THE VOICE AGAIN
He left the bank with the sense of having done his duty by himself. He
had not planned the route by which he was leaving the country, or the
hour. Much was to happen before he shook the dust of England from his
feet, and as he had arranged matters he would have plenty of time to
think things over before he made his departure.
A great deal happened in the next few days to make him believe that the
necessity for getting away was not very urgent. He met Stafford King in
the Park one morning, and Stafford had been unusually communicative and
friendly. Then the whispering voices in the flat had temporarily ceased,
and Jack o' Judgment had given him no sign of his existence. It was five
days after he had made his deposit in the bank that the first shock came
to him. He found Snakit waiting on returning from a matinée, and the
little detective was so important and mysterious that the colonel knew
something had been discovered.
"Well," he asked, closing the door, "what have you found?"
"She is in communication with the police," said Snakit, "that's what
I've found."
"Lollie?"
"Miss Marsh is the lady. In communication with the police," said the
other impressively.
"Now just tell me what you mean," said the colonel. "Do you mean she's
on speaking terms with the policeman on point duty at Piccadilly
Circus?"
"I mean, sir," said Snakit with dignity, "that she's in the habit of
meeting Mr. Stafford King, who is a well-known man at Scotland Yard----"
"He's well-known here too," interrupted the colonel. "Where does she
meet him?"
"In all sorts of queer places--that's the suspicious part of it," said
Snakit, who had joyously entered into the work which had been given to
him, without realising its unlawful character.
He had accepted without question the colonel's story that he was the
victim of police persecution, and as this was the first news of any
importance he had been able to bring to his employer, he was naturally
inclined to make the most of it.
"He has met her twice at eleven o clock at night, at the bottom of St.
James's Street, and walked up with her, very deeply engaged in
conversation," said Snakit, consulting his note-book. "He met her once
at the foot of the steps leading down from Waterloo Place, and they were
together for an hour. This morning," he went on, speaking slowly, and
evidently this was his tit-bit, "this morning Mr. Stafford King went to
the Cunard office in Cockspur Street and booked cabin seventeen on the
shelter deck of the _Lapland_ for New York."
"In what name?"
"In the name of Miss Isabel Trenton."
The colonel nodded. It was a name that Lollie had used before, and the
story rang true.
"When does the _Lapland_ sail?" he asked, and again the detective
consulted his book.
"Next Saturday," he said, "from Liverpool."
"Very good," said the colonel; "thank you, Snakit, you've done very
well. See if you can pick them up to-night, or, stay----" He thought a
moment. "No, don't shadow her to-night. I'll have a talk with her."
The news disturbed him. Lollie was getting ready to bolt--that was
unimportant. But she was bolting with the assistance of the police, who
had booked her passage. That meant that they had got as much out of her
as she had to tell, and were clearing her out of the country before the
blow fell. That was not only important, but it was grave. Either the
police were going to strike at once or----
An idea struck him, and he telephoned through to Pinto. Another got him
into touch with Crewe, and these three were in consultation when Selby
came that afternoon.
He arrived at an unpropitious moment, for the colonel was in a cold
fury, and the object of his wrath was Crewe, who sat with folded arms
and tense face, looking down at the table.
"That gentleman business is played out, Crewe," stormed the colonel,
"and I'm just about tired of hearing what you won't do and what you will
do! If Lollie's put us away, she has got to go through it."
"What use will it be, supposing she has?" said the other doggedly. "I
don't for a moment believe she has done anything of the sort. But
suppose she has given you away, what are you going to do? Add to the
indictment? She's sick of the game and wants to get away somewhere where
she can live a decent life."
"Oh, you've been discussing it with her, have you?" said the colonel
with dangerous calm. "And maybe you also are sick of the game and want
to get away and live a decent life? I remember hearing you say something
of that sort a few weeks ago."
"We're all sick of it," said Crewe. "Look at Pinto. Do you think he's
keen?"
Pinto started.
"Why do you bring me into it?" he complained. "I'm standing by the
colonel to the last. And I agree with him that we ought to know what
Lollie told the police."
"She's told them nothing," said Crewe. "She isn't that kind of girl.
Besides, what does she know?"
"She knows a lot," said the colonel. "I'll put a supposition to you.
Suppose she's Jack o' Judgment?"
Crewe looked at him in astonishment.
"That's an absurd suggestion," he said. "How could she be?"
"I'll tell you how she could be," said the colonel; "she has never been
with us when Jack made his appearance--you'll grant that?"
Crewe thought for a moment.
"There you're wrong," he said; "she was with us the night Jack first
came."
The colonel was taken aback. A theory which he had formed was destroyed
by that recollection.
"So she was. That's right, she was there! I remember he insulted her.
But I'm certain she's seen him since; I am certain she's been working
hand-in-glove with him since. Who was the Jack who went to Yorkshire?"
It was Crewe's turn to be nonplussed.
"Jack o' Judgment must be working with a pal," the colonel went on
triumphantly, "and I suggest that that pal is Lollie Marsh."
"That's a lie!"
The colonel looked up quickly.
"Who said that?" he demanded harshly.
Crewe shook his head.
"It was not me," he said.
"Was it you, Selby?"
"Me?" said the astonished Selby. "No, I thought it was you who said it.
It came from your end of the table, colonel."
The colonel got up.
"There's something wrong here," he said.
"I've got it!" It was Pinto who spoke. "Did you notice anything peculiar
about the voice, colonel?" he asked eagerly. "I did, the first time I
heard it, and I've been wondering how I'd heard it before, and just now
it has struck me. It was a gramophone voice!"
"A gramophone voice?"
"It sounded like a voice on a speaking machine."
The colonel nodded slowly.
"Now you come to mention it, I think you're right," he said; "it sounded
familiar to me. Of course, it was a gramophone voice."
They made a careful search of the apartment, taking down every book
from the big shelf in one of the alcoves, and turning the leaves to
discover the hidden machine. With this idea to guide them the search was
more complete than it had been before. Every drawer in the desk was
taken out, every scrap of furniture was minutely examined, even the
massive legs of the colonel's writing table were tapped.
Crewe took no part in the search, but watched it with a slight smile of
amusement, and the colonel turning, detected this.
"What the devil are you grinning about?" he said. "Why aren't you
helping, Crewe? You've got an interest in this business."
"Not such an interest that I'm going to fool around looking for a
gramophone voice that goes off at appropriate intervals," said Crewe.
"Doesn't it strike you that it would have to be a pretty smart
gramophone to chip in at the right moment?"
The colonel pondered this a minute and then went back to his place at
the table, mopping his forehead.
"Pinto's right," he said; "the fellow has smuggled some fool machine
into the flat, and we shall discover it sooner or later. I don't know
how he controls it, or who controls it"--he looked suspiciously at
Crewe--"or who controls it," he repeated.
"You said that before," said Crewe coolly.
The colonel had something on his lips to say, but swallowed it.
"We'll meet here to-night at eleven. I told Lollie to come. Now, Crewe,"
he said in a more gentle tone, "you're in this up to the neck, and
you've got to go through with it. After all, your life and liberty are
at stake as much as ours. If Lollie's played us false, we've got to
be----"
"Lollie has not played you false, colonel," said Crewe. His face was
very pale, the colonel noticed. "I like that girl, and----"
"So that's it," said the colonel, "a little love romance introduced into
our sordid commercial lives! Maybe you know what she's been talking to
Stafford King about?"
Crewe did not immediately reply.
"Do you?" asked the colonel.
"I know she has been trying to get out of the country, to break with the
gang, but that she has given you or any of us away is a lie. Lollie's
had a rotten life, and she's just sick of it, that's all. Do you blame
her?"
"There's no question of blaming her or praising her," said the colonel
patiently; "the question is whether we condemn her or whether she still
has our confidence, and that we shall know to-night. You will be
present, Crewe."
"I shall be present, you may be sure," said Crewe, and there was a look
on his face which Pinto, for one, did not like.