THE LISTENER AT THE DOOR
Maisie White had taken up her abode in a modest flat in Doughty Street,
Bloomsbury. The building had been originally intended for a dwelling
house, but its enterprising owner had fitted a kitchenette and a
bathroom to every floor and had made each suite self-contained.
She found the one bedroom and a sitting-room quite sufficient for her
needs. Since the day of her father's departure she had not heard from
him, and she had resolutely refused to worry. What was Solomon White's
association with the Boundary gang, she could only guess. She knew it
had been an important one, but her fears on his behalf had less to do
with the action the police might take against him than with Boundary's
sinister threat.
She had other reasons for leaving the stage than she had told Stafford
King. On the stage she was a marked woman and her movements could be
followed for at least three hours in the day, and she was anxious for
more anonymity. She was conscious of two facts as she opened the outer
door that night to let herself into the hallway, and hurried up to her
apartments. The first was that she had been followed home, and that
impression was the more important of the two. She did not switch on the
light when she entered her room, but bolting the door behind her, she
moved swiftly to the window and raised it noiselessly. Looking out, she
saw two men on the opposite side of the street, standing together in
consultation. It was too dark to recognise them, but she thought that
one figure was Pinto Silva.
She was not frightened, but nevertheless she looked thoughtfully at the
telephone, and her hand was on the receiver before she changed her mind.
After all, they would know where she lived and an inquiry at her agents
or even at the theatre would tell them to where her letters had been
readdressed. She hesitated a moment, then pulled down the blinds and
switched on the light.
Outside the two men saw the light flash up and watched her shadow cross
the blind.
"It is Maisie all right," said Pinto. "Now tell me what happened."
In a few words Crewe described the scene which he had witnessed in the
Albemarle flat.
"Impossible!" said Pinto; "are you suggesting that Maisie is Jack o'
Judgment?"
Crewe shrugged.
"I know nothing about it," he said; "there are the facts."
Pinto looked up at the light again.
"I'm going across to see her," he said, and Crewe made a grimace.
"Is that wise?" he asked; "she doesn't know we have followed her home.
Won't she be suspicious?"
Pinto shrugged.
"She's a pretty clever girl that," he said, "and if she doesn't know
we're outside, there's nothing of Solomon White in her composition."
He crossed the road and struck a match to discover which was her bell.
He guessed right the first time. Maisie heard the tinkle and knew what
it portended. She had not started to disrobe, and after a few moments'
hesitation she went down the stairs and opened the door.
"It is rather a late hour to call on you," said Pinto pleasantly, "but
we saw you going away from Albemarle Place, and could not overtake you."
There was a question in his voice, though he did not give it actual
words.
"It is rather late for small talk," she said coolly. "Is there any
reason for your call?"
"Well, Miss White, there were several things I wanted to talk to you
about," said Pinto, taken aback by her calm. "Have you heard from your
father?"
"Don't you think," she said, "it would be better if you came at a more
conventional hour? I don't feel inclined to gossip on the doorstep and
I'm afraid I can't ask you in."
"The colonel is worrying," Pinto hastened to explain. "You see, Solly's
one of his best friends."
The girl laughed softly.
"I know," she said. "I heard the colonel talking to my father at
Horsham," she added meaningly.
"You've got to make allowances for the colonel," urged Pinto; "he lost
his temper, but he's feeling all right now. Couldn't you persuade your
father to communicate with us--with him?"
She shook her head.
"I am not in a position to communicate with my father," she replied
quietly. "I am just as ignorant of his whereabouts as you are. If
anybody is anxious it is surely myself, Mr. Silva."
"And another point," Silva went on, so that there should be no gap in
the conversation, "why did you give up your theatrical engagements,
Maisie? I took a lot of trouble to get them for you, and it is stupid to
jeopardise your career. I have plenty of influence, but managers will
not stand that kind of treatment, and when you go back----"
"I am not going back," she said. "Really, Mr. Silva, you must excuse me
to-night. I am very tired after a hard day's work----" she checked
herself.
"What are you doing now, Maisie?" asked Silva curiously.
"I have no wish to prolong this conversation," said the girl, "but there
is one thing I should like to say, and that is that I would prefer you
to call me Miss White."
"All right, all right," said Silva genially, "and what were you doing at
the flat to-night, Mai--Miss White?"
"Good night," said the girl and closed the door in his face.
He cursed angrily in the dark and raised his hand to rap on the panel of
the door, but thought better of it and, turning, walked back to the
interested Crewe, who stood in the shadow of a lamp-post watching the
scene.
"Well?" asked Crewe.
"Confound the girl, she won't talk," grumbled Silva. "I'd give something
to break that pride of hers, Crewe. By jove, I'll do it one of these
days," he added between his teeth.
Crewe laughed.
"There's no sense in going off the deep end because a girl turns you
down," he said. "What did she say about the flat? And what did she say
about her visit to Albemarle Place?"
"She said nothing," said the other shortly. "Come along, let's go back
to the colonel."
On the return journey he declined to be drawn into any kind of
conversation, and Crewe, after one or two attempts to procure
enlightenment as to the result of the interview, relapsed into silence.
They found the colonel waiting for them, and to all appearances the
colonel was undisturbed by the happenings of the evening.
"Well?" he asked.
"She admits she was here," said Pinto.
"What was she doing?"
"You'd better ask her yourself," said the other with some asperity. "I
tell you, colonel, I can't handle that woman."
"Nobody ever thought you could," said the colonel. "Did she give you any
idea as to what her business was?"
Pinto shook his head and the colonel paced the big room thoughtfully,
his big hands in his pockets.
"Here's a situation," he said. "There's some outsider who's following
every movement we make, who knew that boob from Huddersfield was coming,
and who knew what our business was. That somebody was this infernal Jack
o' Judgment, but who is Jack o' Judgment, hey?"
He looked round fiercely.
"I'll tell you who he is," he went on, speaking slowly "He's somebody
who knows our gang as well as we know it ourselves, somebody who has
been on the inside, somebody who has access, or who has had access, to
our working methods. In fact," he said using his pet phrase, "a business
associate."
"Rubbish!" said Pinto.
This polished man of Portugal, who had come into the gang very late in
the day, was one of the few people who were privileged to offer blunt
opposition to the leader of the Boundary Gang.
"You might as well say it is I, or that it is Crewe, or Dempsey, or
Selby----"
"Or White," said the colonel slowly; "don't forget White."
They stared at him.
"What do you mean?" asked Crewe with a frown.
White had been a favourite of his.
"How could it be White?"
"Why shouldn't it be White?" said the colonel. "When did Jack o'
Judgment make his first appearance? I'll tell you. About the time we
started getting busy framing up something against White. Did we ever see
him when White was with us--no! Isn't it obviously somebody who has been
a business associate and knows our little ways? Why, of course it is.
Tell me somebody else?
"You don't suggest it is 'Snow' Gregory, anyway?" he added
sarcastically.
Crewe shivered and half-closed his eyes.
"For heaven's sake don't mention 'Snow' Gregory," he said irritably.
"Why shouldn't I?" snarled the colonel. "He's worth money and life and
liberty to us, Crewe. He's an awful example that keeps some of our
business associates on the straight path. Not," he added with elaborate
care, "not that we were in any way responsible for his untimely end. But
he died--providentially. A doper's bad enough, but a doper who talks and
boasts and tells me, as he told me in this very room, just where he'd
put me, is a mighty dangerous man, Crewe."
"Did he do that?" asked Crewe with interest.
The colonel nodded.
"In this very room where you're standing," he said impressively, "at the
end of that table he stood, all lit up with 'coco' and he told me things
about our organisation that I thought nobody knew but myself. That's the
worst of drugs," he said, shaking his head reprovingly; "you never know
how clever they'll make a man, and they made 'Snow' a bit too clever.
I'm not saying that I regretted his death--far from it. I don't know how
he got mixed up in the affair----"
"Oh, shut up!" growled Pinto; "why go on acting before us? We were all
in it."
"Hush!" said the colonel with a glance at the door.
There was a silence. All eyes were fixed on the door.
"Did you hear anything?" asked the colonel under his breath.
His face was a shade paler than they had ever remembered seeing it.
"It is nothing," said Pinto; "that fellow's got on your nerves."
The colonel walked to the sideboard and poured out a generous portion of
whisky and drank it at a gulp.
"Lots of things are getting on my nerves," he said, "but nothing gets on
my nerves so much as losing money. Crewe, we've got to go after that
Yorkshireman again--at least somebody has got to go after him."
"And that somebody is not going to be me," said Crewe quietly. "I did my
part of the business. Let Pinto have a cut."
Pinto Silva shook his head.
"We'll drop him," he said decisively, and for the first time Crewe
realised how dominating a factor Pinto had become in the government of
the band.
"We'll drop him----"
Suddenly he stopped and craned his head round.
It was he who had heard something near the door, and now with noiseless
steps he tiptoed across the room to the door, and gripping the handle,
opened it suddenly. A gun had appeared in his hand, but he did not use
it. Instead, he darted through the open doorway and they heard the sound
of a struggle. Presently he came back, dragging by the collar a man.
"Got him!" he said triumphantly, and hurled his captive into the nearest
chair.