MURDER
"I've got two men on to Sir George," said T. B. to Van Ingen. They
were at the Yard. "I've given them instructions not to leave him day
or night. Now, the question is, how will the 'bears' discover the
fatal day the barrage is to be handed over to the guileless
Fellaheen?"
"Through the Egyptian Government?" suggested Van Ingen.
"That I doubt. It seems a simple proposition, but the issues are so
important that you may be sure our mysterious friends will not strike
until they are absolutely certain. In the meantime----"
He unlocked the safe and took out a book. This, too, was fastened by
two locks. He opened it, laid it down, and began writing on a sheet
of paper, carefully, laboriously checking the result.
That night the gentleman who is responsible for the good order of
Egypt received a telegram which ran:
"Premium Fellow Collect Wady Barrage
Meridian Tainted Inoculate Weary Sulphur."
There was a great deal more written in the same interesting style.
When the Egyptian Chief of Police unlocked his book to decode the
message, he was humming a little tune that he had heard the band
playing outside Shepheard's Hotel. Long before he had finished
decoding the message, his humming stopped.
Ten minutes later the wires were humming, and a battalion of infantry
was hastily entrained from Khartoum.
Having despatched the wire, T. B. turned to the young man, who was
sitting solemnly regarding a small gossamer handkerchief and a
crushed rosebud that lay on the table.
"Well?" demanded T. B. Smith, leaning over the table, "what do you
make of 'em?"
"They are not Sir George's," replied Van Ingen, with a grin.
"So much I gather," said T. B. "A client's?"
"A very depressed and agitated client--feel."
T. B.'s fingers touched the little handkerchief; it was still quite
damp. He nodded.
"The rosebud?"
"Did you notice our austere banker's button-hole?"
"Not particularly--but I remember no flowers."
"No," agreed Van Ingen, "there were no flowers. I noticed
particularly that his buttonhole was sewn, and yet----"
"And yet?"
"Hidden in one of those drawers was a bunch of these roses. I saw
them when he was getting your balance-sheet."
"H'm!" T. B. tapped the table impatiently.
"So, you see," Van Ingen went on, "we have an interest in this lady
client of his, who comes after office hours, weeps copiously, and
leaves a bunch of rosebuds as a souvenir of her visit. It may have
been a client, of course."
"And the roses may have been security for an overdraft," said the
ironic T. B. "What do you make of the handkerchief?"
It was an exquisite little thing of the most delicate cambric. Along
one hem, in letters minutely embroidered in flowing script, there ran
a line of writing. T. B. took up a magnifying glass and read it.
"'Que dieu te garde,'" he read, "and a little monogram--a gift of
some sort, I gather. As far as I can see, the lettering is
'N.H.C.'--and what that means, Heaven knows! I'm afraid that, beyond
intruding to an unjustifiable extent into the private affairs of our
banker, we get no further. Well, Jones?"
With a knock at the door, an officer had entered.
"Sir George has returned to his house. We have just received a
telephone message from one of our men."
"What has he been doing to-night--Sir George?"
"He dined at home; went to his club and returned; he does not go out
again."
T. B. nodded.
"Watch the house and report," he said. The man saluted and left.
T. B. turned again to the contemplation of the handkerchief.
"If I were one of those funny detectives, Mr. Van Ingen, who live in
books," he said sadly, "I could weave quite an interesting theory
from this." He held the handkerchief to his nose and smelt it. "The
scent is 'Simpatico,' therefore the owner must have lived in Spain;
the workmanship is Parisian, therefore----" He threw the flimsy
thing from him with a laugh. "This takes us no nearer to the Wady
Barrage, my friend--no nearer to the mysterious millionaires who
'bear' the shares of worthy brewers. Let us go out into the open,
and ask Heaven to drop a clue at our feet."
The two men turned their steps towards Whitehall, and were halfway to
Trafalgar Square when a panting constable overtook them.
"There is a message from the man watching Sir George Calliper's
house, sir," he said; "he wants you to go there at once."
"What is wrong?" asked T. B. quickly.
"A drunken man, sir, so far as I could understand."
"A what?"
T. B.'s eyebrows rose, and he smiled incredulously.
"A drunken man," repeated the man; "he's made two attempts to see Sir
George----"
"Hail that cab," said T. B. "We'll drive round and see this
extraordinary person."
A drunken man is not usually a problem so difficult that it is
necessary to requisition the services of an Assistant-Commissioner.
This much T. B. pointed out to the detective who awaited him at the
corner of St. James's Square.
"But this man is different," said the officer; "he's well dressed; he
has plenty of money--he gave the cab-driver a sovereign--and he
talks."
"Nothing remarkable in that, dear lad," said T. B. reproachfully; "we
all talk."
"But he talks business, sir," persisted the officer; "boasts that
he's got Bronte's bank in his pocket."
"The devil he does!" T. B.'s eyebrows had a trick of rising. "Did
he say anything else?"
"The second time he came," said the detective, "the butler pushed him
down the steps, and that seemed to annoy him--he talked pretty freely
then, called Sir George all the names he could lay his tongue to, and
finished up by saying that he could ruin him."
T. B. nodded.
"And Sir George? He could not, of course, hear this unpleasant
conversation? He would be out of earshot."
"Beg pardon, sir," said the plain-clothes man, "but that's where
you're mistaken. I distinctly saw Sir George through the half-opened
door. He was standing behind his servant."
"It's a pity----" began T. B., when the detective pointed along the
street in the direction of the Square.
"There he is, sir," he whispered; "he's coming again."
Along the pavement, a little unsteadily, a young man walked. In the
brilliant light of a street lamp T. B. saw that he was well dressed
in a glaring way. The Assistant-Commissioner waited until the
newcomer reached the next lamp; then walked to meet him.
A young man, expensively garbed, red of face, and flashily
jewelled--at a distance T. B. classified him as one of the more
offensive type of _nouveau riche_. The stranger would have passed on
his way, but T. B. stepped in front of him.
"Excuse me, Mr.----" He stopped with an incredulous gasp. "Mr.
Moss!" he said wonderingly. "Mr. Lewis Moss, some time of Tokenhouse
Yard, company promoter."
"Here, stash it, Mr. Smith," begged the young man. He stood
unsteadily, and in his eye was defiance. "Drop all
that--reformed--me. Look 'ere"--he lurched forward and caught T. B.
by the lapel of his coat, and his breath was reminiscent of a
distillery--"if you knew what I know, ah!"
The "Ah!" was triumph in a word.
"If you knew what I know," continued Mr. Moss, with relish; "but you
don't. You fellers at your game think you know _toot_, as Count
Poltavo says; but you don't." He wagged his head wisely.
T. B. waited.
"I'm goin' to see Calliper," Mr. Moss went on, with gross
familiarity, "an' what I've got to say to him is worth
millions--millions, I tell you. An' when Calliper says to me, 'Mr.
Moss, I thank you!' and has done the right thing, I'll come to
you--see?"
"I see," said T. B., "but you mustn't annoy Sir George any more
to-night."
"Look here, Smith," Mr. Moss went off at a tangent, "you want to know
how I got acquainted with Count Poltavo--well, I'll tell you.
There's a feller named Hyatt that I used to do a bit of business
with. Quiet young feller who got marvellous tips--made a lot o'
money, he did, all because he bowled out Poltavo--see?"
He stopped short, for it evidently dawned upon him that he was
talking too much.
"He sent you, eh?" Mr. Moss jerked the point of a gold-mounted stick
in the direction of Sir George's house. "Come down off his high
'orse"--the third "h" was too much for him--"and very wisely, very
wisely." He shook his head with drunken gravity. "As a man of the
world," he went on, "you bein' one an' me bein' another, it only
remains to fix a meeting between self an' client--your client--an' I
can give him a few tips."
"That," said T. B., "is precisely my desire." He had ever the happy
knack of dealing satisfactorily with drunken men. "Now let us review
the position."
"First of all," said Mr. Moss firmly, "who are these people?" He
indicated Van Ingen and the detective. "If they're friends of yours,
old feller, say the word"--and his gesture was generous--"friends of
yours? Right!" Once more he became the man of affairs.
"Let us get at the bottom of the matter," said T. B. "Firstly, you
wish to see Sir George Calliper?"
The young man, leaning against some happily placed railings, nodded
several times.
"Although," T. B. went on, shaking his head reprovingly, "you are not
exactly----"
"A bottle of fizz--a couple, nothing to cloud the mind," said the
young man airily. "I've never been drunk in me life."
"It seems to me that I have heard that remark before," said T. B.,
"but that's beside the matter; you were talking about a man called
Hyatt who bowled Poltavo."
The young man pulled himself erect.
"In a sense I was," he said, with dignity, "in a sense I wasn't; and
now I must be toddling."
T. B. saw the sudden suspicion that came to him. "What do you know
about the barrage?" he asked abruptly.
The man started back, sobered.
"Nothing," he said harshly. "I know nothing. I know you, though,
Mr. Bloomin' Smith, and you ain't goin' to pump me. Here, I'm going."
He pushed T. B. aside. Van Ingen would have stopped him but for a
look from his companion.
"Let him go," he said. "I have a feeling that----"
The young man was crossing St. James's Street, and disappeared for a
moment in the gloom between the street lamps. T. B. waited a time
for him to reappear, but he did not come into sight.
"That's rum," murmured Van Ingen; "he couldn't have gone into Sir
George's; his house is on the other side of the street--hello, there
he is!"
A man appeared momentarily in the rays of the lamp they were
watching, and walked rapidly away.
"That isn't him," said T. B., puzzled; "he's too tall; it must be
somebody from one of the houses. Let us stroll along and see what
has become of Mr. Moss."
The little party crossed the street. The thoroughfare was deserted
now, save for the disappearing figure of the tall gentleman.
The black patch where Moss had disappeared was the entrance of the
mews.
"He must have mistaken this for a thoroughfare," said T. B. "We'll
probably find him asleep in a corner somewhere." He took a little
electric lamp from his pocket and shot a white beam into the darkness.
"I don't see him anywhere," he said, and walked into the mews.
"There he is!" said Van Ingen suddenly.
The man was lying flat on his back, his eyes wide open, one arm
moving feebly.
"Drunk?" said T. B., and leant over him. Then he saw the blood and
the wound in the man's throat.
"Murder! by the Lord!" he cried.
He was not dead, but, even as the sound of Van Ingen's running feet
grew fainter, T. B. knew that this was a case beyond the power of the
divisional surgeon. The man tried to speak, and the detective bent
his head to listen. "Can't tell you all," the poor wreck whispered,
"get Hyatt or the man on the Eiffel Tower--they know. His sister's
got the book--Hyatt's sister--down in Falmouth--you'll find N.H.C. I
don't know who they are, but you'll find them." He muttered a little
incoherently, and T. B. strained his ears, but heard nothing.
"N.H.C.," he repeated under his breath, and remembered the
handkerchief.
The man on the ground spoke again--"The Admiralty--they could fix it
for you. Poltavo----"
Then he died.