THE SAFE-BREAKERS.
The day had been hot and stifling in London--one of those blazing days
when the tar on the roadway perfumes the air, the dry pavements reflect
back the heat into one's face, and the straw-hatted Metropolis--or the
portion of it that is still in town--gasps and longs for the country or
the sea.
The warm weather was nearly at an end, and most holiday-makers were back
again. London's workers had had their annual fortnight long ago, and had
nearly forgotten it, and now only principals were away golfing, taking
waters at Harrogate, Woodhall Spa, or in the Scotch hydros, or perhaps
travelling on the Continent.
From the high-up windows in Shaftesbury Avenue, close to Piccadilly
Circus, Ralph Ansell looked down upon the busy traffic of motor-buses,
taxis, and cars, the dark-red after-glow shining full upon his keen,
clean-shaven face.
He was already dressed to go out to dinner, and as he stood in his cosy
bachelor rooms--a pleasant, artistic little place with soft crimson
carpet, big, comfortable, leather arm-chairs, and a profusion of
photographs, mostly of the fair sex, decorating mantelshelf and
walls--his brows were narrowed and he blew big clouds of cigarette smoke
from his lips.
Suddenly the door opened and a man, shorter and rather thick-set, also
in evening clothes, entered. He was evidently French, and possessed
neither the good looks nor the elegance of Ansell.
"Ah! my dear Adolphe!" Ralph cried in French, springing forward to
welcome him. "I hardly expected you yet. Your train from Paris was not
late--eh? Well, how goes it?"
"Infernally hard up--as usual," was his visitor's reply, as he tossed
his black overcoat on to the couch, flung his soft felt hat after it,
and then sank into a chair. "Why all this emergency--eh?"
The man who spoke was of low type, with black, rather curly hair, sharp,
shrewd eyes like his friend's, ears that lay slightly away from his
head, and a large, rather loose, clean-shaven mouth. Between his eyes
were three straight lines, for his brow wore a constant look of care and
anxiety. He did not possess that careless, easy, gentlemanly air of
Ansell, but was of a coarser and commoner French type, the type one
meets every day in the Montmartre, which was, indeed, the home of
Adolphe Carlier.
Ansell walked to the door, opened it as if to ascertain there was no
eavesdropper, and, closing and locking it, returned to his friend's
side.
"I sent for you, my dear friend, because I want you," he said, in a low
voice, gazing straight at him.
"Anything good?" asked the other, stretching out his legs and placing
his clasped hands behind his head wearily.
"Yes, an easy job. The usual game."
"A jeweller's?"
Ansell nodded in the affirmative.
"Where?"
"Not far from here."
"Much stuff?"
"A lot of good stones."
"And the safe?"
"Easy enough with the jet," Ansell answered. "You've brought over all
the things, I suppose?"
"Yes. But it was infernally risky. I was afraid the Customs might open
them at Charing Cross," Carlier replied.
"You never need fear. They never open anything here. This is not like
Calais or Boulogne."
"I shan't take them back."
"You won't require to, my dear Adolphe," laughed Ansell, who, though in
London he posed as a young man of means, was well known in a certain
criminal set in Paris as "The American," because of his daring exploits
in burglary and robbery with violence.
A year before, this exemplary young man, together with Adolphe Carlier,
known as "_Fil-en-Quatre_," or "The Eel," had been members of the
famous Bonnemain gang, to whose credit stood some of the greatest and
most daring jewel robberies in France. For several years the police had
tried to bring their crimes home to them, but without avail, until the
great robbery at Louis Verrier's, in the Rue des Petit-Champs, when a
clerk in the employ of the well-known diamond dealer was shot dead by
Paul Bonnemain. The latter was arrested, tried for murder, and executed,
the gang being afterwards broken up.
The malefactors had numbered eight, six of whom, including Bonnemain
himself, had been arrested, the only ones escaping being Carlier, who
had fled to Bordeaux, where he had worked at the docks till the affair
had blown over, while Ansell, whose _dossier_ showed a very bad record,
had sought refuge in England.
The pair had not met since the memorable evening nine months before,
when Ansell had been sitting in the Grand Cafe, and Carlier had slipped
in to warn him that the police had arrested Bonnemain and the rest, and
had already been to his lodgings. Two hours later, without baggage or
any encumbrance, he had reached Melun in a hired motor-car, and had
thence left it at midnight for Lyons, after which he doubled his tracks
and travelled by way of Cherbourg across to Southampton, while Carlier
had, on that same night, fled to Orleans.
Part of the proceeds of the robbery at the diamond merchants had been
divided up by the gang prior to Bonnemain's arrest--or rather the fifty
thousand francs advanced by the Jew broker from Amsterdam to whom they
always sold their booty. Therefore both men had been possessed of funds.
Like others of their profession, they made large gains, but spent
freely, and were continually short of money. Old Bonnemain, however, had
brought burglary to a fine art, and from the proceeds of each _coup_ he
used to keep back a certain amount out of which to assist the needy
among his accomplices.
Ansell, in addition, had a second source of revenue, inasmuch as he was
on friendly terms with a certain Belgian Baron, who, though living in
affluence in Paris, was nevertheless a high official of the German
Secret Service. It was, indeed, his habit to undertake for the Baron
certain disagreeable little duties which he did not care to perform
himself, and for such services he was usually highly paid. Hence, when
he fled to London, it was not long before a German secret agent called
upon him and put before him a certain proposal, the acceptance of which
had resulted in the death of Dick Harborne.
The young adventurer threw himself into the arm-chair opposite to where
Adolphe Carlier was seated, and in the twilight unfolded his scheme for
a _coup_ at a well-known jeweller's in Bond Street, at which he was
already a customer and had thoroughly surveyed the premises.
"I expected that you had some new scheme in hand," Carlier said at last,
in French, after listening attentively to the details of the
proposition, every one of which had been most carefully thought out by
the pupil of the notorious Bonnemain. "On arrival this afternoon I put
up at the Charing Cross Hotel--so as to be handy if we have to get out
quickly."
"Good. Probably we shall be compelled to move pretty slick," Ansell
said, in English. Then, after a few moments' pause, he added: "Do you
know, my dear Adolphe, I have some news for you."
"News?"
"Yes. I'm going to be married in November."
"Married!" echoed Carlier, staring at his friend. "Who's the lucky
girl?"
"She's French; lives here in London; smart, sweet--a perfect peach," was
his answer. "She'll be a lot of use to us in future."
Carlier was silent for a few moments.
"Does she know anything?" he asked in a low, serious voice.
"Nothing."
"What will she say when she knows?"
"What can she say?" asked Ansell, with a grin.
"She's not one of us, I suppose?"
"One of us? Why, no, my dear fellow. I'll introduce you to-morrow. You
must dine with us--dine before we go out and do the job. But she must
not suspect anything--you understand?"
"Of course," replied the young Frenchman. "I'll be delighted to meet
her, Ralph, but--but I'm thinking it is rather dangerous for you to
marry an honourable girl."
"What?" cried the other, angry in an instant. "Do you insinuate that I'm
not worthy to have a decent, well-brought-up girl for a wife?"
"Ah! you misunderstand me, _mon vieux_. I insinuate nothing," replied
Carlier. "I scent danger, that is all. She may turn from you
when--well--when she knows what we really are."
Ansell's mouth hardened.
"When she knows she'll have to grin and bear it," was the answer.
"She might give us away."
"No, she won't do that, I can assure you. The little fool loves me too
well."
"Is that the way you speak of her?"
"Every girl who loves a man blindly is, in my estimation, a fool."
"Then your estimation of woman is far poorer than I believed, Ralph,"
responded Carlier. "If a girl loves a man truly and well, as apparently
this young lady loves you, then surely she ought not to be sneered at.
We have, all of us, loved at one time or other in our lives."
"You're always a sentimental fool where women are concerned, Adolphe,"
laughed his companion.
"I may be," answered the other. "And I can assure you that I would never
dare to marry while leading the life I do."
"And what better life can you ever hope to lead, pray? Do we not get
excitement, adventure, money, pleasure--everything that makes life worth
living? Neither you nor I could ever settle down to the humdrum
existence of so-called respectability. But are these people who pose as
being so highly respectable really any more honest than we are? No, my
dear friend. The sharks on the Bourse and the sharp men of business are
just as dishonest. They are thieves like ourselves under a more
euphonious name."
Carlier smiled at his friend's philosophy. Yet he was thinking of the
future of the girl with whom he was, as yet, unacquainted--the girl who
had chosen to link her life with that of the merry, careless, but
unscrupulous young fellow before him. They were bosom friends, it was
true, yet he knew, alas! how utterly callous Ralph Ansell was where
women were concerned, and he recollected certain ugly rumours he had
heard, even in their own undesirable circle.
They spoke of Jean again, and Ralph told him her name.
"We will dine there to-morrow night," he added. "Then we will come on
here, and go forth to Bond Street at half-past eleven. I've watched the
police for the past week, and know their exact beat. Better bring round
the things you've brought from Paris in a taxi to-morrow morning."
The "things" referred to were an oxy-acetylene gas-jet, and a number of
the latest inventions of burglarious tools--indeed, all the equipment of
the expert safe-breaker.
That night the pair went forth and dined at the Cafe Royal in Regent
Street, and afterwards went to the Palace Theatre, finishing up at a
night club in Wardour Street. Then, on the following morning, Carlier
returned, bringing with him the heavy but unsuspicious-looking
travelling trunk he had conveyed from Paris.
In the evening Ralph and he went to the Provence Restaurant, but,
to their disappointment, Jean was not there. She had been home, but
had left half an hour later to go to Balham to visit one of her
fellow-assistants at the Maison Collette who was dangerously ill. She
had taken with her some fruit and flowers.
Annoyed at her absence, Ralph had suggested the Trocadero for dinner.
"It's better than in this wretched little hole," he added to Carlier, in
an undertone. "And we'll want a good dinner before we get to business,"
he added, with a sinister grin.
So they had wished old Libert a merry _bon soir_, and were driven in a
taxi along to the Trocadero grill-room, where, amid the clatter of
plates, the chatter, and the accompanying orchestra, they found
themselves in their own element.
At half-past ten they ascended to Ansell's flat, and each had a stiff
brandy-and-soda and a cigar.
Both men were expert thieves, therefore it was not surprising that, by
half-past two o'clock next morning, wearing cotton gloves and dark
spectacles to hide the glare from the jet, they stood together before
the great safe at the back of Matheson and Wilson's, the well-known
jewellers, and while Ansell put up his hand and cleared shelf after
shelf of magnificent ornaments, Adolphe expertly packed them away into
the small black canvas bag he held open.
Those were breathless, exciting moments. The jet had done its work. It
had gone through the hardened steel plates like a knife through butter,
and the door, believed to be burglar-proof, stood open, displaying
wonderful diamond tiaras in cases, ropes of pearls and paper packets
containing uncut gems worth a huge amount.
The haul was a magnificent one, and though they had not yet succeeded in
getting clear, both men were gloating over their booty--a triumphant
satisfaction that no burglar can repress.
The scene was a weird one. The glaring light thrown by the jet had been
extinguished, but the steel still glowed with heat, and Ansell blistered
his fingers when they had accidentally touched the edge. The only light
now was a small electric torch which threw direct rays in a small zone.
But of a sudden, both men heard a noise--the distinct footsteps of a man
crossing the shop!
They straightened their backs, and, for a second, looked at each other
in alarm.
Next instant a big, burly night-watchman dashed in upon them, crying:
"What do you fellows want 'ere--eh?"
"Nothing. Take that!" replied Ansell, as he raised his hand and dashed
something into the man's face.
But too late. The man raised his revolver and fired.
Though the bullet went wide, the report was deafening in that small
inner room, and both intruders knew that the alarm was raised. Not a
second was to be lost. The police-constable on duty outside would hear
it!
Without hesitation, Ralph Ansell raised his arm and instantly fired,
point blank, at the man defending the property of his master.
A second report rang out, and the unfortunate night-watchman fell back
into the darkness. There was a sound of muffled footsteps.
Then all was silence.