across the dip into the road, and, steadying as it came upon the
straight, began to hum contentedly along the deserted highway.
"We are not going direct?" suddenly inquired Hollyer, after they had
travelled perhaps half-a-dozen miles. The night was bewildering enough
but he had the sailor's gift for location.
"No; through Hunscott Green and then by a field-path to the orchard at
the back," replied Carrados. "Keep a sharp look out for the man with
the lantern about here, Harris," he called through the tube.
"Something flashing just ahead, sir," came the reply, and the car
slowed down and stopped.
Carrados dropped the near window as a man in glistening waterproof
stepped from the shelter of a lich-gate and approached.
"Inspector Beedel, sir," said the stranger, looking into the car.
"Quite right, Inspector," said Carrados. "Get in."
"I have a man with me, sir."
"We can find room for him as well."
"We are very wet."
"So shall we all be soon."
The lieutenant changed his seat and the two burly forms took places
side by side. In less than five minutes the car stopped again, this
time in a grassy country lane.
"Now we have to face it," announced Carrados. "The inspector will show
us the way."
The car slid round and disappeared into the night, while Beedel led
the party to a stile in the hedge. A couple of fields brought them to
the Brookbend boundary. There a figure stood out of the black foliage,
exchanged a few words with their guide and piloted them along the
shadows of the orchard to the back door of the house.
"You will find a broken pane near the catch of the scullery window,"
said the blind man.
"Right, sir," replied the inspector. "I have it. Now who goes
through?"
"Mr. Hollyer will open the door for us. I'm afraid you must take off
your boots and all wet things, Lieutenant. We cannot risk a single
spot inside."
They waited until the back door opened, then each one divested himself
in a similar manner and passed into the kitchen, where the remains of
a fire still burned. The man from the orchard gathered together the
discarded garments and disappeared again.
Carrados turned to the lieutenant.
"A rather delicate job for you now, Mr. Hollyer. I want you to go up
to your sister, wake her, and get her into another room with as little
fuss as possible. Tell her as much as you think fit and let her
understand that her very life depends on absolute stillness when she
is alone. Don't be unduly hurried, but not a glimmer of a light,
please."
Ten minutes passed by the measure of the battered old alarum on the
dresser shelf before the young man returned.
"I've had rather a time of it," he reported, with a nervous laugh,
"but I think it will be all right now. She is in the spare room."
"Then we will take our places. You and Parkinson come with me to the
bedroom. Inspector, you have your own arrangements. Mr. Carlyle will
be with you."
They dispersed silently about the house. Hollyer glanced
apprehensively at the door of the spare room as they passed it, but
within was as quiet as the grave. Their room lay at the other end of
the passage.
"You may as well take your place in the bed now, Hollyer," directed
Carrados when they were inside and the door closed. "Keep well down
among the clothes. Creake has to get up on the balcony, you know, and
he will probably peep through the window, but he dare come no farther.
Then when he begins to throw up stones slip on this dressing-gown of
your sister's. I'll tell you what to do after."
The next sixty minutes drew out into the longest hour that the
lieutenant had ever known. Occasionally he heard a whisper pass
between the two men who stood behind the window curtains, but he could
see nothing. Then Carrados threw a guarded remark in his direction.
"He is in the garden now."
Something scraped slightly against the outer wall. But the night was
full of wilder sounds, and in the house the furniture and the boards
creaked and sprung between the yawling of the wind among the chimneys,
the rattle of the thunder and the pelting of the rain. It was a time
to quicken the steadiest pulse, and when the crucial moment came, when
a pebble suddenly rang against the pane with a sound that the tense
waiting magnified into a shivering crash, Hollyer leapt from the bed
on the instant.
"Easy, easy," warned Carrados feelingly. "We will wait for another
knock." He passed something across. "Here is a rubber glove. I have
cut the wire but you had better put it on. Stand just for a moment at
the window, move the catch so that it can blow open a little, and drop
immediately. Now."
Another stone had rattled against the glass. For Hollyer to go through
his part was the work merely of seconds, and with a few touches
Carrados spread the dressing-gown to more effective disguise about the
extended form. But an unforeseen and in the circumstances rather
horrible interval followed, for Creake, in accordance with some detail
of his never-revealed plan, continued to shower missile after missile
against the panes until even the unimpressionable Parkinson shivered.
"The last act," whispered Carrados, a moment after the throwing had
ceased. "He has gone round to the back. Keep as you are. We take cover
now." He pressed behind the arras of an extemporized wardrobe, and the
spirit of emptiness and desolation seemed once more to reign over the
lonely house.
From half-a-dozen places of concealment ears were straining to catch
the first guiding sound. He moved very stealthily, burdened, perhaps,
by some strange scruple in the presence of the tragedy that he had not
feared to contrive, paused for a moment at the bedroom door, then
opened it very quietly, and in the fickle light read the consummation
of his hopes.
"At last!" they heard the sharp whisper drawn from his relief. "At
last!"
He took another step and two shadows seemed to fall upon him from
behind, one on either side. With primitive instinct a cry of terror
and surprise escaped him as he made a desperate movement to wrench
himself free, and for a short second he almost succeeded in dragging
one hand into a pocket. Then his wrists slowly came together and the
handcuffs closed.
"I am Inspector Beedel," said the man on his right side. "You are
charged with the attempted murder of your wife, Millicent Creake."
"You are mad," retorted the miserable creature, falling into a
desperate calmness. "She has been struck by lightning."
"No, you blackguard, she hasn't," wrathfully exclaimed his
brother-in-law, jumping up. "Would you like to see her?"
"I also have to warn you," continued the inspector impassively, "that
anything you say may be used as evidence against you."
A startled cry from the farther end of the passage arrested their
attention.
"Mr. Carrados," called Hollyer, "oh, come at once."
At the open door of the other bedroom stood the lieutenant, his eyes
still turned towards something in the room beyond, a little empty
bottle in his hand.
"Dead!" he exclaimed tragically, with a sob, "with this beside her.
Dead just when she would have been free of the brute."
The blind man passed into the room, sniffed the air, and laid a gentle
hand on the pulseless heart.
"Yes," he replied. "That, Hollyer, does not always appeal to the
woman, strange to say."
THE LAST EXPLOIT OF HARRY THE ACTOR
The one insignificant fact upon which turned the following incident in
the joint experiences of Mr. Carlyle and Max Carrados was merely this:
that having called upon his friend just at the moment when the private
detective was on the point of leaving his office to go to the safe
deposit in Lucas Street, Piccadilly, the blind amateur accompanied
him, and for ten minutes amused himself by sitting quite quietly among
the palms in the centre of the circular hall while Mr. Carlyle was
occupied with his deed-box in one of the little compartments provided
for the purpose.
The Lucas Street depository was then (it has since been converted into
a picture palace) generally accepted as being one of the strongest
places in London. The front of the building was constructed to
represent a gigantic safe door, and under the colloquial designation
of "The Safe" the place had passed into a synonym for all that was
secure and impregnable. Half of the marketable securities in the west
of London were popularly reported to have seen the inside of its
coffers at one time or another, together with the same generous
proportion of family jewels. However exaggerated an estimate this
might be, the substratum of truth was solid and auriferous enough to
dazzle the imagination. When ordinary safes were being carried bodily
away with impunity or ingeniously fused open by the scientifically
equipped cracksman, nervous bond-holders turned with relief to the
attractions of an establishment whose modest claim was summed up in
its telegraphic address: "Impregnable." To it went also the jewel-case
between the lady's social engagements, and when in due course "the
family" journeyed north--or south, east or west--whenever, in short,
the London house was closed, its capacious storerooms received the
plate-chest as an established custom. Not a few traders
also--jewellers, financiers, dealers in pictures, antiques and costly
bijouterie, for instance--constantly used its facilities for any stock
that they did not require immediately to hand.
There was only one entrance to the place, an exaggerated keyhole, to
carry out the similitude of the safe-door alluded to. The ground floor
was occupied by the ordinary offices of the company; all the
strong-rooms and safes lay in the steel-cased basement. This was
reached both by a lift and by a flight of steps. In either case the
visitor found before him a grille of massive proportions. Behind its
bars stood a formidable commissionaire who never left his post, his
sole duty being to open and close the grille to arriving and departing
clients. Beyond this, a short passage led into the round central hall
where Carrados was waiting. From this part, other passages radiated
off to the vaults and strong-rooms, each one barred from the hall by a
grille scarcely less ponderous than the first one. The doors of the
various private rooms put at the disposal of the company's clients,
and that of the manager's office, filled the wall-space between the
radiating passages. Everything was very quiet, everything looked very
bright, and everything seemed hopelessly impregnable.
"But I wonder?" ran Carrados's dubious reflection as he reached this
point.
"Sorry to have kept you so long, my dear Max," broke in Mr. Carlyle's
crisp voice. He had emerged from his compartment and was crossing the
hall, deed-box in hand. "Another minute and I will be with you."
Carrados smiled and nodded and resumed his former expression, which
was merely that of an uninterested gentleman waiting patiently for
another. It is something of an attainment to watch closely without
betraying undue curiosity, but others of the senses--hearing and
smelling, for instance--can be keenly engaged while the observer
possibly has the appearance of falling asleep.
"Now," announced Mr. Carlyle, returning briskly to his friend's chair,
and drawing on his grey suède gloves.
"You are in no particular hurry?"
"No," admitted the professional man, with the slowness of mild
surprise. "Not at all. What do you propose?"
"It is very pleasant here," replied Carrados tranquilly. "Very cool
and restful with this armoured steel between us and the dust and
scurry of the hot July afternoon above. I propose remaining here for a
few minutes longer."
"Certainly," agreed Mr. Carlyle, taking the nearest chair and eyeing
Carrados as though he had a shrewd suspicion of something more than
met the ear. "I believe some very interesting people rent safes here.
We may encounter a bishop, or a winning jockey, or even a musical
comedy actress. Unfortunately it seems to be rather a slack time."
"Two men came down while you were in your cubicle," remarked Carrados
casually. "The first took the lift. I imagine that he was a
middle-aged, rather portly man. He carried a stick, wore a silk hat,
and used spectacles for close sight. The other came by the stairway. I
infer that he arrived at the top immediately after the lift had gone.
He ran down the steps, so that the two were admitted at the same time,
but the second man, though the more active of the pair, hung back for
a moment in the passage and the portly one was the first to go to his
safe."
Mr. Carlyle's knowing look expressed: "Go on, my friend; you are
coming to something." But he merely contributed an encouraging "Yes?"
"When you emerged just now our second man quietly opened the door of
his pen a fraction. Doubtless he looked out. Then he closed it as
quietly again. You were not his man, Louis."
"I am grateful," said Mr. Carlyle expressively. "What next, Max?"
"That is all; they are still closeted."
Both were silent for a moment. Mr. Carlyle's feeling was one of
unconfessed perplexity. So far the incident was utterly trivial in his
eyes; but he knew that the trifles which appeared significant to Max
had a way of standing out like signposts when the time came to look
back over an episode. Carrados's sightless faculties seemed indeed to
keep him just a move ahead as the game progressed.
"Is there really anything in it, Max?" he asked at length.
"Who can say?" replied Carrados. "At least we may wait to see them go.
Those tin deed-boxes now. There is one to each safe, I think?"
"Yes, so I imagine. The practice is to carry the box to your private
lair and there unlock it and do your business. Then you lock it up
again and take it back to your safe."
"Steady! our first man," whispered Carrados hurriedly. "Here, look at
this with me." He opened a paper--a prospectus--which he pulled from
his pocket, and they affected to study its contents together.
"You were about right, my friend," muttered Mr. Carlyle, pointing to a
paragraph of assumed interest. "Hat, stick and spectacles. He is a
clean-shaven, pink-faced old boy. I believe--yes, I know the man by
sight. He is a bookmaker in a large way, I am told."
"Here comes the other," whispered Carrados.
The bookmaker passed across the hall, joined on his way by the manager
whose duty it was to counterlock the safe, and disappeared along one
of the passages. The second man sauntered up and down, waiting his
turn. Mr. Carlyle reported his movements in an undertone and described
him. He was a younger man than the other, of medium height, and
passably well dressed in a quiet lounge suit, green Alpine hat and
brown shoes. By the time the detective had reached his wavy chestnut
hair, large and rather ragged moustache, and sandy, freckled
complexion, the first man had completed his business and was leaving
the place.
"It isn't an exchange lay, at all events," said Mr. Carlyle. "His
inner case is only half the size of the other and couldn't possibly be
substituted."
"Come up now," said Carrados, rising. "There is nothing more to be
learned down here."
They requisitioned the lift, and on the steps outside the gigantic
keyhole stood for a few minutes discussing an investment as a couple
of trustees or a lawyer and a client who were parting there might do.
Fifty yards away, a very large silk hat with a very curly brim marked
the progress of the bookmaker towards Piccadilly.
The lift in the hall behind them swirled up again and the gate
clashed. The second man walked leisurely out and sauntered away
without a backward glance.
"He has gone in the opposite direction," exclaimed Mr. Carlyle, rather
blankly. "It isn't the 'lame goat' nor the 'follow-me-on,' nor even
the homely but efficacious sand-bag."
"What colour were his eyes?" asked Carrados.
"Upon my word, I never noticed," admitted the other.
"Parkinson would have noticed," was the severe comment.
"I am not Parkinson," retorted Mr. Carlyle, with asperity, "and,
strictly as one dear friend to another, Max, permit me to add, that
while cherishing an unbounded admiration for your remarkable gifts, I
have the strongest suspicion that the whole incident is a ridiculous
mare's nest, bred in the fantastic imagination of an enthusiastic
criminologist."
Mr. Carrados received this outburst with the utmost benignity. "Come
and have a coffee, Louis," he suggested. "Mehmed's is only a street
away."
Mehmed proved to be a cosmopolitan gentleman from Mocha whose shop
resembled a house from the outside and an Oriental divan when one was
within. A turbaned Arab placed cigarettes and cups of coffee spiced
with saffron before the customers, gave salaam and withdrew.
"You know, my dear chap," continued Mr. Carlyle, sipping his black
coffee and wondering privately whether it was really very good or very
bad, "speaking quite seriously, the one fishy detail--our ginger
friend's watching for the other to leave--may be open to a dozen very
innocent explanations."
"So innocent that to-morrow I intend taking a safe myself."
"You think that everything is all right?"
"On the contrary, I am convinced that something is very wrong."
"Then why--?"
"I shall keep nothing there, but it will give me the _entrée_. I
should advise you, Louis, in the first place to empty your safe with
all possible speed, and in the second to leave your business card on
the manager."
Mr. Carlyle pushed his cup away, convinced now that the coffee was
really very bad.
"But, my dear Max, the place--'The Safe'--is impregnable!"
"When I was in the States, three years ago, the head porter at one
hotel took pains to impress on me that the building was absolutely
fireproof. I at once had my things taken off to another hotel. Two
weeks later the first place was burnt out. It _was_ fireproof, I
believe, but of course the furniture and the fittings were not and the
walls gave way."
"Very ingenious," admitted Mr. Carlyle, "but why did you really go?
You know you can't humbug me with your superhuman sixth sense, my
friend."
Carrados smiled pleasantly, thereby encouraging the watchful attendant
to draw near and replenish their tiny cups.
"Perhaps," replied the blind man, "because so many careless people
were satisfied that it was fireproof."
"Ah-ha, there you are--the greater the confidence the greater the
risk. But only if your self-confidence results in carelessness. Now do
you know how this place is secured, Max?"
"I am told that they lock the door at night," replied Carrados, with
bland malice.
"And hide the key under the mat to be ready for the first arrival in
the morning," crowed Mr. Carlyle, in the same playful spirit. "Dear
old chap! Well, let me tell you--"
"That force is out of the question. Quite so," admitted his friend.
"That simplifies the argument. Let us consider fraud. There again the
precautions are so rigid that many people pronounce the forms a
nuisance. I confess that I do not. I regard them as a means of
protecting my own property and I cheerfully sign my name and give my
password, which the manager compares with his record-book before he
releases the first lock of my safe. The signature is burned before my
eyes in a sort of crucible there, the password is of my own choosing
and is written only in a book that no one but the manager ever sees,
and my key is the sole one in existence."
"No duplicate or master-key?"
"Neither. If a key is lost it takes a skilful mechanic half-a-day to
cut his way in. Then you must remember that clients of a safe-deposit
are not multitudinous. All are known more or less by sight to the
officials there, and a stranger would receive close attention. Now,
Max, by what combination of circumstances is a rogue to know my
password, to be able to forge my signature, to possess himself of my
key, and to resemble me personally? And, finally, how is he possibly
to determine beforehand whether there is anything in my safe to repay
so elaborate a plant?" Mr. Carlyle concluded in triumph and was so
carried away by the strength of his position that he drank off the
contents of his second cup before he realized what he was doing.
"At the hotel I just spoke of," replied Carrados, "there was an
attendant whose one duty in case of alarm was to secure three iron
doors. On the night of the fire he had a bad attack of toothache and
slipped away for just a quarter of an hour to have the thing out.
There was a most up-to-date system of automatic fire alarm; it had
been tested only the day before and the electrician, finding some part
not absolutely to his satisfaction, had taken it away and not had time
to replace it. The night watchman, it turned out, had received leave
to present himself a couple of hours later on that particular night,
and the hotel fireman, whose duties he took over, had missed being
notified. Lastly, there was a big riverside blaze at the same time and
all the engines were down at the other end of the city."
Mr. Carlyle committed himself to a dubious monosyllable. Carrados
leaned forward a little.
"All these circumstances formed a coincidence of pure chance.
Is it not conceivable, Louis, that an even more remarkable series
might be brought about by design?"
"Our tawny friend?"
"Possibly. Only he was not really tawny." Mr. Carlyle's easy attitude
suddenly stiffened into rigid attention. "He wore a false moustache."
"He wore a false moustache!" repeated the amazed gentleman. "And you
cannot see! No, really, Max, this is beyond the limit!"
"If only you would not trust your dear, blundering old eyes so
implicitly you would get nearer that limit yourself," retorted
Carrados. "The man carried a five-yard aura of spirit gum, emphasized
by a warm, perspiring skin. That inevitably suggested one thing. I
looked for further evidence of making-up and found it--these
preparations all smell. The hair you described was characteristically
that of a wig--worn long to hide the joining and made wavy to minimize
the length. All these things are trifles. As yet we have not gone
beyond the initial stage of suspicion. I will tell you another trifle.
When this man retired to a compartment with his deed-box, he never
even opened it. Possibly it contains a brick and a newspaper. He is
only watching."
"Watching the bookmaker."
"True, but it may go far wider than that. Everything points to a plot
of careful elaboration. Still, if you are satisfied--"
"I am quite satisfied," replied Mr. Carlyle gallantly. "I regard 'The
Safe' almost as a national institution, and as such I have an implicit
faith in its precautions against every kind of force or fraud." So far
Mr. Carlyle's attitude had been suggestive of a rock, but at this
point he took out his watch, hummed a little to pass the time,
consulted his watch again, and continued: "I am afraid that there were
one or two papers which I overlooked. It would perhaps save me coming
again to-morrow if I went back now--"
"Quite so," acquiesced Carrados, with perfect gravity. "I will wait
for you."
For twenty minutes he sat there, drinking an occasional tiny cup of
boiled coffee and to all appearance placidly enjoying the quaint
atmosphere which Mr. Mehmed had contrived to transplant from the
shores of the Persian Gulf.
At the end of that period Carlyle returned, politely effusive about
the time he had kept his friend waiting but otherwise bland and
unassailable. Anyone with eyes might have noticed that he carried a
parcel of about the same size and dimensions as the deed-box that
fitted his safe.
The next day Carrados presented himself at the safe-deposit as an
intending renter. The manager showed him over the vaults and
strong-rooms, explaining the various precautions taken to render the
guile or force of man impotent: the strength of the chilled-steel
walls, the casing of electricity-resisting concrete, the stupendous
isolation of the whole inner fabric on metal pillars so that the
watchman, while inside the building, could walk above, below, and all
round the outer walls of what was really--although it bore no actual
relationship to the advertising device of the front--a monstrous safe;
and, finally, the arrangement which would enable the basement to be
flooded with steam within three minutes of an alarm. These details
were public property. "The Safe" was a showplace and its directors
held that no harm could come of displaying a strong hand.