Two years after the events just described, T. X. journeying up to London
from Bath was attracted by a paragraph in the Morning Post. It told him
briefly that Mr. Remington Kara, the influential leader of the Greek
Colony, had been the guest of honor at a dinner of the Hellenic Society.
T. X. had only seen Kara for a brief space of time following that
tragic morning, when he had discovered not only that his best friend had
escaped from Dartmoor prison and disappeared, as it were, from the world
at a moment when his pardon had been signed, but that that friend's wife
had also vanished from the face of the earth.
At the same time--it might, as even T. X. admitted, have been the
veriest coincidence that Kara had also cleared out of London to reappear
at the end of six months. Any question addressed to him, concerning the
whereabouts of the two unhappy people, was met with a bland expression
of ignorance as to their whereabouts.
John Lexman was somewhere in the world, hiding as he believed from
justice, and with him was his wife. T. X. had no doubt in his mind as to
this solution of the puzzle. He had caused to be published the story
of the pardon and the circumstances under which that pardon had been
secured, and he had, moreover, arranged for an advertisement to be
inserted in the principal papers of every European country.
It was a moot question amongst the departmental lawyers as to whether
John Lexman was not guilty of a technical and punishable offence for
prison breaking, but this possibility did not keep T. X. awake at
nights. The circumstances of the escape had been carefully examined. The
warder responsible had been discharged from the service, and had almost
immediately purchased for himself a beer house in Falmouth, for a sum
which left no doubt in the official mind that he had been the recipient
of a heavy bribe.
Who had been the guiding spirit in that escape--Mrs. Lexman, or Kara?
It was impossible to connect Kara with the event. The motor car had
been traced to Exeter, where it had been hired by a “foreign-looking
gentleman,” but the chauffeur, whoever he was, had made good his
escape. An inspection of Kara's hangars at Wembley showed that his two
monoplanes had not been removed, and T. X. failed entirely to trace
the owner of the machine he had seen flying over Dartmoor on the fatal
morning.
T. X. was somewhat baffled and a little amused by the disinclination
of the authorities to believe that the escape had been effected by
this method at all. All the events of the trial came back to him, as he
watched the landscape spinning past.
He set down the newspaper with a little sigh, put his feet on the
cushions of the opposite seat and gave himself up to reverie. Presently
he returned to his journals and searched them idly for something
to interest him in the final stretch of journey between Newbury and
Paddington.
Presently he found it in a two column article with the uninspiring
title, “The Mineral Wealth of Tierra del Fuego.” It was written
brightly with a style which was at once easy and informative. It told of
adventures in the marshes behind St. Sebastian Bay and journeys up the
Guarez Celman river, of nights spent in primeval forests and ended in
a geological survey, wherein the commercial value of syenite, porphyry,
trachite and dialite were severally canvassed.
The article was signed “G. G.” It is said of T. X. that his greatest
virtue was his curiosity. He had at the tip of his fingers the names
of all the big explorers and author-travellers, and for some reason he
could not place “G. G.” to his satisfaction, in fact he had an absurd
desire to interpret the initials into “George Grossmith.” His inability
to identify the writer irritated him, and his first act on reaching his
office was to telephone to one of the literary editors of the Times whom
he knew.
“Not my department,” was the chilly reply, “and besides we never give
away the names of our contributors. Speaking as a person outside the
office I should say that 'G. G.' was 'George Gathercole' the explorer
you know, the fellow who had an arm chewed off by a lion or something.”
“George Gathercole!” repeated T. X. “What an ass I am.”
“Yes,” said the voice at the other end the wire, and he had rung off
before T. X. could think of something suitable to say.
Having elucidated this little side-line of mystery, the matter passed
from the young Commissioner's mind. It happened that morning that his
work consisted of dealing with John Lexman's estate.
With the disappearance of the couple he had taken over control of
their belongings. It had not embarrassed him to discover that he was an
executor under Lexman's will, for he had already acted as trustee to the
wife's small estate, and had been one of the parties to the ante-nuptial
contract which John Lexman had made before his marriage.
The estate revenues had increased very considerably. All the vanished
author's books were selling as they had never sold before, and the
executor's work was made the heavier by the fact that Grace Lexman
had possessed an aunt who had most inconsiderately died, leaving a
considerable fortune to her “unhappy niece.”
“I will keep the trusteeship another year,” he told the solicitor who
came to consult him that morning. “At the end of that time I shall go to
the court for relief.”
“Do you think they will ever turn up?” asked the solicitor, an elderly
and unimaginative man.
“Of course, they'll turn up!” said T. X. impatiently; “all the heroes of
Lexman's books turn up sooner or later. He will discover himself to us
at a suitable moment, and we shall be properly thrilled.”
That Lexman would return he was sure. It was a faith from which he did
not swerve.
He had as implicit a confidence that one day or other Kara, the
magnificent, would play into his hands.
There were some queer stories in circulation concerning the Greek,
but on the whole they were stories and rumours which were difficult to
separate from the malicious gossip which invariably attaches itself to
the rich and to the successful.
One of these was that Kara desired something more than an Albanian
chieftainship, which he undoubtedly enjoyed. There were whispers of
wider and higher ambitions. Though his father had been born a Greek, he
had indubitably descended in a direct line from one of those old Mprets
of Albania, who had exercised their brief authority over that turbulent
land.
The man's passion was for power. To this end he did not spare himself.
It was said that he utilized his vast wealth for this reason, and none
other, and that whatever might have been the irregularities of his
youth--and there were adduced concrete instances--he was working toward
an end with a singleness of purpose, from which it was difficult to
withhold admiration.
T. X. kept in his locked desk a little red book, steel bound and triple
locked, which he called his “Scandalaria.” In this he inscribed in his
own irregular writing the titbits which might not be published, and
which often helped an investigator to light upon the missing threads
of a problem. In truth he scorned no source of information, and was
conscienceless in the compilation of this somewhat chaotic record.
The affairs of John Lexman recalled Kara, and Kara's great reception.
Mansus would have made arrangements to secure a verbatim report of the
speeches which were made, and these would be in his hands by the night.
Mansus did not tell him that Kara was financing some very influential
people indeed, that a certain Under-secretary of State with a great
number of very influential relations had been saved from bankruptcy by
the timely advances which Kara had made. This T. X. had obtained through
sources which might be hastily described as discreditable. Mansus knew
of the baccarat establishment in Albemarle Street, but he did not know
that the neurotic wife of a very great man indeed, no less than the
Minister of Justice, was a frequent visitor to that establishment, and
that she had lost in one night some 6,000 pounds. In these circumstances
it was remarkable, thought T. X., that she should report to the police
so small a matter as the petty pilfering of servants. This, however,
she had done and whilst the lesser officers of Scotland Yard were
interrogating pawnbrokers, the men higher up were genuinely worried by
the lady's own lapses from grace.
It was all sordid but, unfortunately, conventional, because highly
placed people will always do underbred things, where money or women
are concerned, but it was necessary, for the proper conduct of the
department which T. X. directed, that, however sordid and however
conventional might be the errors which the great ones of the earth
committed, they should be filed for reference.
The motto which T. X. went upon in life was, “You never know.”
The Minister of Justice was a very important person, for he was a
personal friend of half the monarchs of Europe. A poor man, with two or
three thousand a year of his own, with no very definite political
views and uncommitted to the more violent policies of either party, he
succeeded in serving both, with profit to himself, and without earning
the obloquy of either. Though he did not pursue the blatant policy
of the Vicar of Bray, yet it is fact which may be confirmed from
the reader's own knowledge, that he served in four different
administrations, drawing the pay and emoluments of his office from each,
though the fundamental policies of those four governments were distinct.
Lady Bartholomew, the wife of this adaptable Minister, had recently
departed for San Remo. The newspapers announced the fact and spoke
vaguely of a breakdown which prevented the lady from fulfilling her
social engagements.
T. X., ever a Doubting Thomas, could trace no visit of nerve specialist,
nor yet of the family practitioner, to the official residence in Downing
Street, and therefore he drew conclusions. In his own “Who's Who” T.
X. noted the hobbies of his victims which, by the way, did not always
coincide with the innocent occupations set against their names in the
more pretentious volume. Their follies and their weaknesses found a
place and were recorded at a length (as it might seem to the uninformed
observer) beyond the limit which charity allowed.
Lady Mary Bartholomew's name appeared not once, but many times, in the
erratic records which T. X. kept. There was a plain matter-of-fact and
wholly unobjectionable statement that she was born in 1874, that she was
the seventh daughter of the Earl of Balmorey, that she had one daughter
who rejoiced in the somewhat unpromising name of Belinda Mary, and such
further information as a man might get without going to a great deal of
trouble.
T. X., refreshing his memory from the little red book, wondered what
unexpected tragedy had sent Lady Bartholomew out of London in the middle
of the season. The information was that the lady was fairly well off at
this moment, and this fact made matters all the more puzzling and
almost induced him to believe that, after all, the story was true, and a
nervous breakdown really was the cause of her sudden departure. He sent
for Mansus.
“You saw Lady Bartholomew off at Charing Cross, I suppose?”
Mansus nodded.
“She went alone?”
“She took her maid, but otherwise she was alone. I thought she looked
ill.”
“She has been looking ill for months past,” said T. X., without any
visible expression of sympathy.
“Did she take Belinda Mary?”
Mansus was puzzled. “Belinda Mary?” he repeated slowly. “Oh, you mean
the daughter. No, she's at a school somewhere in France.”
T. X. whistled a snatch of a popular song, closed the little red book
with a snap and replaced it in his desk.
“I wonder where on earth people dig up names like Belinda Mary?” he
mused. “Belinda Mary must be rather a weird little animal--the Lord
forgive me for speaking so about my betters! If heredity counts for
anything she ought to be something between a head waiter and a pack of
cards. Have you lost anything'?”
Mansus was searching his pockets.
“I made a few notes, some questions I wanted to ask you about and
Lady Bartholomew was the subject of one of them. I have had her under
observation for six months; do you want it kept up?”
T. X. thought awhile, then shook his head.
“I am only interested in Lady Bartholomew in so far as Kara is
interested in her. There is a criminal for you, my friend!” he added,
admiringly.
Mansus busily engaged in going through the bundles of letters, slips
of paper and little notebooks he had taken from his pocket, sniffed
audibly.
“Have you a cold?” asked T. X. politely.
“No, sir,” was the reply, “only I haven't much opinion of Kara as a
criminal. Besides, what has he got to be a criminal about? He has all
that he requires in the money department, he's one of the most popular
people in London, and certainly one of the best-looking men I've ever
seen in my life. He needs nothing.”
T. X. regarded him scornfully.
“You're a poor blind brute,” he said, shaking his head; don't you know
that great criminals are never influenced by material desires, or by
the prospect of concrete gains? The man, who robs his employer's till
in order to give the girl of his heart the 25-pearl and ruby brooch her
soul desires, gains nothing but the glow of satisfaction which comes to
the man who is thought well of. The majority of crimes in the world are
committed by people for the same reason--they want to be thought well
of. Here is Doctor X. who murdered his wife because she was a drunkard
and a slut, and he dared not leave her for fear the neighbours would
have doubts as to his respectability. Here is another gentleman who
murders his wives in their baths in order that he should keep up some
sort of position and earn the respect of his friends and his associates.
Nothing roused him more quickly to a frenzy of passion than the
suggestion that he was not respectable. Here is the great financier, who
has embezzled a million and a quarter, not because he needed money,
but because people looked up to him. Therefore, he must build
great mansions, submarine pleasure courts and must lay out huge
estates--because he wished that he should be thought well of.
Mansus sniffed again.
“What about the man who half murders his wife, does he do that to be
well thought of?” he asked, with a tinge of sarcasm.
T. X. looked at him pityingly.
“The low-brow who beats his wife, my poor Mansus,” he said, “does so
because she doesn't think well of him. That is our ruling passion,
our national characteristic, the primary cause of most crimes, big or
little. That is why Kara is a bad criminal and will, as I say, end his
life very violently.”
He took down his glossy silk hat from the peg and slipped into his
overcoat.
“I am going down to see my friend Kara,” he said. “I have a feeling that
I should like to talk with him. He might tell me something.”
His acquaintance with Kara's menage had been mere hearsay. He had
interviewed the Greek once after his return, but since all his efforts
to secure information concerning the whereabouts of John Lexman and
his wife--the main reason for his visit--had been in vain, he had not
repeated his visit.
The house in Cadogan Square was a large one, occupying a corner site. It
was peculiarly English in appearance with its window boxes, its discreet
curtains, its polished brass and enamelled doorway. It had been the
town house of Lord Henry Gratham, that eccentric connoisseur of wine and
follower of witless pleasure. It had been built by him “round a
bottle of port,” as his friends said, meaning thereby that his first
consideration had been the cellarage of the house, and that when those
cellars had been built and provision made for the safe storage of his
priceless wines, the house had been built without the architect's being
greatly troubled by his lordship. The double cellars of Gratham House
had, in their time, been one of the sights of London. When Henry Gratham
lay under eight feet of Congo earth (he was killed by an elephant
whilst on a hunting trip) his executors had been singularly fortunate
in finding an immediate purchaser. Rumour had it that Kara, who was
no lover of wine, had bricked up the cellars, and their very existence
passed into domestic legendary.
The door was opened by a well-dressed and deferential man-servant and
T. X. was ushered into the hall. A fire burnt cheerily in a bronze grate
and T. X. had a glimpse of a big oil painting of Kara above the marble
mantle-piece.
“Mr. Kara is very busy, sir,” said the man.
“Just take in my card,” said T. X. “I think he may care to see me.”
The man bowed, produced from some mysterious corner a silver salver
and glided upstairs in that manner which well-trained servants have,
a manner which seems to call for no bodily effort. In a minute he
returned.
“Will you come this way, sir,” he said, and led the way up a broad
flight of stairs.
At the head of the stairs was a corridor which ran to the left and to
the right. From this there gave four rooms. One at the extreme end of
the passage on the right, one on the left, and two at fairly regular
intervals in the centre.
When the man's hand was on one of the doors, T. X. asked quietly, “I
think I have seen you before somewhere, my friend.”
The man smiled.
“It is very possible, sir. I was a waiter at the Constitutional for some
time.”
T. X. nodded.
“That is where it must have been,” he said.
The man opened the door and announced the visitor.
T. X. found himself in a large room, very handsomely furnished, but just
lacking that sense of cosiness and comfort which is the feature of the
Englishman's home.
Kara rose from behind a big writing table, and came with a smile and a
quick step to greet the visitor.
“This is a most unexpected pleasure,” he said, and shook hands warmly.
T. X. had not seen him for a year and found very little change in this
strange young man. He could not be more confident than he had been, nor
bear himself with a more graceful carriage. Whatever social success he
had achieved, it had not spoiled him, for his manner was as genial and
easy as ever.
“I think that will do, Miss Holland,” he said, turning to the girl who,
with notebook in hand, stood by the desk.
“Evidently,” thought T. X., “our Hellenic friend has a pretty taste in
secretaries.”
In that one glance he took her all in--from the bronze-brown of her hair
to her neat foot.
T. X. was not readily attracted by members of the opposite sex. He was
self-confessed a predestined bachelor, finding life and its incidence
too absorbing to give his whole mind to the serious problem of marriage,
or to contract responsibilities and interests which might divert his
attention from what he believed was the greater game. Yet he must be a
man of stone to resist the freshness, the beauty and the youth of this
straight, slender girl; the pink-and-whiteness of her, the aliveness
and buoyancy and the thrilling sense of vitality she carried in her very
presence.
“What is the weirdest name you have ever heard?” asked Kara laughingly.
“I ask you, because Miss Holland and I have been discussing a begging
letter addressed to us by a Maggie Goomer.”
The girl smiled slightly and in that smile was paradise, thought T. X.
“The weirdest name?” he repeated, “why I think the worst I have heard
for a long time is Belinda Mary.”
“That has a familiar ring,” said Kara.
T. X. was looking at the girl.
She was staring at him with a certain languid insolence which made him
curl up inside. Then with a glance at her employer she swept from the
room.
“I ought to have introduced you,” said Kara. “That was my secretary,
Miss Holland. Rather a pretty girl, isn't she?”
“Very,” said T. X., recovering his breath.
“I like pretty things around me,” said Kara, and somehow the complacency
of the remark annoyed the detective more than anything that Kara had
ever said to him.
The Greek went to the mantlepiece, and taking down a silver cigarette
box, opened and offered it to his visitor. Kara was wearing a grey
lounge suit; and although grey is a very trying colour for a foreigner
to wear, this suit fitted his splendid figure and gave him just that
bulk which he needed.
“You are a most suspicious man, Mr. Meredith,” he smiled.
“Suspicious! I?” asked the innocent T. X.
Kara nodded.
“I am sure you want to enquire into the character of all my present
staff. I am perfectly satisfied that you will never be at rest until you
learn the antecedents of my cook, my valet, my secretary--”
T. X. held up his hand with a laugh.
“Spare me,” he said. “It is one of my failings, I admit, but I have
never gone much farther into your domestic affairs than to pry into the
antecedents of your very interesting chauffeur.”
A little cloud passed over Kara's face, but it was only momentary.
“Oh, Brown,” he said, airily, with just a perceptible pause between the
two words.
“It used to be Smith,” said T. X., “but no matter. His name is really
Poropulos.”
“Oh, Poropulos,” said Kara gravely, “I dismissed him a long time ago.”
“Pensioned hire, too, I understand,” said T. X.
The other looked at him awhile, then, “I am very good to my old
servants,” he said slowly and, changing the subject; “to what good
fortune do I owe this visit?”
T. X. selected a cigarette before he replied.
“I thought you might be of some service to me,” he said, apparently
giving his whole attention to the cigarette.
“Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” said Kara, a little eagerly.
“I am afraid you have not been very keen on continuing what I hoped
would have ripened into a valuable friendship, more valuable to me
perhaps,” he smiled, “than to you.”
“I am a very shy man,” said the shameless T. X., “difficult to a fault,
and rather apt to underrate my social attractions. I have come to you
now because you know everybody--by the way, how long have you had your
secretary!” he asked abruptly.
Kara looked up at the ceiling for inspiration.
“Four, no three months,” he corrected, “a very efficient young lady
who came to me from one of the training establishments. Somewhat
uncommunicative, better educated than most girls in her position--for
example, she speaks and writes modern Greek fairly well.”
“A treasure!” suggested T. X.
“Unusually so,” said Kara. “She lives in Marylebone Road, 86a is the
address. She has no friends, spends most of her evenings in her room,
is eminently respectable and a little chilling in her attitude to her
employer.”
T. X. shot a swift glance at the other.
“Why do you tell me all this?” he asked.
“To save you the trouble of finding out,” replied the other coolly.
“That insatiable curiosity which is one of the equipments of your
profession, would, I feel sure, induce you to conduct investigations for
your own satisfaction.”
T. X. laughed.
“May I sit down?” he said.
The other wheeled an armchair across the room and T. X. sank into it.
He leant back and crossed his legs, and was, in a second, the
personification of ease.
“I think you are a very clever man, Monsieur Kara,” he said.
The other looked down at him this time without amusement.
“Not so clever that I can discover the object of your visit,” he said
pleasantly enough.
“It is very simply explained,” said T. X. “You know everybody in town.
You know, amongst other people, Lady Bartholomew.”
“I know the lady very well indeed,” said Kara, readily,--too readily
in fact, for the rapidity with which answer had followed question,
suggested to T. X. that Kara had anticipated the reason for the call.
“Have you any idea,” asked T. X., speaking with deliberation, “as to why
Lady Bartholomew has gone out of town at this particular moment?”
Kara laughed.
“What an extraordinary question to ask me--as though Lady Bartholomew
confided her plans to one who is little more than a chance
acquaintance!”
“And yet,” said T. X., contemplating the burning end of his cigarette,
“you know her well enough to hold her promissory note.”
“Promissory note?” asked the other.
His tone was one of involuntary surprise and T. X. swore softly to
himself for now he saw the faintest shade of relief in Kara's face. The
Commissioner realized that he had committed an error--he had been far
too definite.
“When I say promissory note,” he went on easily, as though he had
noticed nothing, “I mean, of course, the securities which the debtor
invariably gives to one from whom he or she has borrowed large sums of
money.”
Kara made no answer, but opening a drawer of his desk he took out a key
and brought it across to where T. X. was sitting.
“Here is the key of my safe,” he said quietly. “You are at liberty to go
carefully through its contents and discover for yourself any promissory
note which I hold from Lady Bartholomew. My dear fellow, you don't
imagine I'm a moneylender, do you?” he said in an injured tone.
“Nothing was further from my thoughts,” said T. X., untruthfully.
But the other pressed the key upon him.
“I should be awfully glad if you would look for yourself,” he said
earnestly. “I feel that in some way you associate Lady Bartholomew's
illness with some horrible act of usury on my part--will you satisfy
yourself and in doing so satisfy me?”
Now any ordinary man, and possibly any ordinary detective, would have
made the conventional answer. He would have protested that he had no
intention of doing anything of the sort; he would have uttered, if
he were a man in the position which T. X. occupied, the conventional
statement that he had no authority to search the private papers, and
that he would certainly not avail himself of the other's kindness.
But T. X. was not an ordinary person. He took the key and balanced it
lightly in the palm of his hand.
“Is this the key of the famous bedroom safe?” he said banteringly.
Kara was looking down at him with a quizzical smile. “It isn't the safe
you opened in my absence, on one memorable occasion, Mr. Meredith,” he
said. “As you probably know, I have changed that safe, but perhaps you
don't feel equal to the task?”
“On the contrary,” said T. X., calmly, and rising from the chair, “I am
going to put your good faith to the test.”
For answer Kara walked to the door and opened it.
“Let me show you the way,” he said politely.
He passed along the corridor and entered the apartment at the end. The
room was a large one and lighted by one big square window which was
protected by steel bars. In the grate which was broad and high a huge
fire was burning and the temperature of the room was unpleasantly close
despite the coldness of the day.
“That is one of the eccentricities which you, as an Englishman, will
never excuse in me,” said Kara.
Near the foot of the bed, let into, and flush with, the wall, was a big
green door of the safe.
“Here you are, Mr. Meredith,” said Kara. “All the precious secrets of
Remington Kara are yours for the seeking.”
“I am afraid I've had my trouble for nothing,” said T. X., making no
attempt to use the key.
“That is an opinion which I share,” said Kara, with a smile.
“Curiously enough,” said T. X. “I mean just what you mean.”
He handed the key to Kara.
“Won't you open it?” asked the Greek.
T. X. shook his head.
“The safe as far as I can see is a Magnus, the key which you have been
kind enough to give me is legibly inscribed upon the handle 'Chubb.' My
experience as a police officer has taught me that Chubb keys very rarely
open Magnus safes.”
Kara uttered an exclamation of annoyance.
“How stupid of me!” he said, “yet now I remember, I sent the key to my
bankers, before I went out of town--I only came back this morning, you
know. I will send for it at once.”
“Pray don't trouble,” murmured T. X. politely. He took from his pocket
a little flat leather case and opened it. It contained a number of steel
implements of curious shape which were held in position by a leather
loop along the centre of the case. From one of these loops he extracted
a handle, and deftly fitted something that looked like a steel awl
to the socket in the handle. Looking in wonder, and with no little
apprehension, Kara saw that the awl was bent at the head.
“What are you going to do?” he asked, a little alarmed.
“I'll show you,” said T. X. pleasantly.
Very gingerly he inserted the instrument in the small keyhole and turned
it cautiously first one way and then the other. There was a sharp click
followed by another. He turned the handle and the door of the safe swung
open.
“Simple, isn't it!” he asked politely.
In that second of time Kara's face had undergone a transformation. The
eyes which met T. X. Meredith's blazed with an almost insane fury. With
a quick stride Kara placed himself before the open safe.
“I think this has gone far enough, Mr. Meredith,” he said harshly. “If
you wish to search my safe you must get a warrant.”
T. X. shrugged his shoulders, and carefully unscrewing the instrument he
had employed and replacing it in the case, he returned it to his inside
pocket.
“It was at your invitation, my dear Monsieur Kara,” he said suavely. “Of
course I knew that you were putting a bluff up on me with the key and
that you had no more intention of letting me see the inside of your safe
than you had of telling me exactly what happened to John Lexman.”
The shot went home.
The face which was thrust into the Commissioner's was ridged and veined
with passion. The lips were turned back to show the big white even
teeth, the eyes were narrowed to slits, the jaw thrust out, and almost
every semblance of humanity had vanished from his face.
“You--you--” he hissed, and his clawing hands moved suspiciously
backward.
“Put up your hands,” said T. X. sharply, “and be damned quick about it!”
In a flash the hands went up, for the revolver which T. X. held was
pressed uncomfortably against the third button of the Greek's waistcoat.
“That's not the first time you've been asked to put up your hands, I
think,” said T. X. pleasantly.
His own left hand slipped round to Kara's hip pocket. He found something
in the shape of a cylinder and drew it out from the pocket. To his
surprise it was not a revolver, not even a knife; it looked like a small
electric torch, though instead of a bulb and a bull's-eye glass, there
was a pepper-box perforation at one end.
He handled it carefully and was about to press the small nickel knob
when a strangled cry of horror broke from Kara.
“For God's sake be careful!” he gasped. “You're pointing it at me! Do
not press that lever, I beg!”
“Will it explode!” asked T. X. curiously.
“No, no!”
T. X. pointed the thing downward to the carpet and pressed the knob
cautiously. As he did so there was a sharp hiss and the floor was
stained with the liquid which the instrument contained. Just one gush
of fluid and no more. T. X. looked down. The bright carpet had already
changed colour, and was smoking. The room was filled with a pungent and
disagreeable scent. T. X. looked from the floor to the white-faced man.
“Vitriol, I believe,” he said, shaking his head admiringly. “What a dear
little fellow you are!”
The man, big as he was, was on the point of collapse and mumbled
something about self-defence, and listened without a word, whilst T.
X., labouring under an emotion which was perfectly pardonable, described
Kara, his ancestors and the possibilities of his future estate.
Very slowly the Greek recovered his self-possession.
“I didn't intend using it on you, I swear I didn't,” he pleaded.
“I'm surrounded by enemies, Meredith. I had to carry some means of
protection. It is because my enemies know I carry this that they fight
shy of me. I'll swear I had no intention of using it on you. The idea is
too preposterous. I am sorry I fooled you about the safe.”
“Don't let that worry you,” said T. X. “I am afraid I did all the
fooling. No, I cannot let you have this back again,” he said, as the
Greek put out his hand to take the infernal little instrument. “I must
take this back to Scotland Yard; it's quite a long time since we had
anything new in this shape. Compressed air, I presume.”
Kara nodded solemnly.
“Very ingenious indeed,” said T. X. “If I had a brain like yours,” he
paused, “I should do something with it--with a gun,” he added, as he
passed out of the room.