passion for the less tuneful operas. Joan (which was her real name)
meant no more than classy: it was a favourite word of hers; another was
“morbid.”
Half an hour later the inquisitive chauffeur put his foot on the starter
and sent his car on the trail of the Rolls, wondering what Mirabelle
Leicester had in common with Joan Alice Murphy, who had brought so many
rich young men to the green board in Captain Newton’s beautiful
drawing-room, where stakes ran high and the captain played with such
phenomenal luck.
* * * * *
“And there you are,” said Gonsalez complacently. “I’ve done a very good
day’s work. Oberzohn has gone back to his rabbit-hutch to think up new
revolutions—Miss Mirabelle Leicester is to be found at 307, Chester
Square. Now the point is, what do we do to save the valuable life of Mr.
Sam Barberton?”
Manfred looked grave.
“I hardly like the thought of the girl spending the night in Newton’s
house,” he said.
“Why allow her to remain there?” asked Poiccart in his heavy way.
“Exactly!” Leon nodded.
George Manfred looked at his watch.
“Obviously the first person to see is friend Barberton,” he said. “If we
can prevail on him to spend the evening with us, the rest is a simple
matter——”
The telephone bell rang shrilly and Leon Gonsalez monopolized the
instrument.
“Gloucester? Yes.” He covered the receiver with his hand. “I took the
liberty of asking Miss Alma Goddard to ring me up . . . her address I
discovered very early in the day: Heavytree Farm, Daynham, near
Gloucester . . . yes, yes, it is Mr. Johnson speaking. I wanted to ask
you if you would take a message to Miss Leicester . . . oh, she isn’t at
home?” Leon listened attentively, and, after a few minutes: “Thank you
very much. She is staying at Doughty Court? She wired you . . . oh,
nothing very important. I—er—am her old science master and I saw an
advertisement . . . oh, she has seen it, has she?”
He hung up the receiver.
“Nothing to go on,” he said. “The girl has wired to say she is delighted
with her job. The aunt is not to come up until she is settled, and
Mirabelle is sleeping at Doughty Court.”
“And a very excellent place too,” said Manfred. “When we’ve seen Mr.
Barberton I shouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t sleep there after all.”
Petworth Hotel in Norfolk Street was a sedate residential hostel,
greatly favoured by overseas visitors, especially South Africans. The
reception clerk thought Mr. Barberton was out: the hall porter was sure.
“He went down to the Embankment—he said he’d like to see the river
before it was dark,” said that confidant of so many visitors.
Manfred stepped into the car by Leon’s side—Poiccart seldom went
abroad, but sat at home piecing together the little jigsaw puzzles of
life that came to Curzon Street for solution. He was the greatest of all
the strategists: even Scotland Yard brought some of its problems for his
inspection.
“On the Embankment?” Manfred looked up at the blue and pink sky. The sun
had gone down, but the light of day remained. “If it were darker I
should be worried . . . stop, there’s Dr. Elver.”
The little police surgeon who had passed them with a cheery wave of his
hand turned and walked back.
“Well, Children of the Law”—he was inclined to be dramatic—“on what
dread errand of vengeance are you bound?”
“We are looking for a man named Barberton to ask him to dinner,” said
Manfred, shaking hands.
“Sounds tame to me: has he any peculiarities which would appeal to me?”
“Burnt feet,” said Leon promptly. “If you would like to learn how the
coastal intelligence department extract information from unwilling
victims, come along.”
Elver hesitated. He was a man burnt up by the Indian suns, wizened like
a dried yellow apple, and he had no interest in the world beyond his
work.
“I’ll go with you,” he said, stepping into the car. “And if your
Barberton man fails you, you can have me as a guest. I like to hear you
talking. One cannot know too much of the criminal mind! And life is dull
since the snake stopped biting!”
The car made towards Blackfriars Bridge, and Manfred kept watch of the
sidewalk. There was no sign of Barberton, and he signalled Leon to turn
and come back. This brought the machine to the Embankment side of the
broad boulevard. They had passed under Waterloo Bridge and were nearing
Cleopatra’s Needle when Gonsalez saw the man they were seeking.
He was leaning against the parapet, his elbows on the coping and his
head sunk forward as though he were studying the rush of the tide below.
The car pulled up near a policeman who was observing the lounger
thoughtfully. The officer recognized the police surgeon and saluted.
“Can’t understand that bird, sir,” he said. “He’s been standing there
for ten minutes—I’m keeping an eye on him because he looks to me like a
suicide who’s thinkin’ it over!”
Manfred approached the man, and suddenly, with a shock, saw his face. It
was set in a grin—the eyes were wide open, the skin a coppery red.
“Elver! Leon!”
As Leon sprang from the car, Manfred touched the man’s shoulder and he
fell limply to the ground. In a second the doctor was on his knees by
the side of the still figure.
“Dead,” he said laconically, and then: “Good God!”
He pointed to the neck, where a red patch showed.
“What is that?” asked Manfred steadily.
“The snake!” said the doctor.
_Chapter V_ _The Golden Woman_
BARBERTON had been stricken down in the heart of London, under the
very eyes of the policeman, it proved.
“Yes, sir, I’ve had him under observation for a quarter of an hour. I
saw him walking along the Embankment, admiring the view, long before he
stopped here.”
“Did anybody go near him or speak to him?” asked Dr. Elver, looking up.
“No, sir, he stood by himself. I’ll swear that nobody was within two
yards of him. Of course, people have been passing to and fro, but I have
been looking at him all the time, and I’ve not seen man or woman within
yards of him, and my eyes were never off him.”
A second policeman had appeared on the scene, and he was sent across to
Scotland Yard in Manfred’s car, for the ambulance and the police
reserves necessary to clear and keep in circulation the gathering crowd.
These returned simultaneously, and the two friends watched the pitiable
thing lifted into a stretcher, and waited until the white-bodied vehicle
had disappeared with its sad load before they returned to their machine.
Gonsalez took his place at the wheel; George got in by his side. No word
was spoken until they were back at Curzon Street. Manfred went in alone,
whilst his companion drove the machine to the garage. When he returned,
he found Poiccart and George deep in discussion.
“You were right, Raymond.” Leon Gonsalez stripped his thin coat and
threw it on a chair. “The accuracy of your forecasts is almost
depressing. I am waiting all the time for the inevitable mistake, and I
am irritated when this doesn’t occur. You said the snake would reappear,
and the snake has reappeared. Prophesy now for me, O seer!”
Poiccart’s heavy face was gloomy; his dark eyes almost hidden under the
frown that brought his bushy eyebrows lower.
“One hasn’t to be a seer to know that our association with Barberton
will send the snake wriggling towards Curzon Street,” he said. “Was it
Gurther or Pfeiffer?”
Manfred considered.
“Pfeiffer, I think. He is the steadier of the two. Gurther has
brain-storms; he is on the neurotic side. And that nine-thonged whip of
yours, Leon, cannot have added to his mental stability. No, it was
Pfeiffer, I’m sure.”
“I suppose the whip unbalanced him a little,” said Leon. He thought over
this aspect as though it were one worth consideration. “Gurther is a
sort of Jekyll and Hyde, except that there is no virtue to him at all.
It is difficult to believe, seeing him dropping languidly into his seat
at the opera, that this exquisite young man in his private moments would
not change his linen more often than once a month, and would shudder at
the sound of a running bath-tap! That almost sounds as though he were a
morphia fiend. I remember a case in ’99 . . . but I am interrupting
you?”
“What precautions shall you take, Leon?” asked George Manfred.
“Against the snake?” Leon shrugged his shoulders. “The old military
precaution against Zeppelin raids; the precaution the farmer takes
against a plague of wasps. You cannot kneel on the chest of the _vespa
vulgaris_ and extract his sting with an anæsthetic. You destroy his
nest—you bomb his hangar. Personally, I have never feared dissolution
in any form, but I have a childish objection to being bitten by a
snake.”
Poiccart’s saturnine face creased for a moment in a smile.
“You’ve no objection to stealing my theories,” he said dryly, and the
other doubled up in silent laughter.
Manfred was pacing the little room, his hands behind him, a thick
Egyptian cigarette between his lips.
“There’s a train leaves Paddington for Gloucester at ten forty-five,” he
said. “Will you telegraph to Miss Goddard, Heavytree Farm, and ask her
to meet the train with a cab? After that I shall want two men to patrol
the vicinity of the farm day and night.”
Poiccart pulled open a drawer of the desk, took out a small book and ran
his finger down the index.
“I can get this service in Gloucester,” he said. “Gordon, Williams,
Thompson and Elfred—they’re reliable people and have worked for us
before.”
Manfred nodded.
“Send them the usual instructions by letter. I wonder who will be in
charge of this Barberton case. If it’s Meadows, I can work with him. On
the other hand, if it’s Arbuthnot, we shall have to get our information
by subterranean methods.”
“Call Elver,” suggested Leon, and George pulled the telephone towards
him.
It was some time before he could get into touch with Dr. Elver, and then
he learnt, to his relief, that the redoubtable Inspector Meadows had
complete charge.
“He’s coming up to see you,” said Elver. “As a matter of fact, the chief
was here when I arrived at the Yard, and he particularly asked Meadows
to consult with you. There’s going to be an awful kick at the Home
Secretary’s office about this murder. We had practically assured the
Home Office that there would be no repetition of the mysterious deaths
and that the snake had gone dead for good.”
Manfred asked a few questions and then hung up.
“They are worried about the public—you never know what masses will do
in given circumstances. But you can gamble that the English mass does
the same thing—Governments hate intelligent crowds. This may cost the
Home Secretary his job, poor soul! And he’s doing his best.”
A strident shout in the street made him turn his head with a smile.
“The late editions have got it—naturally. It might have been committed
on their doorstep.”
“But why?” asked Poiccart. “What was Barberton’s offence?”
“His first offence,” said Leon promptly, without waiting for Manfred to
reply, “was to go in search of Miss Mirabelle Leicester. His second and
greatest was to consult with us. He was a dead man when he left the
house.”
The faint sound of a bell ringing sent Poiccart down to the hall to
admit an unobtrusive, middle-aged man, who might have been anything but
what he was: one of the cleverest trackers of criminals that Scotland
Yard had known in thirty years. A sandy-haired, thin-faced man, who wore
pince-nez and looked like an actor, he had been a visitor to Curzon
Street before, and now received a warm welcome. With little preliminary
he came to the object of his call, and Manfred told him briefly what had
happened, and the gist of his conversation with Barberton.
“Miss Mirabelle Leicester is——” began Manfred.
“Employed by Oberzohn—I know,” was the surprising reply. “She came up
to London this morning and took a job as laboratory assistant. I had no
idea that Oberzohn & Smitts had a laboratory on the premises.”
“They hadn’t until a couple of days ago,” interrupted Leon. “The
laboratory was staged especially for her.”
Meadows nodded, then turned to Manfred.
“He didn’t give you any idea at all why he wanted to meet Miss
Leicester?”
George shook his head.
“No, he was very mysterious indeed on that subject,” he said.
“He arrived by the _Benguella_, eh?” said Meadows, making a note. “We
ought to get something from the ship before they pay off their stewards.
If a man isn’t communicative on board ship, he’ll never talk at all! And
we may find something in his belongings. Would you like to come along,
Manfred?”
“I’ll come with pleasure,” said George gravely. “I may help you a
little—you will not object to my making my own interpretation of what
we see?”
Meadows smiled.
“You will be allowed your private mystery,” he said.
A taxi set them down at the Petworth Hotel in Norfolk Street, and they
were immediately shown up to the room which the dead man had hired but
had not as yet occupied. His trunk, still strapped and locked, stood on
a small wooden trestle, his overcoat was hanging behind the door; in one
corner of the room was a thick hold-all, tightly strapped, and
containing, as they subsequently discovered, a weather-stained
mackintosh, two well-worn blankets and an air pillow, together with a
collapsible canvas chair, also showing considerable signs of usage. This
was the object of their preliminary search.
The lock of the trunk yielded to the third key which the detective
tried. Beyond changes of linen and two suits, one of which was
practically new and bore the tab of a store in St. Paul de Loanda, there
was very little to enlighten them. They found an envelope full of
papers, and sorted them out one by one on the bed. Barberton was
evidently a careful man: he had preserved his hotel bills, writing on
their backs brief but pungent comments about the accommodation he had
enjoyed or suffered. There was an hotel in Lobuo which was full of
vermin; there was one at Mossamedes of which he had written: “Rats ate
one boot. Landlord made no allowance. Took three towels and
pillow-slip.”
“One of the Four Just Men in embryo,” said Meadows dryly.
Manfred smiled.
On the back of one bill were closely written columns of figures: “12/6,
13/15, 10/7, 17/12, about 24,” etc. Against a number of these figures
the word “about” appeared, and Manfred observed that invariably this
qualification marked one of the higher numbers. Against the 10/7 was a
thick pencil mark.
There were amongst the papers several other receipts. In St. Paul he had
bought a “pistol automatic of precision” and ammunition for the same.
The “pistol automatic of precision” was not in the trunk.
“We found it in his pocket,” said Meadows briefly. “That fellow was
expecting trouble, and was entitled to, if it is true that they tortured
him at Mosamodes.”
“Moss-_am_-o-dees,” Manfred corrected the mispronunciation. It almost
amounted to a fad in him that to hear a place miscalled gave him a
little pain.
Meadows was reading a letter, turning the pages slowly.
“This is from his sister: she lives at Brightlingsea, and there’s
nothing in it except . . .” He read a portion of the letter aloud:
“. . . thank you for the books. The children will appreciate
them. It must have been like old times writing them—but I can
understand how it helped pass the time. Mr. Lee came over and
asked if I had heard from you. He is wonderful.”
The letter was in an educated hand.
“He didn’t strike me as a man who wrote books,” said Meadows, and
continued his search.
Presently he unfolded a dilapidated map, evidently of Angola. It was
rather on the small scale, so much so that it took in a portion of the
Kalahari Desert in the south, and showed in the north the undulations of
the rolling Congo.
“No marks of any kind,” said Meadows, carrying the chart to the window
to examine it more carefully. “And that, I think, is about all—unless
this is something.”
“This” was wrapped in a piece of cloth, and was fastened to the bottom
and the sides of the trunk by two improvised canvas straps. Meadows
tried to pull it loose and whistled.
“Gold,” he said. “Nothing else can weigh quite as heavily as this.”
He lifted out the bundle eventually, unwrapped the covering, and gazed
in amazement on the object that lay under his eyes. It was an African
_bête_, a nude, squat idol, rudely shaped, the figure of a native woman.
“Gold?” said Manfred incredulously, and tried to lift it with his finger
and thumb. He took a firmer grip and examined the discovery closely.
There was no doubt that it was gold, and fine gold. His thumb-nail made
a deep scratch in the base of the statuette. He could see the marks
where the knife of the inartistic sculptor had sliced and carved.
Meadows knew the coast fairly well: he had made many trips to Africa and
had stopped off at various ports en route.
“I’ve never seen anything exactly like it before,” he said, “and it
isn’t recent workmanship either. When you see this”—he pointed to a
physical peculiarity of the figure—“you can bet that you’ve got
something that’s been made at least a couple of hundred years, and
probably before then. The natives of West and Central Africa have not
worn toe-rings, for example, since the days of the Cæsars.”
He weighed the idol in his hand.
“Roughly ten pounds,” he said. “In other words, eight hundred pounds’
worth of gold.”
He was examining the cloth in which the idol had been wrapped, and
uttered an exclamation.
“Look at this,” he said.
Written on one corner, in indelible pencil, were the words:
“Second shelf up left Gods lobby sixth.”
Suddenly Manfred remembered.
“Would you have this figure put on the scales right away?” he said. “I’m
curious to know the exact weight.”
“Why?” asked Meadows in surprise, as he rang the bell.
The proprietor himself, who was aware that a police search was in
progress, answered the call, and, at the detective’s request, hurried
down to the kitchen and returned in a few minutes with a pair of scales,
which he placed on the table. He was obviously curious to know the
purpose for which they were intended, but Inspector Meadows did not
enlighten him, standing pointedly by the door until the gentleman had
gone.
The figure was taken from under the cloth where it had been hidden
whilst the scales were being placed, and put in one shallow pan on the
machine.
“Ten pounds seven ounces,” nodded Manfred triumphantly. “I thought that
was the one!”
“One what?” asked the puzzled Meadows.
“Look at this list.”
Manfred found the hotel bill with the rows of figures and pointed to the
one which had a black cross against it.
“10/7,” he said. “That is our little fellow, and the explanation is
fairly plain. Barberton found some treasure-house filled with these
statues. He took away the lightest. Look at the figures! He weighed them
with a spring balance, one of those which register up to 21 lbs. Above
that he had to guess—he puts ‘about 24,’ ‘about 22.’”
Meadows looked at his companion blankly, but Manfred was not deceived.
That clever brain of the detective was working.
“Not for robbery—the trunk is untouched. They did not even burn his
feet to find the idol or the treasure-house: they must have known
nothing of that. It was easy to rob him—or, if they knew of his gold
idol, they considered it too small loot to bother with.”
He looked slowly round the apartment. On the mantelshelf was a slip of
brown paper like a pipe-spill.
He picked it up, looked at both sides, and, finding the paper blank, put
it back where he had found it. Manfred took it down and absently drew
the strip between his sensitive finger-tips.
“The thing to do,” said Meadows, taking one final look round, “is to
find Miss Leicester.”
Manfred nodded.
“That is one of the things,” he said slowly. “The other, of course, is
to find Johnny.”
“Johnny?” Meadows frowned suspiciously. “Who is Johnny?” he asked.
“Johnny is my private mystery.” George Manfred was smiling. “You
promised me that I might have one!”
_Chapter VI_ _In Chester Square_
WHEN Mirabelle Leicester went to Chester Square, her emotions were a
curious discord of wonder, curiosity and embarrassment. The latter was
founded on the extraordinary effusiveness of her companion, who had
suddenly, and with no justification, assumed the position of dearest
friend and lifelong acquaintance. Mirabelle thought the girl was an
actress: a profession in which sudden and violent friendships are not of
rare occurrence. She wondered why Aunt Alma had not made an effort to
come to town, and wondered more that she had known of Alma’s friendship
with the Newtons. That the elder woman had her secrets was true, but
there was no reason why she should have refrained from speaking of a
family who were close enough friends to be asked to chaperon her in
town.
She had time for thought, for Joan Newton chattered away all the time,
and if she asked a question, she either did not wait for approval, or
the question was answered to her own satisfaction before it was put.
Chester Square, that dignified patch of Belgravia, is an imposing
quarter. The big house into which the girl was admitted by a footman had
that air of luxurious comfort which would have appealed to a character
less responsive to refinement than Mirabelle Leicester’s. She was
ushered into a big drawing-room which ran from the front to the back of
the house, and did not terminate even there, for a large, cool
conservatory, bright with flowers, extended a considerable distance.
“Monty isn’t back from the City yet,” Joan rattled on. “My dear! He’s
awfully busy just now, what with stocks and shares and things like
that.”
She spoke as though “stocks and shares and things like that” were
phenomena which had come into existence the day before yesterday for the
occupation of Monty Newton.
“Is there a boom?” asked Mirabelle with a smile, and the term seemed to
puzzle the girl.
“Ye-es, I suppose there is. You know what the Stock Exchange is, my
dear? Everybody connected with it is wealthy beyond the dreams of
avarice. The money they make is simply wicked! And they can give a girl
an awfully good time—theatres, parties, dresses, pearls—why, Monty
would think nothing of giving a string of pearls to a girl if he took a
liking to her!”
In truth Joan was walking on very uncertain ground. Her instructions had
been simple and to the point. “Get her to Chester Gardens, make friends
with her, and don’t mention the fact that I know Oberzohn.” What was the
object of bringing Mirabelle Leicester to the house, what was behind
this move of Monty’s, she did not know. She was merely playing for
safety, baiting the ground, as it were, with her talk of good times and
vast riches, in case that was required of her. For she, no less than
many of her friends, entertained a wholesome dread of Monty Newton’s
disapproval, which usually took a definitely unpleasant shape.
Mirabelle was laughing softly.
“I didn’t know that stockbrokers were so rich,” she said dryly, “and I
can assure you that some of them aren’t!”
She passed tactfully over the _gaucherie_ of the pearls that Monty would
give to any girl who took his fancy. By this time she had placed Joan:
knew something of her upbringing, guessed pretty well the extent of her
intelligence, and marvelled a little that a man of the unknown Mr.
Newton’s position should have allowed his sister to come through the
world without the benefit of a reasonably good education.
“Come up to your room, my dear,” said Joan. “We’ve got a perfectly
topping little suite for you, and I’m sure you’ll be comfortable. It’s
at the front of the house, and if you can get used to the milkmen
yowling about the streets before they’re aired, you’ll have a perfectly
topping time.”
When Mirabelle inspected the apartment she was enchanted. It fulfilled
Joan’s vague description. Here was luxury beyond her wildest dreams. She
admired the silver bed and the thick blue carpet, the silken panelled
walls, the exquisite fittings, and stood in rapture before the entrance
of a little bathroom, with its silver and glass, its shaded lights and
marble walls.
“I’ll have a cup of tea sent up to you, my dear. You’ll want to rest
after your horrible day at that perfectly terrible factory, and I wonder
you can stand Oberzohn, though they tell me he’s quite a nice
man. . . .”
She seemed anxious to go, and Mirabelle was no less desirous of being
alone.
“Come down when you feel like it,” said Joan at parting, and ran down
the stairs, reaching the hall in time to meet Mr. Newton, who was
handing his hat and gloves to his valet.
“Well, is she here?”