At noon the next day Mr. Danton Morell called with all the news
procurable--and that was not much.
“He seems to have disappeared from London, but I shouldn’t be very
much alarmed about that,” he said.
Margaret Maddison sat white faced by her writing table, playing with a
pen. She had not slept at all since Luke’s butler had wakened her at
midnight to ask for information about his master. Early that morning
she had weakened sufficiently to ring up Luke’s office, only to find
that she had communicated her own alarm to Mr. Stiles.
“Naturally he wants to worry you,” said Danty with a little smile.
“That’s part of his scheme. I dare say if you had told old Stiles that
you were ready to give a check for----”
“I told Mr. Stiles that I’d give him a check for any money he wanted,”
she said.
Her voice was a little cold and hard. Danty grew alarmed. He was
evidently on the wrong track; it was not easy to find the right one.
“Then, if I may say so, you were extremely foolish. After all, you
know the man; you know exactly what poor Rex thought of him; you went
into this with your eyes open----”
“I know.” She was impatient. “I would do it again, I think--perhaps in
another way. I was rather--brutal.”
She rose from the table and walked slowly across to the fireplace,
took a cigarette from an enamelled box on the mantelpiece, lit it,
only to throw it into the fire.
“I am worried, Danton,” she admitted. “I haven’t the stamina for hate.
I haven’t even the illusion that I’ve done right.”
“Stiles took your check, of course?”
She shook her head.
“No; he said it wouldn’t be necessary. I think Luke must have told him
about--everything. He was very sharp with me, almost rude.”
“Fire him,” said Danty promptly. “Don’t forget that you own the
bank----”
“I do not own the bank,” she interrupted. “My lawyer rang me up this
morning to say that by an omission the bank property was not included
in the contract--and I am glad. Of course I shall transfer back to
Luke every penny I have taken from him.”
“Are you mad?”
He almost shouted the words.
She had not seen this Danton before, and she stared at him in
amazement. He realized his mistake instantly.
“I’m terribly sorry,” he said, almost humbly. “I’m thinking of you;
I’m thinking of how easily his disappearance may be a trick, as I’m
perfectly sure it is. It is like you to want to give him back his
money, but suppose you do, what then? You’re married to him; he’s
hardly likely to give you grounds for divorce, and the net result of
your generosity would be that you would be penniless, dependent on his
charity for every farthing.”
She thought for a long time on this, looking down into the fire. It
was difficult to know what Margaret was thinking about: her face was
set; the side view he had of her eyes told him nothing.
“I wanted to hurt him, and yet I was very frightened. If he had only
said something, if he had only abused me… it was awful!”
She closed her eyes as though to shut out the memory of Luke’s face.
“He’ll be back to-night,” said Danty cheerfully, “and then you’d
better settle it among yourselves. I’m almost beginning to regret that
I gave you any advice, and yet God knows I did not act from
self-interest.”
“Why, of course not.” She held out her hand impulsively and he took
it. He was now mastering the situation.
Yet he was puzzled, and all the way home he was trying to find a
likely explanation for Luke’s disappearance. He had formed an estimate
of Luke Maddison’s character, and his own prognosis of what would
follow Margaret’s revelation was, frankly, that the man he hated would
take one of two courses: he would either display an immense sanity and
consult his solicitors, or he would go the way of Rex Leferre.
A newspaper placard attracted his attention; he tapped on the glass
and stopped the cab to buy a copy of the journal. “Race Gang Murder,”
said the contents bill, and Danty was interested in gang fights. The
scene of the tragedy was unknown to him. In his more humble days he
had worked North London. The Borough and Lambeth were _terra
incognita_.
As a result of a stabbing affray, arising, it is believed, from a
quarrel between members of rival race gangs, a man named Lewing was
killed, and his companion, whose identity the police are anxious to
establish, is now lying in a dangerous condition at St. Thomas’s
Hospital, suffering from a knife wound in the breast. The Flying Squad
is combing South London to find the assailants, who are believed to be
members of a dangerous criminal gang operating in the Borough.
Danty tossed the paper on to the floor of the cab. It was one of those
commonplace crimes which have no especial interest for the well-to-do
classes, and just now he was on the verge of becoming one of that
exclusive set.
It may be said that he had no exact plan as to what part he would play
in the present situation. He could make money more easily with Luke
out of the way, and with this fool girl Margaret controlling a
fortune, than he could if he were working under the cold blue eyes of
Luke who hated him. He had not disguised the fact, when he discussed
Rex and the forgery, that he believed Rex was more victim than
instigator of the crime.
His disappearance was really a sensible relief. It was hardly likely
that his relationship with Margaret could have continued if she were
in love with her husband and were guided by him. All that Danty
planned was that Luke should cease to be a factor; and he had planned
well. Whether he took his profits in one shape or another was a matter
of indifference, except--the growing fascination that Margaret was
exercising over him. He never saw her but there grew a stronger desire
for another relationship than confidential friend. Once he had touched
her hand by a well-timed accident. She had let her hand rest against
his long enough to encourage the hope that he might go farther; but
when he had followed up this opening she had left him in no doubt
about her feelings. Margaret had the disconcerting habit of candour.
“I hope you aren’t going to be very silly, Danton, and imagine that
you’re in love with me,” she said.
This was in the days when Rex was alive, and when her pulse beat a
little quicker at the sound of Luke Maddison’s footstep.
Danty shrugged his shoulders. Women change; their charm is their
inconsistency.
He stepped out of the taxi and turned to pay the driver.
“Morning, Mr. Morell.”
Danty brought his head round slowly. Where had the Sparrow come from?
He had a most alarming trick of appearing from nowhere. As a matter of
fact, Mr. Bird had been standing in the roadway but had been
momentarily screened by the taxi.
“I thought I’d like to have a little chat with you,” he beamed. “Seen
anything of Mr. Maddison?”
It was on the tip of Danty’s tongue to disclaim any acquaintance with
Luke Maddison’s movements.
“Not since the marriage,” he said.
“Maybe he’s gone away alone on his honeymoon,” said the Sparrow,
smiling broadly. “I can’t keep track of these modern ways of going on.
I suppose you haven’t been on a honeymoon for a long time, Mr.
Morell?”
His keen, bright eyes, half hidden behind the puffy eyelids, fixed
Danton Morell like a gimlet. Danty did not flinch.
“I’ve never been married,” he said.
He could easily have ended the interview by brushing past the
detective and walking into the vestibule of the building--it was his
error that he submitted to the cross-examination.
“A pleasure to come,” said the Sparrow brightly. “I was having a
little talk with Gunner Haynes about you.”
In spite of his self-control, Danton Morell felt the colour leave his
face.
“Oh, were you?” he said defiantly. “And who is Gunner Haynes?”
“A low criminal,” said the Sparrow in melancholy tones. “I meet
’em--it’s my job. There’s a lot of things I like about the Gunner.
First of all I like him because he never carries a gun, and secondly I
do admire his memory! Got the memory of a horse, that old Gunner! He’s
the sort of fellow that remembers the colour of the socks he was
wearing the day the Armistice was signed. I shouldn’t be surprised if
they were khaki. What colour socks did you wear that day, Mr. Morell?”
There was something so deadly in that question that Danton held his
breath. On Armistice Day he had been serving a sentence of eighteen
months in Peterhead Jail. Had the Gunner recognized and betrayed him?
He had only to consider this possibility to find a reason for its
rejection. If Gunner Haynes knew he was alive and get-at-able, he
would tell no police officer. Very surely and expeditiously he would
settle his own account.
“I can’t tell you what kind of socks I was wearing,” he drawled. “Are
you interested in the hosiery business?”
Mr. Bird nodded solemnly.
“Especially gray socks,” he said; “gray woolen socks with a little
broad arrow on the ankle.”
It was in perfect good-humour, and could not, by any effort of the
imagination, be described as offensive. Before Danton could speak he
went on:
“I suppose you can’t oblige me with information? I’d like to know why
Mr. Maddison went away yesterday, and where he’s gone. I’m thinking of
sending him a birthday present. How long are you staying in London,
Mr. Morell?”
The question was asked abruptly; the eyes behind the heavy lids seemed
to brighten when Danty answered.
“About a month.”
“I was thinking perhaps you’d be going next week.”
With a little nod he turned and went off in his heavy, ponderous
fashion. Danty looked after him, biting his lip. He had received a
warning. Though he would rather have the warning from the police than
the more ungentle warning which Gunner Haynes would have delivered.
He was still pondering the detective’s words when he was dressing for
dinner that night. It couldn’t have been the Gunner--Bird was
guessing, hoping to surprise a confirmation of his suspicions.
Margaret and he were dining together that night, and when she ’phoned
to him that afternoon he thought that she was cancelling the
engagement, and had two convincing arguments to make her reconsider
her decision. But she had merely ’phoned to ask him if he had any
further news.
She was infinitely more cheerful when he saw her that night; was
reaffirmed in her old determination.
“You’ll hear from him to-morrow,” smiled Danty over the coffee. “He’s
not the sort of man who gets very far from the City of London, where
the money is made!”
She sighed.
“I’m afraid you’re right,” she said.
At that moment two eminent surgeons stood, one on each side of a bed
in St. Thomas’s Hospital. One of them folded his stethoscope and
looked down at the unconscious patient with a little grimace.
“You haven’t found this man’s name, constable?”
The detective officer who sat by the bed shook his head.
“No, sir.”
The surgeon turned to his colleague.
“Pneumonia undoubtedly, Sir John,” he said briskly. “The lung is badly
pierced--the pneumonia symptoms were to be expected, don’t you think?”
He beckoned the third of the party, the house surgeon, who was
attending another patient on the other side of the ward.
“This fellow will probably die to-night,” he said, almost brightly. “I
don’t see what you can do except to make him as comfortable as you
can. Rather a superior-looking fellow to be a member of a gang.”
The unconscious man smiled and muttered a word.
“Sounded like ‘Margaret’ to me,” said the interested surgeon. “Pity
you don’t know who he is, you might have notified his wife--I hardly
think there’s time now.”