During the hours which Luke Maddison had spent in his prison house,
it was curious that he should think so little on serious topics. He
was face to face with death in its most hideous aspect--it was
impossible to mistake Connor’s intention--and yet for the main part
his mind was occupied by the veriest trivialities. If he thought of
Margaret at all it was only in a detached and impersonal way and to
find an explanation for her presence with the police at his flat that
night. She must have had the key; the police went to her--but why?
Then he remembered his conversation with Hulbert’s servant, who had
obviously been suspicious and must have communicated at once with the
nearest police station.
He thought of the drive across London in that uncomfortable van, and
spent quite an hour trying to locate exactly the building in which he
was confined. Driving along the Embankment on his way to the City, he
must have often seen the very wharf, the very building. He went to the
City twice a week, to directors’ meetings, and he loved the Embankment
in the early days of spring, when the green was bursting from the
trees, and sunlight dappled the pavements with moving arabesques of
shadow.
In such circumstances as his all a man’s past life should come before
him. Luke made an effort to satisfy the convention, but grew bored
after five minutes.
He wandered round and round his cell, feeling the walls in a grim
spirit of humour, seeking for those loose bricks which inevitably
occur in the prison houses of heroes. Not that he was any hero, he
decided. He was a smash-and-grab man--liable, probably, to three years
penal servitude, certainly to disgrace. He decided that it was not in
any spirit of altruism that he wished to save Margaret’s name from
being dragged into this sordid affair. It was because it would
intensify his own sense of foolishness.
Exactly what would Connor do? He was almost curious to know.
There was a church clock close by; he heard it striking the quarters
and the hours, and the last notes of three were still quivering on the
air when he heard the sound of a key in the lock, the door was opened,
and the two men who had been his captors invited him forth. Their tone
was friendly, almost courteous.
He followed the first, and was followed by the second, into the room.
Connor had evidently been sleeping on a folding bed. He sat on the
edge of his untidy couch, rubbing his fingers through his hair and
yawning prodigiously. On the table were four cups of steaming coffee
and some sandwiches.
“Sit down, Smith. We’ve got to think out what we’re going to do with
you,” said Connor, coming to his feet with a yawn.
He drew up a chair to the table and fell into it; pulled a cup of
coffee toward him and took a sandwich.
“Help yourself to milk and sugar.”
He pushed a cup toward the prisoner. Luke was looking round the room
interestedly. Stacked on a chair were four great bars of something
white and crystalline, which he guessed was salt, and on the floor was
a long length of heavy chain.
Connor followed the direction of his eyes.
“Want to buy a bit of salt?” he asked good-humouredly.
His question seemed to tickle his two companions, for they chuckled
deeply.
“I am not in the salt business,” said Luke with a smile.
He sipped at the coffee; it was raw stuff, but the warmth of it was
grateful, for the night was cold and he had grown chilly in the
brick-lined room.
“What are we going to do with you, Smith, eh?”
Luke took a big gulp of coffee and leaned back in his chair with a
laugh.
“You can listen to a very interesting story,” he said, “and you can
also earn yourself a thousand pounds.”
He saw a faint ghost of a smile come to Connor’s face.
“Go on,” said that tousled man.
Then Luke told everything, but without referring to Margaret. He gave
his name, his address, told how he came to meet Lewing, related the
story of Lewing’s little fraud and of his meeting him on that
night----
“But what were you running away from?” asked Connor.
This was difficult to explain, for Luke had perforce to leave out the
motive for his strange action. He could neither tell of his marriage
nor of Margaret’s staggering conduct; and without these facts he felt
he was being unconvincing. Nevertheless, with this handicap, he
struggled on to a finish. Connor shook his head.
“I’ve heard all about you, Smith--there never was a con man who
couldn’t tell a tale. But if you’re a specimen of the Australian man I
wonder you’re not starving! Drink up your coffee and have some more. I
want to find a way of settling this business without unpleasantness.”
Luke finished the coffee and put down the cup.
“Now, I’ll tell one,” said Connor, and his voice was no longer
pleasant or amiable. “You’ve been to the police and you’ve tried to
double-cross me. And now you think you’ll get out of it with a silly
story!… Squealer… police find you…”
Luke heard only scraps of the talk: he was desperately sleepy. His
head sank forward on his breast, and though he strove with all his
will-power to rouse himself, he could not so much as open his eyes. He
did not even realize that he had been drinking laudanum----
“Hold him up,” said Connor.
One of the men caught Luke as he swayed sideways and lowered him to
the floor. Connor pushed back the table and jerked his thumb in the
direction of the salt. Two blocks were put on the floor under Luke’s
legs, and with a knife one of the men scooped a deep depression in two
of the corners. The other blocks were laid on top. Connor lifted the
heavy chain, wound it carefully round and round the salt, fastening
the last two links with a piece of wire.
They discussed their grisly work without emotion.
“… You want to be careful it doesn’t slip over his feet, Harry,” said
Connor. “Tighten that chain a bit--not too tight or you’ll break the
salt.”
At last it was finished and Connor straightened his back.
“Get that old plank to lay him on,” he commanded, and the bigger of
the two walked to the door and pulled it open.
Connor saw him start back and his face wrinkle.
“Who’s that?” he asked sharply.
The man who was in the passage walked into the room at his leisure.
Connor saw him and showed his teeth like an angry dog.
“Hullo, Gunner! What the hell are you doing round here?”
Gunner Haynes looked from Connor to the unconscious man on the floor.
“Ingenious but not original,” he drawled, his thin lips curling in
contempt. “You’re dropping him in the river, of course, and the water
will dissolve the salt, the chains will fall off, and the verdict will
be ‘Death from misadventure.’ What a pity!”
“What’s the pity, Gunner?” asked Connor.
“That I happened to butt in,” said Haynes. “Who’s the victim?”
“There’s no victim,” said Connor loudly. “This poor fellow is ill and
we’re taking him off to the hospital.”
The Gunner nodded.
“I thought you might be pickling him,” he said, shook his head and
repeated: “Ingenious but not original. No marks of violence on the
body, nothing to show that he didn’t drown, as people do drown, by
accident. I’m sorry to have spoiled your amusement, but you’ll have to
let him go.”
“Why?” asked Connor.
“Because,” said the Gunner deliberately, “I’m in it! You don’t catch
me as accessory before, after, or in the fact of murder. It’s not my
graft, Connor. Remove that interesting apparatus.”
Connor smiled. His hand dropped quite naturally out of sight below the
level of the table.
“If you pull a gun on me,” said the Gunner, not a muscle of his lean
body moving, “I shall shoot you through the stomach. It’ll take you
five days to die, and it’s a very painful death by all accounts. I
shall then go out and explain to the police why I shot you, and there
will be no flowers from Scotland Yard.”
One of Connor’s assistants moved a step toward him.
“Look here, Gunner----” he began, mildly enough.
Haynes’s fist shot out so swiftly that the man could not counter the
blow. He went down with a crash. The Gunner stood motionless,
watching.
“Both hands in sight,” said Haynes. “Lay ’em on the table, Connor.”
He had no weapon in his hand, but none knew better than the livid man
on the other side of the table how quickly the Gunner could draw, with
what devilish accuracy he could shoot.
“What’s the fuss?” he growled. “This bird doesn’t mean a thing to
you.”
“Unlace him,” smiled the Gunner. “I’m sorry to butt in, as I said
before.”
“What did you come here for, anyway?” asked the other savagely.
The Gunner looked up at the ceiling.
“I forget exactly,” he said untruthfully. And then: “Who is this man?”
“Man named Smith. He squealed on me to-night, and then tried to carry
it off with a tale about being a banker--he’s got a nerve! Luke
something or other.”
Gunner Haynes bent down and peered into Luke’s face.
He recognized the sleeping man instantly.
“Luke something or other, eh? Where did you pick him up?” As he spoke
he beckoned one of the men. “Take that chain off,” he said.
The man glanced uneasily at his chief, but Connor nodded.
“The trouble with you, Gunner, is that you will interfere with other
people’s graft. If you want to know who he is, he did that job to-day
in Bond Street.”
He related “Smith’s” biography; Gunner Haynes knew that he was
speaking the truth. He was puzzled, but not greatly. He had lived too
long on the seamy and shadowy side of life to be surprised at
anything. Men had lived double lives before; but this was the kind of
double life which Haynes thought belonged to the realm of imaginative
novelists. A banker who amused himself in smash-and-grab raids was
wildly fictional--but possible.
There might be, he thought, a woman somewhere in the background. Where
women touched life, the inexplicable became almost daylight-clear.
“What are you going to do with him?” asked Connor, as the man stooped
and with scarcely an effort lifted the unconscious Luke onto the
chair.
The Gunner did not answer the question. Instead, he propounded one of
his own.
“Have you any slush in this place?” he asked and saw a look of alarm
come into the imperturbable face of the other.
“Slush?” said Connor quickly. “No--why should we? I don’t deal in that
kind of stuff.”
“No forged French banknotes?” The Gunner shook his head in
anticipation of the answer.
“What do you mean, Gunner?”
A smile lit up the saturnine face.
“You asked me why I came here, and I’m telling you. They’re raiding
your place to-night. I only got to know it an hour ago. I thought I’d
come along and tell you. I don’t know why, but that’s my
nature--helping poor crooks!”
He saw the three men glance at one another, and the alarm in Connor’s
face was patent.
“We had a parcel over from Paris the other day,” he said uneasily.
“Harry, get it up.”
He looked at the huddled figure of Luke.
“You’re making a big mistake about this bird,” he said. “You let him
get into the hands of the police, and he’ll put up a squeal that’ll
make you deaf!”
Stooping, the Gunner put his arm about Luke Maddison and lifted him
bodily. He turned and strode through the door, down the narrow
passage, and into the untidy yard. He had already located Connor’s
van, and he was on the point of hoisting his burden into its interior
when he heard a stealthy scraping against wood. It was the sound that
a man makes when he is climbing--somebody was getting over the gate.
He sat Luke on the ground, propped him against a wall, and went
noiselessly toward the entrance of the yard. Stooping to get a
skyline, he saw the head and shoulders of two men above the gate. It
was enough; he need see no more.
Returning as quickly as he came to the place where he had left Luke,
he lifted him and went cautiously and gingerly down the slope toward
the water. There would be a boat here. Presently his keen eyes
discerned the dim shape of it as it moved uneasily on the rising tide.
He had considered the possibility of leaving Luke to be discovered by
the police, and had rejected that plan. He owed a debt to this man--he
could not leave him to discovery and disgrace. If what Connor had said
was true, Maddison, in his capacity of brigand, was as much wanted by
the police as Connor himself.
He drew the boat to the broken stone causeway with the heel of his
boot, and put Luke aboard by the simple process of laying him level
with the edge of the wharf and rolling him onto the boat. It took a
few minutes to balance him. As he himself stepped astride of the man,
he heard the sound of voices in the yard, saw the flicker of electric
lamps. Untying the painter, he pushed off with his hand, dragged an
oar from under the reclining figure and paddled his way to midstream,
keeping a sharp lookout for the river police.
He saw the launch coming downstream at full speed, and drove his boat
into the shelter of two moored barges as the tiny steamer swung in a
semicircle.
“A bit late,” muttered the Gunner.
He was free from detection now, unless he met another patrol, and
finding the second oar, he pushed Luke down between the two seats and
sitting, rowed steadily downstream.
In an hour there would be daylight; already the eastern sky was
whitening. The Gunner knew a safe landing near Rotherhithe; the tide
was turning and would, he judged, carry him to safety.
He judged wrong, and saw, before he had reached London Bridge, that he
could not make his destination in the darkness. He took his decision
quickly. Stooping over the side of the boat, he filled his hat with
water and dashed it in the face of the slumbering man. Luke shivered
and groaned, and the Gunner repeated his experiment. He heard the
moaning voice of the man at the bottom of the boat.
“My head…”
“Keep quiet!” hissed Haynes. “I’m taking you to London Bridge Stairs.”
There was no answer, and the Gunner prodded with his heel at his
uneasily moving cargo.
“Do you hear me?”
“Yes, I hear you. What has happened?”
Haynes did not reply, but pulled at his oars, and in a minute Luke
heard the jolt of the boat striking against the stone.
“Can you get up?” The Gunner’s hand gripped Luke’s wrist and drew him
to a sitting position.
With the boathook he drew the little skiff against the steps and came
to land. It took five minutes before Luke could follow him. His knees
gave under him, and he wanted all the support that his companion could
give him.
“Sit on the steps,” commanded the Gunner, and Luke obeyed. “Now try to
stand.”
For five minutes Luke sat crouched up, his face in his hands, and then
the Gunner’s voice aroused him.
“There are too many people passing over the bridge to please me,” he
said. “We had better get up before it’s light.”
He assisted the half-unconscious man to rise to his feet. The Gunner’s
grip was firm as they climbed the steep flight until they emerged
flush with the footpath. The people who were hurrying across the
bridge took little notice of them, and gripping his companion by the
arm, the Gunner led him down toward Tooley Street. When he saw a
slowly moving cab he hailed the driver and bundled Luke inside.
“My friend’s a bit under the weather,” he explained to the cabman with
a smile. “Drive me to Lennox Street, Clerkenwell.”
There was a large block of model buildings in Lennox Street, and for
years the Gunner had had his secret headquarters in a fairly large
flat on the ground floor. It was a place to which he very seldom came,
and of whose existence the police were ignorant. It was his
_pied-à-terre_, jealously preserved for emergencies. He had slept
there two nights before, and the woman who came in daily had made the
bed. Upon this he laid Luke Maddison.
“They must have given you a pretty large dose,” he said. “I’ll make
you some coffee.”
Luke shuddered.
“Coffee--ugh!”
“Gave it you in that, did they? That’s probably why you’re not dead.”
He pulled down the blinds before he lit the gas; then, going out into
the little kitchen, he made coffee as only a man who had fended for
himself on the Continent, and who had kept house in places as wide
apart as Biarritz is from Munich, could brew that delicious beverage.
When he came back Luke was sitting on the side of the bed, his head in
his hands.
“A couple of aspirins ought to put you right,” said the Gunner, and
went in search of the little white pellets.
Luke gulped down the medicine, and then for the first time became
conscious of his benefactor.
“Aren’t you Gunner Haynes?” he asked.
Haynes smiled.
“That is my name.”
“Where is Connor?”
Again that cryptic smile.
“In jail, I hope,” said the Gunner. “Now, Mr. Maddison, are you well
enough to talk?”
Luke looked up eagerly.
“You know me, then?”
The man nodded.
“I knew you the first time I saw you. There’s one thing I want to ask
you--is it true, the story that Connor told? That you were in that
smash-and-grab raid at Taffanny’s?”
Luke nodded.
“I drove the car. I hadn’t the slightest idea what they wanted me to
do or what it was all about until it was too late.”
“So you’re the bearded man?” mused the Gunner. “That certainly is
amazing. I’m not asking you to explain----”
“I’ll explain as soon as my head stops splitting,” groaned Luke.
It was after two that afternoon when he woke from an uneasy sleep. His
head was still thick, his mouth tasted like a limekiln, but after a
cold wash at the kitchen sink he was near to his normal self; and over
a cigarette and a cup of tea he told the story from start to finish,
and this time reserved nothing.
The Gunner listened in silence, making no comment until he had
finished.
“Did you tell Connor this story?”
Luke nodded.
“Yes, except that naturally enough I didn’t speak about my wife and
the--money. Why do you ask?”
Gunner Haynes pursed his lips.
“I don’t know. Connor is a pretty bad man. Your only hope is that he’s
sent down for a stretch--by which inelegant word I mean a term of
penal servitude. If he gets away with this police raid, supposing they
find nothing on the premises--and like a fool I gave him plenty of
warning--Connor is the sort of man who would investigate the most
unlikely story if he thought there was a chance of money in it. And
that is going to make your reappearance a rather difficult matter.”
He lit another cigarette and stared past his guest.
“Tell me why your wife hated you--you rather glossed over that part of
your yarn.”
Luke was silent for a long time.
“I don’t think it’s very difficult to understand,” he said. “She
thought I was responsible for the death of her brother. He shot
himself.”
“But why did she understand that?” persisted the Gunner. “Allowing
that Danty Morell is a very plausible gentleman, she would hardly take
his bare word.” He thought for a moment, then asked suddenly: “When
that boy shot himself did he leave any message behind?”
Luke shook his head.
“I heard of none--nor was anything mentioned at the inquest.”
“Who found his body?”
Luke considered.
“Morell was in the room and made the discovery.”
The Gunner nodded.
“And immediately after that Mrs. Maddison’s manner changed. Of course,
you weren’t married then, but that is a fact, isn’t it? If that is a
fact, it means that Danty carried some evidence to the young lady that
was quite sufficient to make her play this trick----”
“I’m not blaming her,” began Luke.
He saw a flicker of amusement in the man’s eyes.
“You are?”
“Well, not exactly,” drawled the Gunner. “I’ve given up blaming
people. There’s no profit in it.”
He flicked off the ash of his cigarette carefully into his saucer.
“You can’t make a sudden reappearance; you can’t even get to Ronda and
be sure you’ll get away with it,” he said. “You’ve got yourself mixed
up with two bad gangsters--Connor and Morell.”
He rose and paced up and down the small room, his eyes narrowed, his
brow corrugated in thought.
“It’s Connor that’s worrying me. If he’s held for trial, that problem
is settled. If he isn’t, and suppose you come back from Ronda, he’ll
be able to trace all your movements. Have you got your passport?”
He saw Luke thrust his hand inside his shirt, and a look of blank
dismay come to his face.
“I’ve lost it somewhere.”
Gunner Haynes’s lips clicked impatiently.
“If you lost it at Keel’s Wharf then you’re in the soup,” he said.
“There’s only one thing to do and that is to get your passport back.
There’s another thing: I want to see the letter that that boy wrote
before he shot himself.”
Luke shook his head.
“I don’t believe he wrote a letter, and if he did it was certainly
destroyed.”
Ten minutes later the Gunner left the house on his quest. His first
call was at a police station near to Keel’s Wharf. He knew the
inspector in charge, and between them was that curious camaraderie
which it is so difficult for the “layman” to appreciate--the
understanding between the criminal and his ruthless enemy.
In point of fact the Gunner met the divisional inspector as he was
coming out of the station.
“I hear you’ve had trouble at Keel’s Wharf,” he said.
The inspector looked at him with a smile in his keen eyes.
“Is this hearsay or information, Gunner, or direct observation?”
“Come again,” said the Gunner, with elaborate innocence.
“Connor says you were on the wharf a few minutes before, and that if
anybody was toting slush it was you. He said you came with a parcel,
that he refused to entertain the deal, and that you got away by boat.”
Now the police do not always speak the truth. It is a lamentable
statement to make. They have to deal with liars and cunning men. But
the Gunner trusted the man to whom he was speaking.
“I was on the wharf, yes,” he said. “As a matter of fact I came to see
him about another matter altogether--you know that forgeries are not
in my line. I heard the raid and I got away by boat. I gather that you
did not pull him?”
The inspector shook his head.
“No; there was nothing there. Connor and his friends seem to be doing
an extensive trade in salt. Do you know anything about that, Gunner?”
“If I did I shouldn’t tell you,” said Haynes coolly. “So you didn’t
drag Connor, eh? That’s a pity.”
The detective looked left and right and lowered his voice.
“If you particularly want him dragged, you’ll tell me what I can drag
him on----”
Again the Gunner shook his head.
“You want me to give you a little information? I’m not that kind of
bureau! Is Connor still at the wharf?”
The inspector nodded.
“I think I’ll call on him. I haven’t seen you, Pullman.”
He came to the wharf and found Connor in a very cheerful frame of
mind. If he was at all disconcerted to see Gunner Haynes, he did not
reveal the fact.
“You owe me four pounds,” said Connor. “That’s the price I paid for
that boat which you pinched. You’re not staying long, are you? Because
I’m expecting a lady visitor.”
“Who amongst your friends has this courtesy title?” asked the Gunner
offensively.
“Nobody you know,” said Connor carelessly. “A lady named Mrs.
Maddison--who has recently lost her husband.”