Carn Listens In
Detective Inspector Carn of Scotland Yard, temporary medico, was not
far from being typical of the modern C.I.D. man—the difference, in
fact, being little more than an extra gramme or two of brain which
lifted him a finger’s breadth above the common competent herd and
which had led to his being detailed for the special work of tracking
the Tiger.
In other words, Carn was not obtrusively brilliant. He knew his job
from A to Z, plus one or two other letters. He was a plodder, but an
efficient plodder, having been taught in a school which prefers
perseverance to genius and which trains men to rely on methodical
painstaking investigation rather than on flashes of inspiration. Carn
would never send an adoring gallery into rhapsodies with some dazzling
feat of Holmesian deduction; he never whirled through a case in a kind
of triumphant procession, with bouquets and confetti flying through
the air, streamers blazing, and a brass band urging the awestricken
populace to see the conquering hero come—but his superiors (a
hard-headed and unromantic crowd) knew that he had a record of
generally getting there, even if his progress and arrival were
monotonous and unspectacular.
This brief biographical note is made for the disillusionment of anyone
who has imagined that Carn was a genial cypher in the affair of the
Tiger. He was not. But his tactics were different from those of the
Saint, who had a weakness for the limelight and no reason to deny
himself the gratification of his vanity. The Saint was one man, nearly
as far outside the law as the Tiger, and therefore the Tiger would not
hesitate to accept the challenge. But Carn represented Authority, a
vast and inexorable machinery backed up by arms and men, and if Carn
showed up in his true colours they were the colours of Authority—and
before that the Tiger would hesitate for a long time. Carn had no
chance of accomplishing his mission unless he worked underground and
in the dark, and that, in a way, was a handicap, though it suited his
temperament. But Carn, the stolid manhunter, took one look at the
handicap, shrugged, and went on with the job—in his own laborious
fashion.
The arrival of Mr. Templar, heralded by the Saint himself with the
moral equivalent of a fanfare of terrific trumpets, illuminated with
Klieg arcs, and fully equipped with one-man orchestra, noises off,
self-starter, alarums, excursions, and all modern conveniences,
lacking nothing but the camera men and Press agent, had eclipsed
Carn’s modest efficiency, and perhaps had even put him off his
plodding stroke for a while. But it would have taken more than a
legion of Saints to derange our Mr. Carn permanently.
Carn was slow and Simon was sensational; but in the end they cancelled
out, for Carn had had a start of several months. He knew from certain
happenings one evening that Templar was hot on the Tiger’s heels; he
was not unduly perturbed, for he could have said the same for himself.
In his quiet way, he had already given some attention to Sir John
Bittle, and he knew quite a lot about that unpopular man and his
strongly fortified house with its garrison of toughs. He had also put
some work into Bloem, among others; but Bloem was the more slippery
customer, and Carn had made very little headway, so that the Boer’s
sudden prominence in the field came as a surprise. Carn, recuperating
from the shock with his well-tried resilience, had nevertheless not
yet had time to follow up the clue which the Saint had provided. Carn
had also an eye to the possibilities of Agatha Girton; he knew of her
strange and secretive association with Bittle, but so far he had been
unable to account for it better than by assuming her to be in with the
gang—though in what capacity, and with what rank, he hadn’t an
inkling. There was Algy, for another; and Inspector Carn was prepared
to believe startling things of Algy. The other three—Shaw, Smith and
Lapping—Carn had decided to rule out. Lapping in particular, with the
policeman’s ingrained reverence for the Law and its higher officers,
he barred completely. In fact, except the Saint, Sir Michael Lapping
was the only man in Baycombe who knew Carn’s true designation and sole
interest in life—Lapping was a Justice of the Peace, and Carn, hopeful
of success, realised that the ex-judge was an indispensable ally, for
Carn carried a warrant ready for Lapping’s signature as soon as the
name of the Tiger could be filled in with reasonable certainty. Taking
things all round, therefore, Carn reckoned that he was as well posted
as the Saint—and in this he was very nearly right. It was Carn’s
misfortune that he had never been privileged to make the acquaintance
of Fernando, and that because of this loss he had been unaware of the
significance of the Old House.
Carn had a hobby which he had only adopted since his arrival in
Baycombe. He was as enthusiastic about it as he was about butterflies
and beetles, but he reserved his pleasure for the hours when he was
alone. The nearest telephone was at Ilfracombe, and by Carn’s orders
all letters addressed to Baycombe were opened at the post-office
there, copied, tested for invisible ink, and forwarded to their
destinations after he had been informed of the results of this prying.
It was because of divers hints which he had picked up by this means
that Carn became so passionately devoted to wireless.
It was on the day following the apotheosis of Bloem, when the remains
of his lunch had been cleared away, that Carn’s hobby justified its
adoption.
As soon as he found himself alone, the detective went over and
unlocked his small roll-top writing desk. When this was opened, it
revealed an ebonite panel arrayed with the complicated system of
knobs, coils, and valves which have now ceased to be regarded as
mysteries sealed from all but the scientist. The aerial Carn had fixed
for himself among the rafters in the roof; and all the essential
wiring was cunningly concealed. There was need of this secrecy, for
Carn, who had never served an apprenticeship to a cook while walking
his beat, was forced to employ a woman from the village to look after
his digestion. Village women talk—and the merest whisper that there
was another radio fan in Baycombe, coming to the ears of the Tiger,
would have deprived Carn of one of his most promising lines of
investigation.
The detective put on the headphones, plugged in, and began his
systematic combing of the ether. It was not easy for Carn to use his
weapon even when he was convinced of its utility. He never knew at
what time the Tiger might have arranged to communicate with his agent;
though he did know the discouraging fact that the Tiger always called
on a different wavelength. Twice Carn had struck the tail end of a
conversation, and had noted the dialling of his instrument, but the
most patient listening had failed to pick up a second message; then,
feeling round again, Carn had caught the same signal in a totally
different range. Probably the wavelength changed according to a
prearranged timetable.
This, however, was Carn’s lucky day. The Tiger was using a very long
wave, and Carn had reversed his usual routine and started at the top
to work down the scale. He had not been probing the atmosphere for
five minutes before he tuned in on a peculiar high-pitched tremulous
whine which he recognised immediately for the note sent out by the
Tiger’s apparatus in the gaps when no speech was coming over. And he
had hardly brought the last condenser round to the exact reaction, so
that the familiar note was singing in his ears at full strength, when
a voice cut clean across the humming.
“Don’t start to come in before it’s quite dark.”
Carn stiffened. He had some idea of what was referred to.
The voice continued:
“Be very careful. See that there isn’t a light showing anywhere, and
slow up to half speed when you’re two miles out. Change over to the
electric motors at that point—— Templar stays awake at night, and his
hearing’s exceptionally good.”
Then another voice asked:
“Can you arrange to guide us in?”
“I’ll post a man on the Old House, seaward side, with a green
lantern.”
“Is there likely to be trouble?”
“I can’t say yet. I’m hoping to get rid of Templar this evening, but
he was born lucky, and he might manage to escape again. Be on the safe
side. I’ve just heard that the Holm girl and he have fixed it up—it’s
just possible that that might make him back out, squeak to the dicks,
and leave the rest to them. I think it’s too late for that to matter,
but you’d better be prepared for anything.”
“I shall.”
“Good. Did you get the full crew?”
“Two oilers didn’t turn up. I heard just before midnight they were
stewed to the gills down-town. I took a chance and left ’em. You said
I was to sail punctually.”
“Quite right—but that leaves you with only eleven, counting yourself,
doesn’t it?”
“That’s so, Chief. But we can manage easy.”
“You’ll have to. . . . Now listen. I want you to send the first boat
round to the quay. You’ll miss the fishermen—they’ll have gone out on
the tide, at ten. Bittle and Bloem will be with me, and Templar might
be, too. That depends on what happens, and what I decide to do with
him. His servant will go over the cliff just about the time you’re
picking us up. And I might have to bring the girl along as well. I’m
still wondering whether Templar’s put her next this joke. In any case,
she’s very easy on the eyes. I’ll get a report shortly, and then I’ll
be able to think better what to do.”
“This is a new one in you, Chief—dragging a skirt in. You always swore
you wouldn’t have it.”
The voice of the Tiger snapped back incisively:
“That’s my business, Maggs! When I want your opinions I’ll ask for
them. All you’ve got to do is have the cabins ready and send that boat
to the quay. Get off all the other boats you can man to the Old House.
You can get three away, and still keep a guard. And keep the engineer
below—if we do get raided, the boat crews must shift for themselves.
Your men haven’t got to do anything but row—and if any man catches a
crab or talks in the boat I’ll flay him alive. Tell ’em that from me.
I’ll have men on the island to help ’em load, and there’s a small
derrick there, the one we used for hauling the stuff up first, just
waiting to be rigged. You ought to be able to get away by four, if you
work.”
“Stand on me, Chief.”
“See that I don’t have to tread on you. Have you got that all in your
head?”
“Down to the Amen, Chief.”
“Call me at seven, in case there are any alterations to be made in
those orders. Good-bye.”
The Tiger’s transmission shut down with an audible click, and Carn
removed the headphones and leaned back in his chair, gazing
thoughtfully at the instrument which had enabled him to listen in on
that enlightening chat.
Enlightening it certainly was, and no error. Almost the only thing it
neglected to reveal to the detective was the identity of the Tiger
himself—the voice of the man called “Chief” had been studiously
throttled down to a toneless flat key that was useless as a clue. The
Tiger was taking no chances of being caught in person, and he had
spoken throughout in a dead level monotone that anyone could have
imitated—and, in addition, Carn knew the tricks which electricity
plays even with a man’s natural voice, and he would have looked long
and carefully before leaping to accuse anybody of being the Tiger on
no other grounds than a fancied vocal resemblance after the valves and
magnets and transformers had finished distorting a disguised
intonation.
The one thing that puzzled Carn was the reference to the Old House,
which apparently was an island. He got up and went over to where, on
the wall, was pinned a large-scale ordnance map of the district. It
was covered with patterns in various coloured inks, for ostensibly it
was a record of Dr. Carn’s geological investigations; but in reality
it was a diagram of the battlefield for the assistance of Inspector
Carn’s criminal investigation. A search of the coast line located the
Old House, which Carn had noticed on his bug-hunting expeditions
without imagining that such a small hunk of land was dignified with a
name all to itself, for he had been born and bred a long way from the
sea.
That, then, was the Old House, from which something was to be taken on
board at dead of night. Carn did not have to wonder what that
something might be.
Everything had come into his hands in a few short minutes. The
detective pulled up a chair and began to pack his pipe, and for all
his practical cold-bloodedness he found that his fingers moved
clumsily for the trembling of his hand. His agitation was pardonable,
since the trailing of the Tiger was the biggest and stiffest
undertaking he had yet brought to a triumphant conclusion. And regard
it as a triumphant conclusion he did already, for with dexterous
handling he could not conceive the triumph slipping through his
fingers. All he had to do was make his plans for the _coup_. He knew
now where the gold was, and it was as safe there as if it had been
lying in the vaults of the Confederate Bank. Even if the Saint also
knew its whereabouts, Carn could not imagine even that supremely
resourceful man being able to remove it singlehanded by
morning—especially with several Tiger Cubs on the spot. And the Tiger
had kindly informed Inspector Carn exactly where he could be found
that night. There would be a number of men down at the quay, and the
Tiger would be one of them. Ruling out Bloem, Bittle, and the Saint,
it did not seem as if anyone could go far wrong in making a selection.
And possibly the Saint was to be discreetly removed. Carn had to think
of that, and it annoyed him. His first duty was to warn Templar and
make some arrangements for having him looked after—that was
indisputable. The Saint was no ally of his, but neither was he an
enemy, nor (so far) a criminal, and as a human life he had to be
considered. But the time was so short.
As has been explained, Baycombe was as effectively shut off from the
rest of England as if it had been lifted out of Devonshire and planted
on the other side of the Channel—worse even than that, for there was
neither telephone nor telegraph office in the village. To get hold of
the men he required for that night’s work, Carn would have to go into
Ilfracombe; and the dilapidated Ford of prehistoric vintage, which the
local publican hired out to villagers whose business took them into
the town, would take an unconscionable time over the journey—and would
probably get up on its back axle and shriek boastfully if it went all
the way without breaking down. Bittle had a Rolls, which the Saint
might have had the immortal rind to borrow (with or without
permission) in similar circumstances, but which Carn had to consider
enviously and leave it at that. The only other car in the
neighbourhood was Mr. Lomas-Coper’s Morris. Carn reviewed that
possibility and reluctantly ruled it out, for what Algy knew Bloem
might be expected to find out.
And, once in Ilfracombe, men would have to be raised and brought to
Baycombe. Even after nightfall, the number of officers Carn could
assemble for the raid was strictly limited, for the Tiger must not be
alarmed at all costs, and that was a difficult thing to ensure with
the doubtful Agatha Girton all but on the detective’s doorstep. In
London, Miss Girton could have been temporarily removed, since London
is a large place and its policemen hold their tongues, but Carn had no
faith in the reticence of Mr. Hopkins. Then, since Carn would have to
stake his success on the skill of a mere handful of men, he wanted if
possible to phone London and get those men specially sent down from
the Yard by racing car—he had the Yard man’s congenital contempt for
the provincial constabulary. That would be running it very fine, but
he figured that it could just be wangled if he got a clear line and
found the Assistant Commissioner quickly, and if the said Commissioner
impressed it on the special squad that they would have to touch the
ground in spots if they were going to be in at the kill, and if
nothing went wrong with the police car. There were plenty of odds
against him, but he reckoned that the importance of the occasion
justified going to extremes—and, if the worst came to the very worst,
he could still call in the country bumpkins and swear in the Saint and
Orace, as he had the right to do, though it would gall his soul to
have to make his arrest with their assistance.
Anyhow, whichever way the calculation was made, it was going to be a
breathless neck-and-neck affair, with every minute rated at
inestimable value. And, having got every item in the programme weighed
up and docketed in his brain, Carn wasted no time wailing and gnashing
his teeth against the cussedness of a Fate that had tossed him such a
fine, big, juicy plum that day, for all the accompanying hail of
thistles and cactus. Once he knew where all the thorns were, and had
tested their precise degree of spikiness, he grabbed up his hat and
stick and set out to blunt as many of them as possible.
He went down to the village as quickly as he could without seeming
unduly flurried to any of the Tiger’s Cubs who might catch a glimpse
of him, and on the way through he stopped at the inn.
“I’ve just had a letter from an old patient of mine,” he explained.
“An Ilfracombe man—he’s had a heart attack. I’ve been his doctor for
years, and he wants me to attend to him now. It’s a beastly nuisance,
but I feel bound to go. Can you let me have the car?”
It was a plausible lie, for a boy cycled over from Ilfracombe with the
post every morning, and did not arrive until lunch time.
“I’m sorry, sir,” replied the publican, and Carn’s heart did a
back-somersault and flopped sickeningly against his diaphragm—“two of
the men from Sir John’s came down and hired the car early this morning
to go into Ilfracombe for their day off.”
“Damn the gentlemen,” said Carn, but he said it to himself, and he did
not call them gentlemen.
Aloud he said, with only a moderate display of annoyance:
“I ought to try and get over somehow—my patient’s in a bad way, and
they’re expecting me. I suppose these fellows won’t be back till
late?”
“They didn’t say, sir, but I’m not expecting them till the evening.”
“Hasn’t Horrick got a trap?”
Horrick was the nearest farmer, about half a mile out of the village,
and the innkeeper opined that Horrick had something of the sort.
“I wonder if you could send a boy over to find out if he’d lend it to
me?” suggested Carn.
The innkeeper cogitated at length, in the leisured manner of country
people, while Carn masked his impatience as best he could. At last the
man decided that it would be possible.
“Perhaps you’ll join me in a glass of beer, sir?” he invited, after
making this momentous resolution.
“If I could see the boy now, he could be getting on his way while we
down a quick one,” Carn mooted gently.
The publican sighed. The fidgetiness of city-bred people offended his
placid spirit. Nevertheless, he shouted “Boy!” and after a decent
interval, during which he embarked on a voluminous discussion of the
weather and its influence on fish, a diminutive urchin answered his
summons.
The urchin was instructed in the vernacular, but Carn was moved to add
an exhortation in another language.
“Tell him it’s urgent,” he said, slipping a half-crown into the
infant’s paw, “and hurry yourself. You can ride over in the trap, and
I’ll stand you another of these if you’re back quickly.”
The boy nodded and disappeared at the double.
The innkeeper was working the beer engine, and Carn, outwardly
impassive, gnawed mouthfuls out of the stem of his pipe in the effort
of appearing calm. The absence of the Ford, however antique and
rickety, was a disaster. It meant that unless he was remarkably lucky
he would have to be content with the assistance of a mob of
mutton-headed locals for the big job. They would be panting with
excitement at the magnitude of it, twice as jumpy as so many cats on
hot bricks, and good-naturedly clod-hopperily dense. The prospect of
seeing the Tiger get away through their bungling almost broke Carn’s
heart. He would have taken a chance and tackled the whole brigade of
Tiger Cubs single-handed if he had seen the faintest hope of success,
but he had been turned out of a different mould from Simon Templar’s,
and his kind of brain did not run to schemes for capturing a boatload
of bandits all by himself. As it was, he had more than half a mind to
enlist the Saint. Templar was straight, he knew. And it would be
better to pinch the Tiger with the Saint’s help than to see the Tiger
get clean away.
That, however, would have to be resolved on the spur of the moment,
for there was still a chance—the rapidly fading ghost of a chance, but
a chance all the same—that that final humiliation would not be thrust
upon him.
Carn gulped down his beer, thankful that the innkeeper was perfectly
happy to conduct a monologue.
“Have another?”
“I don’t mind if I do, thank you, sir.”
The detective cursed and fumed inwardly, but it had to be borne. If he
had rushed out without standing his whack, every subsequent customer
would hear the innkeeper’s comments on the doctor’s extraordinary
behaviour. And that would get to the Tiger’s ears, and the Tiger, as
Simon Templar had observed, owned a nasty, suspicious mind.
But the ordeal ended at last, and Carn was able to excuse himself. He
went through the village and set out up the hill to the Pill Box. It
was a sultry day, and Carn had accumulated a lot of spare avoirdupois
since his London-to-Southend days. He climbed doggedly, with the
perspiration streaming down into his collar, and gasped his relief
when the slope commenced to flatten out.
He was still a dozen yards from the Pill Box when Orace appeared at
the door. Orace made it elaborately obvious that he had simply come
out for a breather. He surveyed the scenery with the concentrated
interest of an artist, and honoured the detective with nothing but a
nonchalant glance, but he kept his right hand behind his back.
“Mr. Templar in?” demanded Carn from a distance.
“Ain’t,” replied Orace laconically.
“D’you know where he is?”
Orace focused the detective with unfriendly eyes.
“Dunno. Gorn fra walk, mos’ likely. ’E might be chasin’
ippopotamoscerosses acrorst Epping Forest,” enlarged Orace, become
humorous, “or ’e might be ’opping up’n’ dahn the ’Ome Secrety’s
chimbley looking fer Santiclaws. Or ’e mightn’t. ’Oo knows, as the
actriss said ta the bishup?”
“Now, look here, Little Tich,” rasped Carn with pardonable heat, “I
haven’t sweated up this blasted mountain in a temperature like hell
warmed up just to hear a lot of funny back chat from you. The Tiger’s
going to push you over the cliff to-night, but you don’t matter much.
It’s Mr. Templar I came to warn.”
Orace looked meditatively at the detective.
“Ho?” he remarked. “Ho! Well in that case . . .”
His right hand came out of cover, revealing the blunderbuss which Carn
had seen before. It levelled on the detective’s waistcoat, and Carn
needed all his experienced agility to knock it up and wrench it out of
Orace’s hand before any damage could be done. Then he chucked it round
the corner of the Pill Box.
“Don’t be such a blazing lunatic!” he snapped. “As far as I can see,
the only use for that lump of ivory above your ears is that it makes a
place to hang your hat on. Don’t you see that I’m trying to save your
worthless skin? I tell you, the Tiger’s laying for you both this
evening. Got it? Tiger—T-I-G-E-R—Tiger! You know who he is, don’t you?
Well, look out, that’s all. He’s aiming to have the pair of you ready
for the morgue by morning, and if you wake up and find yourselves dead
after this nobody can blame me.”
“Nobody’s gonna worry ’bout you, cocky,” Orace assured him. “Thankin’
ya kindly fer the tip, an’ will ya go back to the Tiger an’ tell ’im
Mr. Templar an’ me are layin’ fer ’im to-night, an’ so if ’e wants ta
pick up a packet o’ trouble this is our ’ome address?”
“Well, you go off and find your boss, Orace, and pass the tip along to
him,” said Carn shortly, and, turning his back on the man, lumbered
off down the hill again.
He found the trap waiting for him outside the inn, with a farm hand on
the box and an expectant urchin in tow. Largesse was forthcoming, and
then Carn clambered up beside the driver.
“Ilfracombe,” he ordered, “and make all the speed you can. I’m on an
urgent case.”
They rattled away, and Carn fished out his pipe and fumbled for
matches. There they were, on their way, and fretting wouldn’t put an
inch an hour on the pace. Everything depended on the stamina of the
animal between the shafts. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter
past three. Still, he thought that if the horse was willing and they
were afflicted with no such Act of God as a cast shoe or a wheel going
adrift there might yet be a glimmer of hope, for the Tiger’s ship,
then riding over the rim of the horizon and with orders not to start
coming in until nightfall, would take some time to reach the Old
House. The loading of the gold would be an all-night job, but he knew
that the Tiger intended to prefer his own safety to the safety of his
ill-gotten gains, and the arrest of the Tiger was the accomplishment
which Carn most desired to add to his record.
The next minute Carn remembered that he had omitted to warn Patricia
Holm. He swore inaudibly at that for a while; but presently he was
able to console himself with the thought that if the Tiger was rightly
informed, and Simon and she had fixed it up, the Saint would not be
far away. And probably the Saint had as good an idea of the girl’s
danger as anyone. That, at any rate, was the only optimistic way to
look at it.
They were just topping the hill which in a moment would shut out the
village from their sight when Carn heard the shots. There were two
reports, so close together that their echoes merged into one rattle.
Instinctively the detective made a mental note of the exact time; then
he looked at the man beside him. That worthy, however, was quite
unperturbed, but he read Carn’s astonishment at this display of
sangfroid.
“We’m used to ut, zur,” he explained. “That be Maister Lomas-Coper. ’E
do zometimes be out zhooting rabbuts.”
“I see,” said Carn, and made no further comment.
But the detective knew a lot about firearms. The distance and the
echoes prevented an exact diagnosis, but as far as he could judge the
gun had been fired somewhere among the houses on the west tor, and it
sounded to him like much heavier artillery than is employed for
shooting rabbits.