night."
"What questions?"
Blaythwayt waggled a podgy hand.
"Material for Writing," he explained unctuously. "One should strive
for Accuracy. I wanted to know what it felt like to be set upon by
two scoundrels, how it was to be up before a magistrate, and so on.
I have never been before a magistrate, nor have I ever been molested
by armed desperados, and so I resolved to get my sensations at least
at second hand."
Storm lounged into a settee and put his feet up. His glance
commanded Teal to cut short the persecution, for Storm had his own
idea of the right way to deal with _l'affaire Blaythwayt_.
"You go steady, uncle!" he warned. "If you aren't careful you'll be
sampling sensations at first hand. Teal loves arresting people--if I
wasn't here, I'll bet he'd pull you in on the spot!" he added, to the
detective's annoyance.
"Arrest _me_?" gasped Blaythwayt as though he could not believe his
ears.
"You!"
Storm's manner differed from Teal's as much as the attack of a tiger
differs from the onslaught of an elephant. Storm's voice was
buttered and honeyed. His words came guilelessly, but there were
little knobs and spikes sticking out all over them under the glossy
varnish.
"You! Blaythwayt, you're playing around with matches in a gunpowder
factory! I'll speak to you plainly, because you're the uncle of a
very great friend of mine. And my advice to you is--slide! Light
out over the horizon and stay lit until this Triangle cyclone has
gone past. You'll be safer. Mess about with yeggs and kiters, if
you like. Even plain ornery murderers are fairly safe. But steer
wide of Triangles! Triangles have got death dope on every point;
they've got edges like Kropps; and there's a big bomb packed up in
the Alpha. I don't want any dead uncles-in-law--it kind of pancakes
the marriage festivities, to go off on your honeymoon hung round with
black crepe. I'll tell you something: you're next on the list! You
know too much. Now, be a sensible fellow, and pass on what you know,
and then vamoose for the duration. Why did you go to Billingsgate?"
Blaythwayt twiddled his fingers round his umbrella uneasily. Once or
twice his mouth opened, and then gold-fished shut again. Storm's
tone had been very gentle, disarmingly so, but even the innocent Joe
had felt the tang of one or two of those tiny needle-points that
prickled through the velvet.
"I--er--well, I'll tell you. Teal told me that Raegenssen was under
suspicion. At least, he was mixed up in the business somehow; and
even if that 'somehow' was only being one of the men the Triangle was
out to kill, finding out more about him might have given me a line on
the Apex himself."
"And how did you hear of Billingsgate?"
Joe hesitated, sucking the crook of his umbrella. One podgy hand
went up and tilted his pot hat back from his forehead.
"Can I speak without prejudice?" he compromised.
"More or less."
"Er--um!" Blaythwayt scratched his head. "Um!" He caught Teal's
dissecting eye upon him, and dithered. "To tell you the truth, I was
the second burglar at Raegenssen's," he blurted.
Storm was tapping a cigarette on his thumbnail. Teal was probing for
a piece of gum which had lodged in one of his molars. The effect of
the revelation was that Teal bit his finger.
"And did you recognise anyone at Billingsgate?" asked Storm calmly,
and Joe shook his head.
"Only Susan," he confessed.
"And you didn't get your line on the Big Triangle?"
"No. But I learnt something else, and you know what it was. Susan
saw it--I only heard of it from her," Blaythwayt dropped his voice
impressively. "The Tunnel!"
Storm looked up.
"Oh, yes! Into the Tube. Did either of you find out where it left
the Tube again?"
"No."
"Just by the Bank of England!" said Storm coolly, and the Teal and
Blaythwayt jaws sagged limply. "The Alpha Triangle was going to
smash the Bank of England--they'd got it all mapped out to a hair!
But there was just one place where they got snookered. Tell me that
one, Joe."
Blaythwayt nodded sagely.
"The vaults are flooded at night."
Storm struck a match and applied it to his cigarette. He looked at
the other two through a long wisp of blue smoke.
"Yeh!" he murmured. "They ought to have tried an easier crib. It
must have been ... peeving to have a bloomer like that in your
calculations--even if it does compensate for having the whole balloon
burst by a police raid!"
He climbed off the settee and stretched himself. His face was
reserve itself.
"Just one other thing," he remembered. "How did you find out that
'Raegenssen' was 'Sud-Scandinavia Wood'?"
Blaythwayt smiled.
"That was easy. I mean to say, I couldn't be sure, but I Had My
Ideas. Susan told me that you had been talking about a mysterious
sawmill, and, as Raegenssen's banker, I knew that he had frequently
passed cheques made payable to the Sud-Scandinavia. So I knew he had
some connection. I found the address in the street directory."
"Thanks very much," said Storm casually. "I think that's all. Are
you going to take my tip?"
"Er--um!" Joe looked mournful.
Storm flicked a short cylinder of ash into a flower-pot. His
cigarette twirled skywards, his shoulders squared, his hands went
deep into his trouser pockets. He looked down at Blaythwayt with a
metallic hardness in his eyes, and the other shuffled his feet
uncertainly.
"That's my last word--skid!" drawled Storm in a friendly tone under
which only an ear attuned to his mood would have detected the
cast-iron core. "Give her the gun, prospective uncle-in-law, and hit
her up on all six. Chase yourself, and touch the ground in spots.
Go rubbering round Canada, or hunt butterflies in Peru--go any place
where they never see Triangles except in geometry books or on
beer-labels or the rear wings of autos! Don't forget that warning.
I'm serious! During the next two days there're going to be special
trains running to Gehenna for everyone who's got a line on the Big
Triangle, or who's ever had the chance to get a line on him. The Big
Triangle himself included--that's my contribution. You come right
into that catalogue, Blaythwayt. Give Sherlock II a rest. I guess
he needs it."
Never for one moment had that undercurrent of command broken surface;
but Joe felt rather than heard it, and a flush of half-hearted
obstinacy stole into his plump cheeks.
"Now, when do you leave?" said Storm.
"I--er--um!" Blaythwayt was dubious. "I really don't see, Captain
Arden, that you've----"
_Zzzzzzing! ... Zzzzzzing! ... Zzzzzzing!_
For the second time that evening the clarion summons of the hall bell
jazzed into insistence, and Teal ceased mastication for a couple of
seconds to frown. Followed the clattering thump of a knocker plied
by no patient hand, and then a short pause....
_Zzzzzzing! ... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzing!_
Something quite unrelated to any surmise about the identity of the
testy one outside prodded the conscience of Mr. Teal, to his
discomfort. The foundation of the fact in his misgivings was not
long in receiving demonstration.
"More callers!" murmured Storm. "I wonder who this is."
He opened the front door.
"Thank you," said Joan Sands coldly, and marched past him into the
sitting-room.
She stood aside to allow Storm to enter, and then placed herself
across the threshold.
"Inspector Teal, I believe?" she said, looking straight at the portly
detective.
"That's right," said Teal.
Flabbergasted as he was, he could not deny her dignity. She stood
with her legs slightly astride, her white hands loosely holding the
belt of her simple tweed costume, and a glacial inclemency had come
into her baby blue eyes.
"Captain Arden, I presume?"
"Sure!" Storm bowed.
Her gaze shifted to Joe Blaythwayt, who had suddenly become
conspicuous by his efforts to efface himself.
"Who's this, Arden?" she demanded. "Is he a split too?"
Storm smiled.
"He'll bless you in his prayers if you call him that. Let me
introduce you," he said easily. "Mr. Blaythwayt--Miss Sands. I
expect he knows your name. He's Teal's father confessor."
She looked at him suspiciously.
"What's he here for?"
"I think he dropped in for a chat with Jimmy. Isn't that it, Joe?"
"I--er--um!" began Joe confusedly. "The fact is, Miss Sands, I was
especially anxious to have a Private Conversation with
your--your--um!"
He broke off and looked about him wretchedly, as though his mind was
clawing round desperately for a straw of assistance. His
embarrassment, which increased with every second of that awkward
hiatus, was positively painful. He almost wriggled in his distress,
and for the first time Joan smiled.
"My lover?--I suppose that's the word you're jibbing at?" she
prompted without a tremor. "You're unlucky."
"We thought you were away, too," said Storm brazenly, and she swung
round on him.
"So that's why you came?"
"Hardly! We didn't think you were away until we'd come."
She looked at him with a frown, as if she thought he was being
facetious. He appreciated the genuineness of her scepticism, and
took the yellow envelope from his pocket and gave it to her. She
read it through, and then opened her bag and took out a telegram.
"I've been spending the last two days at Hindhead," she said. "I got
this wire this afternoon, and that's all I knew of Jimmy going away.
Read it."
"Thank you."
Sorry dear shan't be home when you return sent Torquay important
business back to-morrow.
JIMMY.
Storm folded the flimsy and handed it back.
"I see. The Apex must have thought you were in town." Storm
whistled out a long jet of smoke. "Who knew you were going?"
"Only Jimmy," she replied, and then once more she was on her high
horse. "But I'm not here to be cross-examined. I take it you've
been searching my flat. That being so, I'd like to see your warrant."
There was an interlude of silence. Joe had succeeded in retiring to
the ample background afforded by Mr. Teal. The detective, having had
the guiltiness of his conscience materialised, chewed stolidly and
was tongue-tied. Arden coaxed his cigarette to the other corner of
his mouth and met the girl's imperious gaze levelly.
"We haven't got one," he said. "Like Mr. Blaythwayt, Teal and I were
going to pay a little call on Jimmy, only we got in the wrong door
and found a little mothers' meeting in progress. We were in time for
the agenda, and stopped to--er--vote upon the motion."
"Don't be funny," she snapped.
"I'm as serious as double pneumonia," he assured her gravely. "Joan,
don't pretend to be dense!"
"I'm only Joan to my friends, Arden," she cut him, but he refused to
be high-handed.
"I'm your friend, Joan," he said imperturbably. "Whether you call me
Captain Arden or plain Arden doesn't bother me any, because I'm not
talking for myself--there's every mite of every law in this country,
and all the power behind the Law, concentrated in my two hands! You
may or may not be as innocent as you seem. We'll argue that later.
But come a little tour of inspection and learn things!"
He led her into the outer sitting-room, and she followed impatiently.
He pointed to the chairs drawn up round the long table, and the marks
of recent occupation in the ash-trays and scattered cards. He
exhibited the loud-speaking telephone, and then indicated the wire
which ran into her private flat. He took her back and traced for her
its route across the floor, under the rugs, to the ornate bookcase.
She did no more than cast a bored glance at each of the damning
beacons of incrimination he picked out for her enlightenment. Her
lips were tightened up, her face a mask, her bearing inscrutable.
Then he made her look at the bookcase. She obeyed pettishly, and
turned to him again with a mutinous tilt to her small chin.
"Well?" she said. "Is that all?"
"Not quite! You've seen the loud-speaking telephone and you've seen
the tapped wires. You've seen how anyone knowing the secret of that
bookcase could speak through to the other room. Teal and I arrived
in that other room in time to hear two men detailed to murder our one
and only Inspector Teal. We think those orders were given from your
flat. So we're healthily curious!"
"Well?"
"Anything but! It isn't every day you hear the order given for your
own execution!"
She faced him boldly.
"Do you think I was the speaker?"
"I don't," said Storm. "For one thing, the voice I heard was too
deep for the best woman mimic on earth to have produced. For
another, you hadn't a key--you had to ring for us to let you in. Why
did you come back if you knew Jimmy was away? Who was going to let
you in?"
"I forgot I hadn't a key. Jimmy lost his the other day, and as I was
going away I left him mine. He was going to have another key cut."
"Uh-huh. Rather absent-minded of you! What'd you have done--slept
on the doorstep?"
She pulled off her hat and shook out her hair. Walking over to a
side table, she helped herself to a cigarette from a silver box. She
turned round with the lighted match in her hand.
"My God--are you _still_ here?" she exclaimed.
"That's real Mattock," Teal said, addressing Storm. "He tried that
on me the other day."
"I'm sorry--we are," said Storm. "Now hear me, Joan! Who else had
keys besides you and Jimmy?"
"No one that I know of."
Storm took a promenade up and down the room. She had rested against
the table, and he stopped in front of her, eyeing her steadily and
forcing her to meet his gaze. He said nothing, simply riveted her
with that thoughtful stare. And he saw that tense silence rasp her
nerves--saw her go a little paler under the paint and powder, and saw
the quick straining heave of her bosom. Saw her mouth twitch ever so
slightly, and saw the reflex, spasmodic jerk of her hand.
He smashed through her barricade of haughtiness by the sheer
relentless battering of his will, and at last she turned her head
away with a short shaky laugh and put a little distance between them,
placing herself on the opposite side of the table as though to break
away from that intangible attack.
"I hate talking like a detective story," Kit Arden said slowly,
"but--if you've told me the truth--it looks ... bad ... for Jimmy,
doesn't it?"
The blow that her intuition had sensed, namelessly and without logic,
had fallen. He saw her wince and grip the edge of the table for
support.
"I don't ... understand..."
"I'm sorry." Storm relaxed. The bombardment was lifted. His smile
was as light and care-free as if there had never been an Alpha
Triangle mentioned in that room. "That's all there is to be said,
then. Except that I'll ask you to pass on to Jimmy the advice I gave
Blaythwayt just before you came in. And that advice is, let up!
Play with fire if you must get a kick out of life, but never do
acrobatics on the chute of a blast furnace!... We'll move along
now--I expect you're tired."
Blaythwayt, squirming and panting for relief from those taut
surroundings into which he had stumbled, was in the van of that
withdrawal. He made for the door as a scared rabbit scuttles to its
burrow. Inspector Teal, more phlegmatically constituted, followed
him with less speed and more self-possession.
Kit was the last to go, and he stayed behind for half a minute. He
went up to Joan and held out his hand. She looked up at his face in
uncomprehending surprise, and saw that the hard lines had gone and
the flinty glitter was no longer in his eyes.
She put her hand in his, and he gave it a little squeeze.
"Kid," he said, "there's a lot of good in you. And one hell of a big
brick of courage. I won't preach--I know you'd hate that. But you
know what I mean."
How infinitely sweet and gentle his voice could be!
"I am sorry--honest!" said Storm. "But there's quite a way to go
between saying you're sorry and coming round with a wreath. In a
very few days the Triangle's going to smash, and you don't want to be
part of the bang. So don't be silly. Get Jimmy away.... Good luck!"
From the doorway she watched him stride down the corridor. She was
conscious of a vague, indescribable feeling deep within her.
Something that troubled her, that she could not understand and yet
was on the brink of understanding, seemed to have awakened against
her volition. Something pleasant and yet rather frightening.
Something that kindled up with the promise of a sweeping flame ...
something that had died, was reborn.
"Captain Arden!" she called, and he stopped.
"Hullo?"
"Captain Arden." Her speech was a little faltering, a little
tremulous. "You--you're the only busy I've ever met who was--pure
white--all the way through."
He smiled and waved his hand cheerily; and then he turned to the
stairs and ran down.
He found Teal and Blaythwayt waiting for him in the street, and the
detective had his friend's arm in an ominously professional grip.
"Joe and me," said Teal, oblivious of grammar, "is going to have
words!"
"I hope you won't be rude to each other!" said Storm piously.
They walked down Piccadilly together, and they had almost reached
Burlington House when all three of them saw an amazing sight.
Down in Piccadilly Circus, where the statue of Eros once stood, there
flickered into being for an instant a terrific blinding blaze of
violet light. It seemed to lurch up from the roadway in one colossal
wave of whirling, jagged, eye-tormenting luminance--a Cyclopean flood
of flaring amethyst which stunned vision and paralysed the brain. In
a thousandth of a second it was gone, splintering into a star-searing
burst of intolerable dazzling white radiance shot with zigzagging
streaks of orange fire. And right in the flash of that fearful
disintegration came a shattering, detonating thunder that rocked the
very earth under their feet and pounded and pulverised the senses
into an agony of quivering helplessness. And then, on the heels of
the awful reverberation, followed a mighty rushing wind which reeled
them out of all equilibrium and hurled them dazed and breathless to
the ground.