TOBY MARSH GOES TO A PARTY
“It would take a week’s search to find the body,” said Bullott, as
they were driving home together. “There are dozens of pits and caves
into which they could have thrown him. It was an act of lunacy for you
to go there at all.”
“You’ll pinch Laffin, of course?” said Bill.
“No, sir,” he answered quietly. “I’ve no evidence upon which I can
arrest the doctor. I haven’t even got the body. But this I can tell
you, that Laffin is being watched closer than a fire! There is nothing
to do but to wait until the rangers discover the body, and that may
take weeks. We have one chance of connecting Laffin with these crimes.
I am taking that chance to-morrow night.”
“You mean the raid on the Priory?”
“There is no better time. Do you know what happens next week?”
“The only thing I know that happens next week is that the mysterious
twenty-ninth of July occurs on Saturday.”
“Next week they declare the Midsummer argosies of the Sons of
Ragousa,” said Bullott. “That means that the draw takes place either
Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. I guess it is Monday, because your
cousin, Mr. Pawter, is arranging to leave London for Plymouth by the
10.30 train to-morrow morning.”
Bullott was not visible for the rest of the evening. He locked himself
up in his room and gave himself entirely to the problem of the Sons of
Ragousa. It was a problem seemingly insoluble. What importance should
he give to the mysterious hints of Toby Marsh? What could Marsh tell
him? His passion for secrecy had allowed him only to give the most
tantalising glimpses of his mind, and toward eleven o’clock Bullott
took a sudden decision. He kicked off his slippers, pulled on his
shoes, and, without saying a word to his lodger, who, he knew, was
working in his room, went out.
Soon after midnight a taxi brought him to Robbs Road, and to the house
which he knew was occupied by the burglar.
“Your luck’s in,” said Toby Marsh, who opened the door to him. “Five
minutes later, and you’d have missed me.”
“Are you going out?” asked Bullott, regarding him with professional
suspicion.
“I’m going out, but on a perfectly childlike errand,” said Toby
Marsh. “In fact, I’m going to a party, and if you’re a wise man you’ll
go home, get into your glad clothes and join me.”
Toby was wearing an old-fashioned tuxedo.
“You look good enough to eat,” said Bullott admiringly. “Where are
you going?”
“To Madame La Florette, at her palatial home on Portman Place,” said
Toby. “I’ve had an invitation by card, and I guess Jenny won’t object
if I bring a friend.”
Bullott’s first thought was to decline the invitation.
“I’ll go with you if you’ll tell me something I want to know.”
“Make no conditions, my busy friend,” said Toby, “I’m offering you
the experience of a lifetime. What do you want to know?”
“I want a little more information about Laffin.”
“I can tell you a whole lot,” said the other. “Laffin is at this
moment”--he looked at his watch--“interviewing Captain Harvey Hale,
that queer man of the sea. If you were sitting in his study you’d
learn no more than I already know, and which I’ll tell you in course
of time. By the way did the impetuous and inexperienced Mr. Holbrook
keep his appointment?”
“He did,” said the other grimly.
“And he got back alive. I guessed that because you’re not very
agitated. And did he find Tinker?”
“Yes; how did you know?”
“I guessed. Alive or dead?”
“Dead,” said Bullott.
“I was afraid that was how it would be. It occurred to me this
afternoon what an excellent opportunity there was for drama in that
wood, and there can be no doubt about the dramatic instincts of the
Ragousas.”
“Marsh, you know a little too much about this business,” said
Bullott, his old suspicions aroused.
“I’m beginning to think you’re right,” said Toby, with a sigh. “I
found myself dreaming about them last night--the Ragousas, I mean.”
He looked thoughtfully at the detective. “Are you pretty strong?” he
asked.
“Fairly,” said Bullott.
“Could you work four hours at a stretch in an atmosphere of a hundred
and four degrees?”
“Why?” asked the astounded Bullott.
“I’m asking you,” said the imperturbable burglar. “Would your
constitution stand up to it?”
“I think so; I am a fairly healthy man,” said Bullott. “But what’s
the mystery? Do you ever speak straight out and say what you mean,
Marsh?”
“Only when I plead not guilty,” said Mr. Marsh.
As Bullott opened the door of his house, Bill Holbrook came to the
head of the stairs, and was promptly invited to join the party; and,
guessing more from Marsh’s manner than from what he said, Bill, whose
inclinations were towards bed, changed quickly and joined the little
man in Bullott’s sitting-room.
“Here’s a strange thing, Holbrook,” said Toby. “Florette’s been in
that new house of hers about ten minutes. Well, say a couple of days.
You wouldn’t think she’d have got the invitations out so quick, would
you, as she has? And some swell performers have been engaged. Half the
stars at the opera have had a hurry-up call, and Bazley’s are doing
the refreshments.”
“She asked you, but she didn’t ask me; do I get thrown out?”
“You stick to me, boy,” said Toby, “and you’ll see something.”
There was very little to see when they reached Portman Place, except
masses of people. The ballroom was so crowded that dancing was
impossible. In the big drawing-room, the throng who had gathered to
listen to a great coloratura bulged out through the doorway into the
hall. And the harassed servants, newly engaged, challenged neither
Toby nor the two people who accompanied him.
Of La Florette there was no sign, but by judicious inquiry Marsh
discovered that there was a card-room on the ground floor, and it was
here that he met his hostess and introduced his friends. La Florette
favoured him with a mechanical smile, and shot a quick, surprised
glance from Holbrook to the detective.
“I’ve seen you somewhere, young man?” she said.
“A reporter on the _Post-Herald_,” said Toby in a stage whisper. “I
thought I’d bring him along in case you wanted any publicity.”
“Well, I don’t,” snapped Florette. “I’m very glad to see you, Mr.
What’s-your-name, but I don’t want anything about this party to go in
the newspapers.”
With a nod she passed on to join a grey-haired man, whose eyes had
never left her.
“That is Sir Richard Paxton, of the Treasury,” said Bill, recognising
him. “What is he doing in this galley?”
“Paxton has been a front-row lizard at all La Florette’s productions
for the past two years,” Toby answered.
“I’ve heard that Treasury officials go mad at fifty-five,” said Bill.
“This is one of those cases. I wonder who is paying the bill?”
Somebody else in the party was pondering that question. Mr. Charles
Van Campe was amazed, but also alarmed, at the prodigality of the
entertainment. He waited an opportunity, which was long in coming, to
take his friends to the little study at the back of the hall which she
had reserved for her own use that night.
“Kid, this is fine, I hope you’ve so fixed it with Laffin, that
there’s no come-back. Did he give you any money?”
She mentioned a sum and he whistled.
“That wouldn’t pay the breakage bill,” he said. “You want to see him
right away and get this scheme of his on a proper business basis. A
man told me yesterday that he’s near broke, and I know for a fact that
he’s only paid a deposit on the rent of this house.”
“He will not let me down,” she said, but she was a little uneasy.
“I’m ’phoning him to-night--I was hoping he would come, but he told me
he was too busy.”
“’Phone him now,” urged Van Campe, troubled.
She locked the door and called Laffin’s number.
“He’s probably in bed,” she said. “Those kind of men do not keep late
hours----”
Even as she spoke she heard Laffin’s gentle voice.
“It is La Florette speaking, Doctor,” she said in a low voice. “I
have the information you wanted.” And in two sentences she told him
all he wished to know, though she did not realise this until a long
time afterwards. “And Doctor, don’t you think it would be wise if you
let me have some money? The five hundred you sent me will not go very
far. The band has cost a hundred, and the people who supply the
refreshments want a cheque to-morrow morning.”
“That will be quite in order, Miss Florette,” said the soothing voice
of the doctor. “You need have no apprehension. I will send you a
cheque by the early morning delivery.”
Before she could urge this need still further, he had switched off.
“Well, that’s that,” she said with a sigh of relief. “I don’t think
you need worry, Charles. Now come and meet some of my friends.”
“Who is that queer-looking man in glasses?”
“He’s a friend of mother’s,” she said, bitterly regretting that, in a
moment of expansiveness, induced by Toby Marsh’s unblushing flattery,
she had sent him an invitation at all.
“I know the reporter who is with him; he ought to be able to get some
good publicity for you.”
“Dr. Laffin doesn’t want a word in the newspapers. Can you beat it?”
she said, with pardonable exasperation. “I’m supposed to be getting
publicity out of this stunt of his, and yet not a line must be
published!”
She saw the three standing in the hall together as she went back to
the ballroom, and observed with satisfaction that Mr. Marsh was being
helped into his coat.
Toby was the first to leave, and stood waiting for the other two
whilst the footman found their belongings. Bill had walked out on to
the street, and Bullott was following, when he heard the footman say:
“Excuse me, sir,” and felt in his pocket for a tip. “Can I have a
word with you?”
The detective looked at the servant in surprise.
“Yes, certainly,” he said.
The footman came with him to the sidewalk.
“You don’t know me, sir, but I know you. You’re Mr. Bullott of
Headquarters, aren’t you?”
“That is so,” said Bullott, as the man made a sign. “You’re a
Ragousa?”
“I wanted to talk to you about that,” the man went on. “I was at the
lodge when you were initiated. You wouldn’t know me, because I was one
of the two men who put on your robes.”
Bullott remembered the two attendants in the anteroom who had assisted
himself and Bill Holbrook to don the livery of the Proud Sons.
“What I wanted to ask you, sir, was this,” said the man, lowering his
voice and glancing back at the open door. “Do you think everything is
all square and above-board with the Ragousas? It used to be,” he went
on quickly. “When I joined the order, about ten years ago, it was one
of the most brotherly societies you could wish for. And don’t think,
sir, that I’m trying to knock the order because they put me down from
the Twenty-Third and made me a small lodge member. We don’t mind that,
because it has happened to so many of us, and, after all, it’s an
honour to have been up above at all.”
“You were a Twenty-Third Degree-er, were you?”
“Yes, sir, I was a member of the Twenty-Third Degree for five years,
until I got the order from the Worshipful Master that I was to return
to the lower lodge. As I say, there’s nothing in that, but what I
can’t understand is the queer birds who are taking our place.”
“Where does the Twenty-Third Degree meet?”
The man hesitated.
“That’s a thing I’m not supposed to tell you, sir, but as I’ve said so
much, I might as well say a little more. They work the degree at the
Deptford Lodge. As a matter of fact, there isn’t a Deptford Lodge at
all, for although it is supposed to be just an ordinary lodge, only
Twenty-Third Degree men are members.”
“What kind of fellows are being initiated into the Twenty-Third?”
“The scum of the earth,” said the man emphatically. “If they’d raked
the mud of the Thames, they couldn’t have got up worse specimens!
There isn’t a riverside thief that hasn’t been initiated. The proper
number for the Twenty-Third is fifty members, but now there must be a
hundred.”
“Give me the address of the lodge-room,” said Bullott, and scribbled
it down on his shirt-cuff.
“You don’t mind me telling you this?” asked the footman anxiously. “I
feel I’m betraying the Order, and the Ragousas do queer things to
people who talk too much.”
“You can trust me,” said Bullott, and bidding good-night to the
footman he walked quickly after his two companions, who were slowly
pacing towards Oxford Circus.
“Mr. Yellowplush is one of your men, I suppose?” said Toby Marsh, and
Bullott did not correct that mistaken impression.
Mr. Toby Marsh did not return to his lodgings, but pursued his way to
the Camden Road. Not a hundred yards from Dr. Laffin’s house was a
group of small shops huddled together as though in fear of the
encroachments of their more pretentious neighbours. Each had its
narrow front, its small side door which led to the regions above, and
in the lock of one of these, Mr. Marsh inserted a key and passed
through.
At the end of the cramped passage a flight of stairs led to the upper
floors. He did not stop until he reached the poorly furnished attic
room which he had rented a few weeks before. Lighting the gas, he
pulled down the window shade carefully, and care was needed, for
through the open window top trailed a wire which ran to a small box
and a pair of headphones that stood on the wash-stand.
When he had excluded himself from chance observation, he pulled up a
chair, and, fixing the receivers to his ear, sat down to listen. What
he heard was apparently all-engrossing, for he did not stir for an
hour except to jot down a note or two on the writing-pad which lay
convenient to his hand. At the end of the hour, he took off his
’phones and, rising, stretched himself.
From the bottom of a cupboard he took out a small, leather case,
opened it and removed one by one the instruments of his craft,
delicate little tools, larger ones, ingeniously devised and fitting
together by clamps and screws, keys of unusual pattern, saws of
strange shape--he laid them on the bed and surveyed them with a
speculative eye.
Looking out of the window, he saw, to his surprise, that the sky was
going grey, and this fact apparently brought about an alteration of
his plans, for he replaced the tools one by one, and five minutes
later was walking briskly down Camden Road. A plain-clothes patrol saw
his gleaming spectacles, noted the handbag he carried, and turned
toward him.
“Good morning, Toby.”
“Good morning, Sergeant.”
Toby stopped.
“Early to rise, wealthy and wise,” said the detective. “Got a crop of
early worms in that little bag of yours?”
Without a word Toby handed over the bag, and without a word the
officer opened and searched. He found nothing but a dozen folders
dealing with the joys and comforts of Atlantic travel.
“Thinking of going abroad, Toby?” he smiled, as he snapped the bag
close and handed it back.
“Yep. My doctor has recommended a sea voyage.”
“You’ve found a nice boat--the _Escorial_. I almost thought you’d been
smashing a shipping office when I saw those folders.” The detective
was still in doubt, and, putting down his bag, Toby Marsh extended his
arms.
“Run me over, son--you’re itching to do it, and I’m in a hurry.”
The officer’s palms ran lightly over Toby Marsh.
“Clean bill,” he said. “Sorry to pull you up, but there’s something
very sinister about early rising.”
“Good morning.”
Toby passed on without annoyance. The officer had not searched his
hat, in the lining of which were three small keys, two of which gave
him the entrance to Dr. Laffin’s house, and the other to the last
place in the world that even Bullott would have imagined.