Life in Ginnett Street might be rather amusing, thought Luke
Maddison.
It was his third day in his lodging, and he was not averse to his new
life. He had discovered unsuspected physical weaknesses as he had made
his way from the hospital, and was glad of a rest, the freedom from
worry, the utter irresponsibility of this queer life into which he had
obtruded.
Mrs. Fraser did not bother him with her presence. She brought in a
surprisingly interesting collection of books to read, supplied him
with plain but very wholesome meals, and gave him the freedom of the
house, though she suggested that he had better only go out at nights.
He was mystified by the attention she was paying him, though he
realized that she was acting on behalf of the unknown Connor.
Some of the mystery was cleared up on the third day when she asked him
a number of questions about Australia, a country to which he had never
been. When he said as much she smiled cryptically.
“If that Lewing had had as much sense as you and had kept his mouth
shut, he might have been alive and well to-day. If he’d had the sense
to keep his mouth shut, nobody would have known anything about you.
But he was a rare one to boast, was Lewing, God rest him, always
boasting what his crowd could do against our crowd, though he must
have known that we had all the money.”
Gradually it came out. Lewing had boasted of a man who was coming from
Australia to work with his “crowd.” Luke gathered that the new man had
a fairly hectic reputation in the Dominion, but that he had never been
convicted.
“The moment Connor heard you were coming, he said: ‘That’s the man for
us--get him.’ He reckons that Sydney bank affair was the cleverest job
that’s ever been done.”
Now Luke discovered his identity, and began to piece together the
little scraps of information he had had from time to time. If Lewing
was not the brains, or the leader, of the Borough gang, he was at
least a person of considerable importance. It was he who had arranged
for the Australian’s services, and apparently had recruited him by
correspondence.
Luke learned that the gang warfare in South London had a special
significance. The Borough gang were mainly river thieves, and several
of the members had grown rich out of the cargoes they had broached.
“Now let us get this straight, Mrs. Fraser. You’re under the
impression that I’m an Australian criminal. When I say ‘you’ I mean
your principals.”
“My how much?” asked Mrs. Fraser, puzzled.
Luke explained.
“Well, I’m not the man you were expecting,” he insisted. “The fact
that I happened to be with Lewing the night he was killed means
nothing--it was the purest fluke. I can certainly drive a car, but I’m
afraid I can be of very little use to your friends, who, I gather, are
on the wrong side of the law.”
She smiled cryptically at this.
“What I like about you, Mr. Smith,” she said, “is that you know how to
keep yourself to yourself.”
It was late that night that he saw the redoubtable Connor. As he shook
hands with the stranger he shuddered, for he had heard that deep voice
before on the night when Lewing met his end.
“I shan’t want you for a day or two, Smith,” said Connor brusquely.
“Everything being done for you? That’s right.”
His tone was commanding; it was the same voice that had challenged
Lewing, but more cultured. Before Luke could explain who he was, or at
any rate explain who he was not, the man had taken his departure. A
day or two later came another surprise. There walked into his room as
he was sitting at the table, a book before him, his head upon his
hands, a pretty, fair-haired girl, who eyed him with a certain amount
of amused interest.
“Connor sent me down to see you. Did your new clothes arrive?”
Luke shook his head and smiled.
“No,” he said. “Am I getting an outfit?”
She looked at him critically.
“And you want a barber. I’ll have one sent up to you to-night. That
beard of yours wants trimming. Could you bear taking a little drive
with me to-morrow?”
He laughed again.
“I could bear worse things than that,” he said, wondering who she was
or whence she had come.
She was well but not too smartly dressed, and he guessed that her
attire was designed so that she should not attract too much attention.
“This is a hole you’re in!” she said contemptuously, looking out onto
the street. “It must be hell here. How these people manage to exist I
don’t know.”
He said nothing to this; he had gained a working knowledge of these
children of the poor; had watched in the earlier hours of the dawn the
street doors open and discharge the workers; had seen the brave, drab
wives battling to make a sixpence do the work of a shilling. At
eight-thirty their daughters, neatly attired, in flesh-coloured
stockings and cheaply smart coats, went forth to the City to add
theirs to the meagre family resources. The children of the poor! The
victims of a thousand preying vultures! For the poor are robbed as the
rich are never robbed. There existed a dozen gangs of little sneak
thieves, who would pick their pockets in omnibuses, snatch their bags,
sneak into their houses when they were out, to collect a few pence
worth of their poor belongings. He had seen one night a gang of three
young ruffians attack a middle-aged workman, knock him down and empty
his pockets. He had heard of glib men who had come down this street,
pretending they had been sent by some absent husband to fetch tools he
had left behind; and once, to his great joy, he had seen a swift car
rush through the street and discharge half-a-dozen detectives to the
arrest of a bully who had lived on the wages of infamy.
The police gave them what protection they could. He had seen a
wife-beater lying stark and unconscious on the pavement after a
detective had used his rubber truncheon on him. But as a rule these
human parasites that preyed upon the poor escaped unharmed.
The girl turned from the contemplation of misery.
“Meet me near the Guards Memorial in Green Park. I shall be in a car
and will pick you up,” she said.
She looked him up and down, admiration in her eyes.
“You’ve got a good voice,” she said. “You’d pass for a swell.”
The clothes came that night; they fitted him remarkably well, and when
the promised barber had finished his work and Luke was arrayed in his
new clothes, he was almost reconciled to the beard.
In the interest of his new, strange life he found it fairly easy to
forget. The spirit of adventure was on him. Margaret belonged to a
dim, almost unbelievable, past. She was of the substance of dreams.
He went gaily to the rendezvous on the following afternoon, and was
delighted to find how springy was his step. He had hardly taken his
place in front of the Guards Memorial when he saw an electric brougham
approach and, catching the girl’s signal, stepped to the side of the
road as the car stopped.
She was in excellent spirits.
“It’s a great idea to let yourself be seen in a certain kind of car,”
she said. “You don’t know what I mean? I’ll bet you don’t!”
They crossed into Hyde Park, made a slow progress near the edge of the
sidewalk, and he found himself enjoying the novel experience. She was
very pretty, though older than he had thought.
“Do you see that fat man over there? That’s the Sparrow. You want to
keep away from him.”
He started at the name.
“You mean Bird?” he stammered, and looked guiltily in the direction
she indicated.
He saw Mr. Bird. He was walking with a very pretty girl, but the woman
who was at that moment seating herself on one of the park benches he
did not recognize.
As the brougham turned and came back on the other side of the road,
she said suddenly:
“There will be a car waiting near the Cavalry Barracks. I hope you can
drive?”
“Another car?” he asked in astonishment.
She nodded.
“I want to try you out.”
He laughed.
“All this is very mysterious,” he said.
The car was waiting for them, a closed light car of English make.
There was nobody in attendance, but without hesitation she stopped the
brougham and gave the driver instructions.
“Here it is,” she said. “Get in.”
Luke sank into the driver’s seat and put his foot on the self-starter,
and she came in after him, slamming the little door behind her.
“Grafton Street,” she said, in a businesslike tone. “Pull up opposite
the Rean Club.”
He thought she was testing his driving ability, for he had to pass
through three traffic blocks before he brought the machine to a
standstill at a place she indicated.
“Now you understand,” she said, dropping her voice and speaking
rapidly, “I’m going in to see my husband.”
She looked him straight in the eyes.
“If he makes a fuss I shall expect you to help me. If he doesn’t make
a fuss, we’ll drive quietly away down Albemarle Street, make for
Vauxhall Bridge and Tooting Common.”
“Your husband?” he stammered.
She gave him one quick look of suspicion.
“That is what you tell the flattie if there is any fuss.”
What a flattie was she did not explain, and was gone before he could
ask her. He kept the engine running according to her instructions. She
was gone some twenty minutes. Presently, looking out, he saw her turn
the corner from Bond Street and walk with apparent unconcern toward
him. As she stepped into the car, a man in his shirt-sleeves darted
round the corner, flew at her, and gripped her by the arm. She tried
to wrench herself free, and before Luke realized what he was doing he
had struck her assailant and sent him tumbling to the pavement.
“Drive!” she snapped, and mechanically Luke Maddison sent the machine
leaping forward.
They crossed Oxford Street, down St. James’s Street, through the park,
and were over Vauxhall Bridge before he partly realized what had
happened.
“Why did that fellow grab you?” he asked.
“My husband--I had a row with him,” she said calmly. And then: “I knew
Connor was wrong,” she said, and whistled. “If I hadn’t had my wits
about me and started that husband story, I’d have been half-way to
Holloway!”
He saw her look at every policeman they passed, out of the corner of
her eye, and his heart was beating faster as they came to the edge of
Tooting Common, and at her command he stopped the car.
“We’ll get out here,” she said. “You can go back by bus, I’ll take a
taxi. If Connor comes to-night, tell him I’ve got the stuff.”
She turned to go, but he caught her by the arm.
“What stuff?” he asked sternly.
And then he saw the flat case she carried under her leather coat.
“My God!” gasped Luke Maddison. “You stole that!”
There was amusement in her fine eyes as she nodded.
“Of course I did, you poor simp!”
A taxicab was passing and she hailed it. Slowly his grip on her arm
relaxed. He watched the taxi recede like a man in a dream, too stunned
even to think. He could never remember that journey back to Lambeth.
He had crossed Westminster Bridge when he saw a newsboy with a
placard: “Daring West End Robbery.” He stood dead still, gazing
open-mouthed at the contents bill, and then he felt in his pocket and
dropped a penny from his trembling hand into the newsboy’s palm.
He dared not look inside the newspaper until he was in a quiet street.
Then he read:
DARING WEST END ROBBERY
Bearded Man and Pretty Girl Rob Taffanny’s of £20,000 Diamond
Necklace.
A daring robbery was committed this afternoon at Messrs. Taffanny’s
jewel shop in Bond Street. At about 3:50 a well-dressed woman walked
into the shop and asked to be shown some plain gold rings. Whilst the
assistant’s back was turned, she must have broken a glass case with a
rubber-headed hammer. When he came back, he found not only the woman
but a valuable diamond necklace had disappeared. He flew out into the
street and overtook the woman as she was entering a motor car. He was
immediately struck down by her companion, who is described as a man of
great height, with a fair, well-trimmed beard, dressed in a gray tweed
suit.…
“That’s me!” groaned Luke Maddison, and almost swooned.