In the early days, when Trenter had known him, Mr. Superbus was a court
bailiff, a man who seized the property of unsuccessful litigants, who
served writs, attached furniture, and committed all those barbarous acts
peculiar to his office. But progression, the inexorable law of getting
on, the natural craving for success, brought Mr. Superbus from the
atmosphere of a dull county court to a small office in the Insurance
Trust Building, and the distinction of having his name painted upon the
glass panel of the door. He was officially styled “First Enquiry Clerk.”
The “detective” which was printed on the corner of his visiting card was
wholly unofficial, and his request to his superiors that a nickel badge
should be designed that he might wear on his waistcoat and display at
fitting moments when it was necessary to disclose his identity, was
refused as being “impracticable and undesirable.”
The cinematograph is at once educative and inspirational. Mr. Superbus
spent most of his spare evenings in watching the pictures. Those he
liked best dealt with the careers of young, beautiful but penurious
girls, who were pursued by rich and remorseless villains, and were
rescued in the nick of time from a fate which is popularly supposed to
be worse than death, by a handsome young hero, with the assistance of a
stern-faced officer of the law, who smoked cigars, wore a derby hat, and
from time to time turned back his coat to display the badge of his
calling. A film which had no detective, and dealt merely with the love
of a millionaire’s beautiful young wife for his secretary, was
unpalatable to him, even though it featured his favourite artists and
showed, in the course of its telling, tremendous railway accidents,
landslides, riots and the enervating effects of cocaine.
Before the open window of his parlour, Mr. Superbus sat in a state of
profound meditation. Though the day was chilly, he was in his
shirt-sleeves, for he was one of those hot-blooded men in whom the
variations of climate peculiar to his native land produced no effect. It
was an open secret that he was one of those hardy souls who swam in the
Serpentine every Christmas Day, preferably breaking the ice to get in,
and his portrait appeared with monotonous regularity every twenty-sixth
of December in all the better-class illustrated newspapers.
His good lady came bustling in with a shiver. She restricted her own
bathing operations to the decent privacy of a four by seven bathroom.
“You’ll catch your death of cold there, Julius,” she said. “Fancy
sitting there from morning till night doing nothing!”
“I’m not doing nothing,” said Julius quietly. “I’m thinking.”
“Well, that’s what I call doing nothing,” said Mrs. Superbus, bustling
round and laying the cloth.
She had an extraordinary appreciation of her husband’s qualities,
admired him secretly, but felt that the smooth harmonies of matrimony
might well be disturbed if she committed the error of showing her
feelings.
“It’s beyond me how you puzzle these things out,” she said.
“It’s brains,” explained Julius.
“You get such ideas,” she said in despair. “I wonder you don’t go on the
stage.”
It was her conviction that the stage was the ultimate goal of all
genius; its greatest reward; its most natural line of development.
“This Double Dan is certainly a bit of a puzzle, though I’ve worked out
bigger problems in my time, mother.”
She nodded in agreement.
“The way you mended the cistern last week beats me,” she said. “After
that I’ll believe anything. Who is this Double Dan?”
“He’s a swindler,” said Mr. Superbus, “a parasite of society, a human
vampire--but I’ll get him!”
“I’m surprised the police don’t go after him,” she said.
He was naturally irritated, and his laughter lacked sincerity.
“The police! No, mother, the man who’s going to get Double Dan has got
to be clever, he’s got to be cunning, he’s got to be artful.”
“I don’t know anybody artfuller than you, Julius,” said his wife
graciously, and Mr. Superbus accepted the compliment as his right.
He might speak disparagingly of the police, as he did; as all private
detectives, authors of mystery stories and such-like are in the habit of
doing. But his knowledge that Double Dan was in London, the hint that
had been whispered up from the underworld that Mr. Gordon Selsbury was
to be the new victim; these and a hundred other little pointers of
incalculable value came to him fourth-hand from Scotland Yard. After his
midday dinner he put on his coat and strolled to Cheynel Gardens. Gordon
was out, and he was received by Diana.
“Why, of course, you’re Mr.----”
“Superbus,” said Julius.
“The Roman!”
Mr. Superbus confessed to that distinction. He might have added “ultimus
Romanorum,” only he was unacquainted with the phrase. Instead he
remarked, a little pathetically:
“There ain’t many of us left.”
“I bet there ain’t,” said Diana. “Sit down and have some tea. You want
to see Mr. Selsbury, but he won’t be back for an hour.”
“I did and I didn’t,” said Julius the obscure. “What I want to do is to
keep a certain eye on a certain fellow.”
He did not particularise the eye, but Diana guessed that it might be
that which was nearest to her: it looked the less glassy of the two. In
the matter of the certain fellow she sought information.
“Double Dan--I remember. Who is he, Mr. Superbus?”
“Well, ma’am----”
“Miss.”
“You don’t look it,” he said gallantly, if vaguely. “This Double Dan is
a desperado, and is believed to emanate from the West.”
“Do you mean West London?”
“I mean America,” said Julius, “where most of the desperadoes come from.
And go to,” he added, with a recollection of certain past defaulters,
whose disappearance had been hampering to him as a bailiff of the court.
She listened attentively while Mr. Superbus described the misdoings of
the impersonator.
“There’s nothing this fellow can’t do, miss,” said Superbus
impressively. “He can make himself fat, he can make himself thin; he can
impersonate a tall man or a short man, an old man or a young man. By all
accounts he was an actor onthealls.”
“Onthealls?” She wrinkled her brow, thinking for the moment that Mr.
Superbus had dug up one of those natty colloquialisms that enlivened
the Senate in those days when Cicero could always be depended upon to
pass a few bright, snappy remarks about the Tribune Clodius.
“An actor onthealls,” repeated Mr. Superbus, astounded that he was
unintelligible.
“Oh, I see!” a great light dawning upon her mind. “On the halls? You
mean the vaudeville stage?”
“So they say,” said Mr. Superbus. “Anyway, he’s been too clever for the
regular police. It’s now up to them who have made a study of crime, so
to speak, to bring him to justice.”
He looked cautiously round the apartment and lowered his voice.
“By all accounts, Mr. Selsbury’s the next.”
Diana sat bolt upright in her chair.
“You means he’s to be the next person robbed?”
Mr. Superbus nodded gravely.
“From information received,” he said.
“But does he know?”
“I’ve dropped an ’int, miss,” said Julius. “But on the whole it’s better
that he didn’t know. A man gets jiggered, so to speak, if he knows a
crook is after him, and that hampers the officers of the law.” He shook
his head. “Many a good case have I lost that way.”
“What do you mean exactly by impersonation?” asked Diana, troubled. “Do
you mean to say that, when Mr. Selsbury is out, somebody who looks very
much like him is liable to walk into this house and help himself to
anything that he can find?”
“Cheques mostly, or money,” affirmed Julius. “He works big, this fellow.
Nothing small about him, you understand. You could leave your silver
around, and he wouldn’t touch so much as an egg-spoon. He’s one of the
big gang--I’ve had my eye on him for years.”
“This is very alarming,” said Diana after a long silence.
“It is alarming,” agreed Julius, “but at the same time, if you’ve got
the right kind of man around to protect you, a fellow who’s a bit sharp,
it’s not alarming. But he’s got to be clever, and he’s got to have
experience of what I might term the criminal classes, I should say.”
“You mean yourself?” Diana smiled faintly, not in the mood to be amused.
“I mean me,” said Julius. “If I was you, miss, I’d drop a hint to Mr.
Selsbury. Maybe he takes more notice of what his daughter says.”
At parting he took her hand in his own large, purple paw, called her
“Miss Selsbury” and asked to be remembered to her father. When Gordon
came home, she told him of the visit.
“Superbus, eh?” said Gordon good-naturedly. “He called for a tip. But
why, in the name of heaven, he should start in to alarm you, I don’t
know. I must speak to the Association about it.”
“He didn’t alarm me at all,” said Diana, “except when he asked to be
remembered to my father, and said that you were more likely to be
influenced by your young and gentle daughter----”
“Does he think I’m your father?” demanded Gordon indignantly. “That
fellow’s got a nerve! As for Double Dan, I shouldn’t think very much
about him if I were you, Diana. He certainly caught old Mendlesohn, but
then, old Mendlesohn is a philandering old fool. He allowed himself to
be trapped by the woman who works with the scoundrel and acts as his
decoy duck.”
The mail boat was in, Gordon noted, glancing at his newspaper the next
morning. He had arranged to remain at home that day, and his accountant
called at the house with a carefully engrossed receipt form and the
office cheque-book. Gordon filled a blank for eleven thousand and a few
odd pounds.
“I want fifty thousand dollars in gold bills; you’ll buy them at the
Bank of England. Bring them back here in a taxicab, Miller. You have
told the office that wires are to be telephoned to me? Good. I expect a
message from Mr. Tilmet.”
The message did not come until long after the bills had been deposited
in The Study safe.
It was from Paris, to the effect that Mr. Tilmet had landed at Cherbourg
and would be in London on the Sunday; he added that he would leave for
Holland that same night. Gordon, in his genteel way, consigned the
American to the devil.
He saw Heloise that afternoon. She was a being exalted at the prospect
of the trip, and his last desperate appeal to her that it should be
cancelled was unmade. They were to meet at a quarter to eleven on the
platform at Victoria, and were to travel as strangers until they reached
Ostend. The passage looked likely to be a good one; the weather bureau
reported a smooth sea and light easterly winds.
Trenter had packed his big carry-all, and had included one of the new
suits--that grey check with a little red in it--which had arrived
belatedly from the tailor. The case had been secretly transported to a
hotel in the neighbourhood of Victoria, where Gordon had to change.
Nothing remained to be done but to prepare the telegrams which Trenter
was to send. He could do this with a light heart, for it had occurred to
him that if, taking advantage of his absence, the criminal impersonator
should call (he regarded this as the least likely of any happening) the
wires would confound and expose him. He felt almost as if he were doing
a worthy deed.
The first he marked in the corner “Euston,” and inscribed “Just leaving,
Gordon.” He wrote a number of “Good journey, all wells” for York,
Edinburgh and Inverness.
Surprisingly, Diana came to him that day for some money.
“I arranged the transfer of my money to the London branch of the Bank of
Australasia, but there has been some sort of hitch. I called to-day and
the transfer has not arrived. Save me from penury, Gordon--I’m a ruined
woman.”
She displayed dramatically the empty inside of a notecase. Gordon felt a
queer satisfaction in signing a cheque for her, recovered a little of
the kind-fatherly feeling appropriate to their relationship.
“And to think that, if you had really turned me out, I should have
starved!” taking the slip from his hand. “Gordon, behind a rugged and
unprepossessing exterior, you hide a heart of gold.”
“I sometimes wish you were a little more serious,” he said in good
humour.
“I’m always wishing that you weren’t,” she said.
Gordon was temporarily deprived of the full use of The Study in the
afternoon. There could be no more remarkable proof of Diana’s dynamic
qualities than the arrival of post office linesmen to move the telephone
from the hall to Gordon’s room--and that within forty-eight hours of her
notifying the Postmaster General of her desires. Gordon demurred at
first. The telephone was an invasion of his privacy. Diana was flippant
and he was in no spirit for a fight.
Bobbie was at dinner that night, and, when they were alone, asked her a
question that he had asked himself many times.
“Why do you stick this kind of existence, Diana? You’ve heaps of money
and could be having a really good time instead of rushing round after
Gordon.”
She looked up under her curling lashes.
“Does Gordon want me here? Has he ever wanted me? No, sir! When I came I
left my baggage in the hall: I intended taking his advice about hotels
and things. I never had the slightest intention of stopping--till I saw
him and heard him, and read the panic he was in at the idea of my
remaining in the house, and heard him become paternal and
my-dear-little-girly. So I stayed. The day Gordon wants me to stay--I
go!”
The atmosphere of the house was electric: Bobbie felt it, Diana was
conscious of an uneasiness that was not to be accounted for by the
errors of banking officials. Even in the servants’ hall hysteria made a
mild manifestation. Eleanor had a premonition which she called by
another name.
“I’m sure something’s going to happen.” When she was nervous her voice
grew high-pitched.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Trenter’s voice lacked confidence.
“I wish you wasn’t--weren’t going away,” she sobbed. “I’ve got the
creeps. That window man will do something. The moment I saw him I said
‘that man’s a villain,’ didn’t I, cook?”
“You did. You said ‘I’m sure there’s something wrong about that man,’”
agreed cook.
As for Gordon Selsbury, he went to bed at ten. At one o’clock he was
pacing his room. At three he went down to The Study and started the
percolator working. Whilst the coffee was in process of making, he
opened the safe and took out the fifty thousand dollars, counted them
and put them back. The safe looked very fragile, he thought. Once this
wretched trip was over he would attend to the matter. The house was not
difficult to burgle. The big, stained-glass window--an enterprising
craftsman with a penknife could get in....
In a corner of the room flush with the window was a small door, hidden
behind a curtain. This led to the courtyard and was never used. As to
its design, and what purpose it was intended to serve, only the builder
and original owner of the house might testify. His name was Gugglewaite,
he had been three times divorced, and was at the moment in heaven--or
his well-edited epitaph lied.
Gordon went upstairs for his pass-key, opened the door and stepped out
into the “garden.” It was very dark and still, and the wet wind smelt
sweet and fresh. Across the yard was a door that gave to a small side
passage. The wall was high, but no obstacle to an active burglar. He
shivered and went in again to his coffee and a returning serenity
induced by the fire he had kindled and the comfort of his surroundings.
He would have gladly given a thousand--ten thousand--to cancel his fool
adventure; to remain here with ... well, with Diana. He told himself
this with a certain defiance as though one half of a dual personality
were challenging the other. Diana was really a dear. He wished he had
been a little more loyal to her and had talked less about Dempsi ... a
boy and girl affair and perfectly understandable. On Dempsi, his
identity, his appearance, he mused till the light began to show in a
ghostly fashion behind the painted window.
There was no thrill in the secrecy, the plotting, the wile within wile.
Gordon smelt the meanness of it, and sometimes he quavered. It made
matters a thousand times worse that Diana was so sweet about everything.
It had occurred to him that he would have to depend upon her to deal
with Mr. Tilmet when he called. Nobody else could possibly cope with
that elusive gentleman.
“Surely,” she said without hesitation. “Have you the receipt ready and
the final contract? It isn’t worth paper unless it has been drawn up by
an American notary. Auntie bought an oil well in Texas and she had to
find an American attorney before the contract could be made.”
“And she was swindled, of course?” said Gordon. “All these oil
properties are swindles.”
“She made seventy thousand dollars out of the deal,” said Diana. “Auntie
had an irresistible attraction for bargain money. The bills are in the
safe?”
“With the contract and the receipt. Really, Diana, you’re almost a
business woman!”
“Your patronage is offensive, but I feel sure that you mean well,” said
Diana without heat. “Let me see that money.”
He opened the safe and she counted it, bill by bill, before she snapped
the door close and spun the handle.
“Good,” she said. “I will have a spring clean whilst you are away. I
have sent for a man to clean the windows of The Study. They are in a
shocking state. And, Gordon, with Trenter and you away, I shall need
extra help. I will have a man and his wife here. There is an attic room
where they can sleep: is that in order?”
Diana was brisk, business-like, imposingly capable. Gordon realised that
she was unconsciously ramming home her indispensability.
Eleanor, coming in to put the room in order, found him in his
dressing-gown, asleep before the black ashes of the fire, and her squeal
of fear woke him.
“Oh, sir, you gave me such a fright!”
He rose stiffly, blinking at her.
“Did I ...? I’m sorry, Eleanor. Will you send Trenter to me in my room?”
A bad start to a very bad day’s business. He ached from head to foot,
until his bath gave him some bodily ease.
“Eleanor says you were asleep before the study fire. When did you come
down, Gordon?” Diana asked at breakfast.
“About three o’clock, I think. I remembered work that had to be done.”
She was concerned.
“Why don’t you go by the night train--you could sleep?” she suggested,
and he forced a smile.
“I shall sleep all right,” he said with spurious gaiety.
The talk went off in another direction, and then Bobbie came in for
final instructions. Gordon was unaccountably irritated by this act of
devotion to duty, and his “Good-morning” was like the crack of a whip.
“After you have gone,” said Diana, “I shall ask Trenter to show me such
of your clothes as need go to the cleaners.”
“Trenter is going before me,” he said hastily. “He’s catching a train to
Bristol. His aunt is seriously ill.”
“What on earth’s the matter with you?” gasped Bobbie.
Gordon turned, ready to be offensive, but it was not he at whom Bobbie
was staring. Diana’s face was ghastly; her eyes were wide with a terror
she could not conceal; her skin the colour of chalk. Gordon jumped up
and ran to her.
“Whatever’s the matter?” he asked, in genuine alarm.
“Nothing,” she said with a gasp. “Perhaps I’m feeling the parting. I
always go like this when my cousins go away!”
“Have you had bad news?”
Her letters were open on the table. She shook her head.
“No; the butcher’s arithmetic is a little embrangled. Ever heard that
word before, Gordon? I guess you haven’t! I found it in _Tom Brown’s
School Days_. Bobbie, don’t stare, it’s very rude....”
Under her covering hand was the letter she had been reading.
Mr. Dempsi was very much alive: was in London at that moment. The
opening lines of his letter were significant.
“My bride! I have come to claim you!”
Dempsi always wrote like that.