Читать книгу Dr Night - Aidan de Brune - Страница 10

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THE short journey up William Street passed almost in silence. At King's Cross the two men alighted, and three men from another compartment of the tram followed them. Crossing the road Hardy, murmuring something about cigarettes, entered a soft-drinks shop. Frost waited outside. Here was a chance to pass the necessary instructions to his waiting men.

In a few moments the journalist rejoined the Inspector and the two men with their shadows, sauntered along Darlinghurst Road. Just opposite the short lane leading to the head of the stops, Hardy paused.

"I propose to be at the head of the steps exactly at the hour," he said casually. "I shall wait there two minutes, and then walk down the steps to Roslyn Gardens at a fair pace. If I reach the foot of the steps before five minutes past, then I shall wait there until the time is up."

"So you have no objections now to my accompanying you?" asked the Inspector, with some surprise.

"I am leaving that decision to you."

Hardy registered astonishment in a nearly perfect manner.

"I warn you that if you insist on accompanying me it is possible that my correspondent will not show up. Still, there is a chance that I may be mistaken."

"I'm coming."

Frost was doggedly determined, that in no circumstances would he lose sight of the journalist that night, or at least not until well past eleven o'clock.

Across the road, the lane leading to the head of the steps lay silent and dark. In the distance a deepening in the blackness denoted the head of the steps. For a minute the two men stood side by side, looking down the lane. Within the next half-hour that quiet spot might be the scene of one of the most sensational episodes in police history of Sydney.

Hardy looked at his watch.

"What do you make the time, Frost?" Hardy spoke casually. "We had better set our watches together. I make it three minutes to the hour, by the G.P.O. clock, this morning."

The Inspector set his watch, which happened to be a few minutes slow, by the journalist's. For another minute they stood, quietly talking.

"Time's up!" said Hardy, briskly. "Coming?"

Without looking round, he led the way across the road and down the lane to the head of the steps. Half-way down a large tree cast a heavy shadow across the steps. It was necessary to proceed with careful watchfulness. Frost was on the lighter side of the passage and forged slightly ahead.

Once again, when the light of the lamp lit the path, he turned and spoke to the journalist. To his surprise Hardy had disappeared.

Inspector Frost was startled. He could have sworn that Hardy had stood beside him within the last five seconds.

Immediately he became the alert police officer. Quietly turning on the steps, he surveyed his surroundings. On his right was a low wooden fence bordering a somewhat untidy garden. There was little shrubbery in that garden, certainly not enough to cover a man. The light of the lamp illuminated the garden fairly well, and after a careful look over the Inspector decided that the journalist could not have escaped that way.

On the left side, the steps were bordered by a high cement wall, too high, in the police officer's opinion, for Hardy to have surmounted so quickly and quietly. Away behind him the steps ascended to the path. It would take a very active man nearly half a minute to have run up the steps and around the corner of the lane. Certainly, no one could have run that distance in quick time without making considerable noise, and the disappearance of the journalist had been absolutely noiseless.

The only remaining avenue of escape was down the steps to the Gardens, and that would have necessitated passing before the police officer. Suddenly Frost darted towards the cement wall, right in the heart of the shadow. There was a low door, almost indistinguishable in the darkness. Throwing his weight against it, the Inspector found it was locked. Yet Hardy might have found it open until he had passed through, and then shot the bolt.

With a spring the Inspector got his hands on the top of the wall and pulled himself up. Straddling the wall, he saw below him a well-groomed flower garden. From his seat he could see every inch of the ground, and Hardy certainly was not concealed there. Decidedly puzzled, Frost came to the conclusion that the journalist must have doubled back up the steps. It seemed impossible, but there was no other solution of the mystery.

Running up the stops and along the lane, the Inspector came out under the lamp in Darlinghurst road. He gave a low whistle and a man came out of the shadows towards him.

"Anyone come up the steps, Thompson?" asked Frost abruptly.

"No, sir," replied the plain-clothes constable. "Not a soul been along here since you and Mr. Hardy went down there."

"Did Mr. Hardy come this way?" The Inspector disliked asking the question. He had been hoodwinked, and he did not wish his subordinates to know it.

"Mr. Hardy, sir?" inquired the man. "No sir. He went down the steps with you and has not come back again. Did you separate?"

"Yes!" half-lied Frost. "Keep a sharp look out. Something queer is happening in this neighbourhood. Whistle immediately you see anything suspicious."

At that moment the clock of a nearby church chimed the four quarters, and then commenced to strike the hour. Instinctively, the Inspector pulled out his watch.

"That clock's slow," he remarked.

"Not much, sir." The man pulled out a large silver watch. "Just two minutes."

"Your watch is dead wrong," exclaimed Frost heatedly. "That clock is seven or eight minutes slow."

"I put my watch right by the station clock just before I came out," replied the officer doggedly. "I ain't a minute out."

"But Mr. Hardy and I put our watches—" Frost stopped suddenly in the middle of the sentence. He had remembered comparing watches with Hardy and that he had advanced his watch five minutes to make it coincide with the journalist's watch. Hardy had claimed that his watch was exact, and Frost had carelessly accepted that assurance.

The journalist had set his watch five minutes fast. Frost had not to think long to guess the puzzle. All through the day he had watched the journalist carefully, expecting some trick. Then, for one moment he had been off his guard, and in that moment Hardy had planned and made his get-away.

For some moments Frost stood wondering at the cleverness of the journalist. It had been a simple trick; so simple that it had caught him off his guard. He had been suspicious of the sudden acquiescence of the newspaper-man to the companionship of the police. He had expected Hardy to make some attempt to evade the continued espionage, and had anticipated with grim humour the sudden and effective counter-move he had prepared. Then, at the one moment when he could not retrieve any error, the journalist had fooled him—tricked him as if he were but a novice.

In the police force, Frost had built up a reputation for dogged perseverance. It had become a tradition that any criminal on whose trail he had camped would be run down and certainly captured. He was "Bulldog" Frost, and any man on whom his hand rested was a safe and sure prisoner.

One consolation the detective had. Hardy was within the lines he had drawn round the steps, and he could not get out without his permission. Walking quickly up the road, Frost passed the word to close the net and bring everyone within it to him.

Then, slowly and methodically, he started to make the circuit of his lines. At the end of Roslyn Gardens he came upon his first clue. A few minutes after eleven a closed car had driven up to the policeman on duly, and had been passed through the lines. A young lady had driven the car. She had stopped when challenged by the police, and explained that she had been visiting friends in the Gardens. She had given her name and address, and had been alone in the car.

"Anything in the car?" demanded Frost.

"Only rugs and things motorists litter up their car with," replied the man.

Frost knew that he was beaten. The girl was "D" or an agent of "D," and under those rugs littering the back of the car had lain Robert Hardy, a prisoner or a free agent.

Frost cursed his luck as he made his way back to the steps. There he made a careful examination by the light of his electric torch. He could see the marks which he had made in climbing the cement wall. There were no other marks.

Climbing on to the wall again, he made a careful inspection of the beds and paths. Again he confronted a blank. Back on the steps, he glanced over the wooden wall at the patch of ground bordering the wall and flashed his torch over the loose soil. There were no footmarks. Hardy had disappeared as if he had been snatched up into the clouds.

"I'll make him come across with the trick when I see him again," muttered Frost savagely. "He put one over on me that time. I'll give him credit for that."

In Darlinghurst Road once more, Frost called his men off duty and went down to the Mirror offices. There he sought an interview with Thomas, after learning that Hardy had not returned.

"Any luck, Frost?" asked the managing editor when the detective entered his room.

"Hardy's disappeared," replied the Inspector, sinking into a chair.

"What?" Thomas jumped as though he had been seated on springs. "What do you mean, Frost? If anything's happened to that boy, I'll—"

"He played the disappearing trick himself," retorted the Inspector baldly. "You remember how I urged that you should forbid him to part from me. You refused to interfere. So he disappeared on his own."

"Put one over on you?"

Thomas was grave for a moment, and then laughed. "Rather a come-down for the police force."

"I'll give him his due; it was smart work." Frost was, at last, able to laugh at his own discomfiture. "That young man would make a criminal that would turn white the hair of a force of Commissioners."