The trailer lost his quarry in Oxford Street and wandered disconsolately
onward. A sort of homing instinct led him towards Regent's Park. Naylors
Crescent was a magnificent little side street leading from the outer
circle. It was very silent, its small, but stately, houses were in
darkness.
Mr. Tickler--such was his peculiar name--stopped before No. 17 and
looked up at the windows. The white blinds were drawn down and the house
was lifeless. He stood, with his hands thrust into his pockets, blinking
at the green door that he knew so well, at the three worn steps leading
down, and the hollow steel railway that masons had fixed into the
stonework to allow the easy descent of a bath-chair.
Inside was wealth, immense, incalculable wealth, and a stupid old man on
the verge of the grave. Outside were poverty and resentment, the
recollection of the rigours of Pentonville Prison, a sense of injustice.
Old Lyne slept on the first floor. His bed was between these two high
windows. That lower window marked the study where he sat in the daytime.
There was a safe in the wall, full of useless old papers. Old Lyne never
kept money in the house. All his life he had advertised this habit. A
burglar or two had gone to enormous trouble to prove him a liar and had
got nothing for their pains.
There he was, sleeping in luxury, the old rat, under featherweight
blankets specially woven for him, under a satin coverlet packed tight
with rare down, and here was he, Horace Tom Tickler, with a pinch of
silver in his pocket.
But, perhaps he was not there at all? That was an old trick of his, to
be out when everybody thought he was in, and in when they thought he was
out.
He walked up and down the quiet cul-de-sac for nearly an hour, turning
over in his mind numerous schemes, mostly impracticable, then he
slouched back towards the bright streets and coffee stalls. He took a
short cut through the mews to reach Portland Place, and the most
astounding luck was with him.
A policeman walking through Baynes Mews heard the sound of a man
singing. It was, if his hearing gave a right impression, the voice of
one who had gone far in insobriety, and the voice came from a tiny flat,
one of the many above the garages that lined each side of the mews. Time
was when they were occupied exclusively by coachmen and chauffeurs, but
the artistic and aristocratic classes had swamped these humble West End
habitations, and more than half of the new population of Baynes Mews
were people who dressed for dinner and came home from parties and night
clubs, their arms filled with gala favours, some of which made strange
and distressing noises.
There was nothing in the voice to indicate anything more startling than
normal inebriety. The policeman would have passed on but for the fact
that he saw a figure sitting on the step of the narrow door which led to
the little flat above.
The officer turned his electric lamp on the sitter and saw nothing which
paid for illumination. The little man who grinned up at the policeman
was, as the officer said to his sergeant later, "nothing to write home
about." He was red-faced, unshaven, wretchedly shabby. His collar might
have been white a week before; he wore no tie and his linen, even in the
uncertain light of the lamp, was uncleanly.
"'Ear him?" He jerked his head upward and grinned. "First time it's ever
happened. Soused! What a mug, eh? Gettin' soused. He slipped me tonight,
an' I'd never have tailed him--but for this bit of luck.... 'Eard him by
accident.... Soused!"
"You're a bit soused yourself, aren't you?"
The policeman's tone was unfriendly.
"I've had three whiskies and a glass of beer. Does a man of the world
get soused on that, I ask you?"
The voice upstairs had died down to a deep hum.
At the far end of the mews a horse was kicking in his box with maddening
irregularity.
"A friend of yours?"
The little man shook his head.
"I don't know. Perhaps; that's what I got to find out. Is he friendly or
ain't he?"
The policeman made a gesture.
"Get out of this. I can't have you loungin' about. I seem to know your
face, too. Didn't I see you at Clerkenwell Police Court once?"
This officer prided himself on his memory for faces. It was his practice
to say that he could never remember names, but never forgot faces. He
thought he was unique and his remark original, and was not conscious of
being one of forty million fellow citizens who also remembered faces and
forgot names.
The little man rose and fell in by the officer's side.
"That's right." His step was a little unsteady. "I got nine munce for
fraud."
He had in truth been convicted of petty larceny and had gone to prison
for a month, but thieves have their pride.
Could a man convicted of fraud be arrested under the Prevention of
Crimes Act because he sat in the doorway of a mews flat? This was the
problem that exercised the mind of the constable. At the end of the
mews he looked round for his sergeant, but that authority was not in
sight.
A thought occurred to him.
"What you got in your pocket?"
The little man stretched out his arms.
"Search me--go on. You ain't entitled to, but I'll let you."
Another dilemma for the policeman, who was young and not quite sure of
his rights and duties.
"Push off. Don't let me see you hanging around here," he ordered.
If the little man argued or refused he could be arrested for
"obstruction," for "insulting behaviour," for almost anything. But he
did nothing.
"All right," he said, and walked off.
The policeman was tempted to recall him and discover the identity of the
singer. Instead, he watched Mr. Tickler until he was out of sight.
The hour was a quarter to two in the morning. The patrol marched on to
the point where his sergeant would meet him. As for Mr. Tickler, he went
shuffling down Portland Place, looking in every doorway to find a
cigarette end or cigar butt, which might have been dropped by returning
house-holders.
What a tale to tell if he could sell the information in the right
quarter! Or he could put the "black" upon the singer. Blackmail gets
easy money--if there is money to get. He stopped at a stall in Oxford
Circus and drank a scalding cup of coffee. He was not entirely without
funds and had a bed to go to and money for 'bus fare, if the 'buses were
running.
Refreshed, he continued his way down Regent Street and met the one man
in the world he would willingly have avoided. Surefoot Smith was
standing in the shadow of a recessed shop window, a stocky man, in a
tightly buttoned overcoat. His derby hat was, as usual, on the back of
his head; his round face ruddier than Mr. Tickler's was impassive. But
for the periodical puffs of smoke which came from his big briar pipe he
might have been a statue carved out of red brick.
"Hey!"
Reluctantly Tickler turned. He had been quick to identify the silent
watcher. By straightening his shoulders and adding something of
jauntiness to his stride he hoped to prevent the recognition from
becoming mutual.
Surefoot Smith was one of the few people in the world who have minds
like a well-organised card index. Not the smallest and least important
offender who had passed through his hands could hope to reach a blissful
oblivion.
"Come here--you."
Tickler came.
"What are you doing now, Tickler? Burglary, or just fetching the beer
for the con. men? Two a.m.! Got a home?"
"Yes, sir."
"Ah, somewhere in the West End! Gone scientific, maybe. Science is the
ruin of the country!"
Rights or no rights, he passed his hands swiftly over Tickler's person;
the little man stretched out his arms obediently and smiled. It was not
a pretty smile, for his teeth were few and his mouth large and
lop-sided. But it was a smile of conscious virtue.
"No jemmy, no chisel, no bit, no gat." Surefoot Smith gave Mr. Tickler
absolution.
"No, Mr. Smith; I'm runnin' straight now. I'm going after a job
tomorrow."
"Don't waste my time, boy," said Surefoot reproachfully. "Work! You've
read about it. What kind of thieving do you do now? Whizzing? No, you're
not clever enough."
Tickler said a bold thing. The lees of wine were still sizzling within
him.
"I'm a detective," he said.
If Surefoot Smith was revolted he did not betray his emotion.
"Did you say 'defective' or 'detective'?" he asked.
He might have asked further questions, but at that moment a pocket lamp
flashed twice from the roof of the building he was watching. Instantly
the roadway seemed to be covered by the figures of overcoated men
converging on the building. Surefoot Smith was one of the first to reach
the opposite sidewalk.
A loud rapping on the door told Mr. Tickler all he wanted to know. The
place was being raided--a spieling club, or maybe worse. He was grateful
for the relief and hurried on his way. At Piccadilly Circus he paused
and considered matters. He was quite sober now and could review the
position calmly; and the more he thought, the more thoroughly he
realised that he had allowed opportunity to slip past him.
He turned and walked along Piccadilly, his chin on his chest, dreaming
dreams of easy money.