Читать книгу The Black and Other Stories - Edgar Wallace - Страница 5

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IT is true that conscience makes cowards of us all, but only true of a bad conscience. There is no greater asset in life than the possession of a fearless mind. The bad conscience is the blackmailer's banking account. It is queer what little things worry some people, and how others have big and serious offences to their discredit and yet can go through life with a smiling face and an untroubled mind. One man will worry himself to death because, as a youth, he fell into temptation and stole a few pounds from his employer, another will rob people all his life and sleep nine hours every night.

The true blackmailer is a man or woman who appreciates the psychology of the victim he or she may tackle. It is not a question of knowing a great deal about their victims' past acts so much as knowing something of their present state of mind, their prospects and their ambitions. One of the most extraordinary cases, extraordinary because of its bizarre features, that ever came my way, was the Cretapace affair. I knew Sir Ralph Cretapace (I am not giving real names of persons or places) by repute, though it had never been my lot to meet him. From all I had heard of him he was a shy, retiring man who hated publicity, and never went in for politics or public life of any kind, and whose name was certainly the last in the world I expected to ever have upon my books.

At the time the events which I am now describing occurred, I had a little office in Bond Street, and I was living in Acacia Road, St. John's Wood. Though my name and office address were to be found in the telephone book, my home address was omitted at my request, and this for obvious reasons. One does not want to be called up all hours of the day and night by people who, in a fit of remorse or terror, decide to invoke the aid of a detective agency. My experience is that there are very few cases of this kind which will not wait till the morning.

Therefore I was a little annoyed just before I was going to bed at night to receive a call from somebody who was not on the list of my intimate acquaintances. As a matter of fact I used my home telephone to call others—not for then, to call me, and it was very seldom my bell rang on genuine business, though it was not at all infrequent to be called through the error of the telephone exchange. Thinking it was such a mistake. I was ignoring the call and closing my study door on the jangling, noise, when, half in irritation and half obeying a "hunch", I went back and took down the receiver.

To my surprise I was called by name.

"Yes, it is I," I replied.

"I am Lady Cretapace," said the voice, "and I want to see you most urgently."

"Your ladyship doesn't want to see me tonight?" I said good- humouredly.

"Yes, tonight," she replied, to my surprise. "I have put off calling you to the very last moment. but I cannot stand it any longer."

I was not very tired, and I certainly was curious. "Where can I see you?" I said.

"Will you come to 603 Park Lane?" she replied, and I promised I would.

I had some difficulty in finding a taxicab at that time of night, but I picked one up in the Edgware Road and drove down to Park Lane. No. 603 was one of those little houses with enormous rents which are to be found at the Piccadilly end, and I was shown straight into a beautiful little drawing room.

I had pictured Lady Cretapace as a well-developed matron, grey-haired and lorgnetted, and I was agreeably surprised to find a lady of twenty-five and a remarkably, pretty one, too. She was evidently in a state of agitation, and after she had apologised to me for bringing me out at that time of night, she found some difficulty in beginning her story.

"Don't apologise, Lady Cretapace." said I, more with the idea of making conversation than anything else; "we are like doctors. People put off seeing us till the last moment and then send for us in a hurry."

"It was my doctor who suggested I should send for you." she said. "Mr. Furnival, do you know him?"

I knew Mr. Furnival very well, and what she said explained the mystery of her knowing my private address. "Is it about yourself you wish to see me, Lady Cretapace?" I asked tentatively.

She shook her head.

"No," she replied with a faint smile; "I hope I never shall have to see you about myself. It is about my husband."

There was another little pause, during which she seemed to be considering which was the best way of telling me the story.

"You have doubtless heard of my husband. Have you ever met him?"

I shook my head.

"Sir Ralph. as you know, is a very retiring man. He has one of the sweetest dispositions of any human being I have ever met." she added; and I did not need to be a psychologist to know that this lady was very much in love with her husband and that she had not engaged me, as wives have engaged me before, to operate against her lord and master.

"I married Sir Ralph five years ago," she said; "he is fifteen years my senior, and I am his second wife." This was news to me.

"I didn't know there had been another Lady Cretapace," I said.

"Neither was there," said she. "My husband married before he came into the title and his wife died some years ago. My husband is a very sensitive man, and, like many literary men, spends nine months of the year in the country. He does not like London; and if we are not in our home in Sussex we are in Scotland fishing."

"I knew Sir Ralph wrote something or other," said I. "I myself am not a literary man."

"He writes poems." she said, "and songs. You know his 'Love Lyrics of Fez', 'The Purple Temple' and 'The Desert Way'. I suppose they have been played on every piano organ in London. My husband hates that sort of thing, and I think one of the reasons he so seldom comes to London is because he so constantly hears his songs murdered on the street instruments."

So far she was only fencing or, as I thought, excusing her husband, and I waited.

"Until a year ago Sir Ralph was a very abstemious man," she said. "He seldom took wine, and I certainly have never seen him the worse for drink. Moreover, he was carefree and did not worry, in fact he was a little too careless." She stopped, and her lips quivered. "That was a year ago," she said significantly; "today Sir Ralph has changed, oh so terribly. About twelve months ago something happened, I don't know what, which distressed him. The first I knew of the matter was when he came home from town looking a perfect wreck. I questioned him as to what had happened, but he asked me not to press him. He was very gentle and kind, but he would give me no information whatever. Then he started drinking. The first I knew of this was when I found a whisky decanter, which had been filled the day before for some guests who were coming but who were detained at the last moment, was empty. I questioned the servants and very reluctantly, because he is very fond of Sir Ralph, the butler told me that my husband had drunk it all. I was surprised. I did not think it was my business to remonstrate with Sir Ralph, but from open drinking he took to secret drinking. He lived practically in his room and I saw very little of him."

"Nobody called on him?" I asked.

"Nobody," she said. "At regular intervals be went to town, on the first of every month to be exact, was absent for one day and came back. I was very distressed and spoke to him about his habits, but as that only seemed to worry him more I desisted. His friends have done their best to check it, and I must say that he has been drinking less of late, but he is becoming more and more melancholy. He does no work. He has not touched his piano for months, and this evening I think I have found the solution."

She walked to a desk and unlocked it.

"This is my husband's desk," she said, "and usually he lets me keep it tidy for him, but of late, on one excuse or another, he has refused to give me the key. I had no idea that the desk held any solution, but having some time on my hands I decided to clear it up if any of my own keys fitted the lock. You see this one does." She inserted a small key into the secretaire and pulled down the flap.

"There was nothing very startling to be found until I came upon two cheque-book counterfoils, each containing sixty cheques. As you will see," she handed one to me, "of these sixty, ten have been made out to a person whom he calls X for £500. You will observe that each is made out on the first day of the month—the days he came to London."

I nodded.

"What do you make of it?" she asked anxiously.

"Well. Lady Cretapace," said I, "on the face of it, it looks as though your husband is being blackmailed by somebody, that the blackmailing started a year ago, and that, of course, accounts for his change of habits."

"That is my view, too," said the girl, nodding. "When I made this discovery I went round to see Mr. Furnival, who is a dear friend of mine and a friend of my father, and it was he who advised me to send for you without delay. It isn't the money," she went on to explain; "Sir Ralph is very rich and I have private means. It is the danger to his health and this constant strain which is breaking my heart."

I took a note of the cheques and their numbers, and when I had finished this I asked:

"I suppose you do not want me to see Sir Ralph himself,"

She shook her head vigorously.

"That is the one thing I do not wish you to do." she said. "I want you to undertake the work of discovering what is the secret of his terror, and believe me, whatever it is, however bad, I will be loyal and faithful to him. If he has committed some folly in his past I am sure it is a folly and no more. You have unlimited money to carry out your investigations. Do your best."

It was a novel kind of commission, because the information on which I usually worked, namely, that supplied by the person blackmailed, was denied me; and I had to begin not so much at the bottom of the ladder, but to dig out of the ground before I reached the bottom of the ladder.

The next morning I paid a visit to Sir Ralph's publishers and had the good luck to find Mr. Morello, whom I knew.

"Cretapace," he said, "I cannot tell you much about him except that his music sells very well. I haven't seen him for over a year. I'll get you some of his pieces." He went into the store-room and came back with about twenty numbers.

"I see these are all Eastern songs," said I.

Morello nodded.

"He specialises on Eastern subjects, and he really gets the Eastern spirit in his music very well indeed."

"Has he lived in the East?" I asked.

"In Morocco. He was for some time the British Attaché in Fez."

"What sort of a man is he?" I asked.

"Very romantic, very impulsive. and I should say the soul of honour." said Nora, "You will find more about him in 'Who's Who' than I can tell you. I've got a copy here somewhere."

He found the book and I turned up the name.

"I don't see any reference to his first marriage here." I said, and Morello looked at me sharply.

"His first marriage," he said; "did you know about that? I don't suppose there are half a dozen people in the world who know he was married before."

Then he asked suspiciously: "What are you making inquiries about?"

I assured him that it was in Sir Ralph's own interest.

"Well, you've been very fortunate in coming to the one man who knows all about that marriage," he said. "I doubt whether Lady Cretapace herself can tell you more than I know. I happen to have all the facts, because immediately on his return from Morocco on leave Sir Ralph brought me his first lyrics. He was little more than a boy at the time. It was a very romantic affair. The British have no Ambassador at Fez; the British Minister lives at Tangier. Cretapace was secretary to the British Commissioner in the Moorish city, and from what I heard—and from what he told me—he had a pretty dull time at first. Then, one evening, whilst dozing on the roof of his house in Fez—everybody goes on the roof for their siesta—he saw a beautiful girl on the roof of the adjoining building, which was the palace of El Menchi, the Moorish Minister of War. It was the Moor's daughter."

"A Moor!" said I in surprise.

"A Moor," said Morello; "not a nigger, you understand, as white as you or I. The Moors range from pure white to jet black. I have never understood why it is. Old Menchi, for example, whom I have seen, is black as the ace of spades. Of course, there was a great fuss about an unbeliever seeing a daughter of the Faithful without her veil; but Cretapace was so crazy about the girl that he embraced Mohammedanism and married her.

"It was after he was married that he came to England to sell me the lyrics, and it was whilst here that the rebellion occurred and his wife was killed by a chance shot whilst she was on the very roof where he had first seen her. I believe he was nearly beside himself with grief. They had not been long married and they were perfectly happy."

But why did he leave her in Fez?" I asked.

"He was sent on a mission to Persia, and from Persia was ordered home. He was actually telling me how he felt the absence—he had not seen her for six months—when the news of her death arrived."

"That was eighteen months after their marriage?"

"About then; I am not certain to a month or two," said Morello.

"Suppose the story that she was killed was not true, and that she is still alive," said I.

Morello shook his head.

"There is no doubt whatever about it. The British Agent himself sent the news, and he had seen the body. Sir Ralph never went back to Morocco again."

This Conversation occurred on the 31st of the month, and that night Lady Cretapace called me up on the telephone and told me that she had heard from her husband, and that he was coming up to town and begged her to go back to the country.

"I should do as he wishes," said I. "Will he stay in Park Lane?"

"Oh, yes," she said; "but don't you think it would be best if I stayed?"

"No, no," I urged; "go back to Sussex. I'll look after Sir Ralph whilst he is in London."

I sent one of my best men to pick him up at Victoria, and on the following morning I myself took up my station within view of the house. It was not until three o'clock in the afternoon that I had my first glimpse of Sir Ralph. He was a spare man, with a delicate face and a moustache that was fast turning grey. I strolled across the road to get him under better observation, and I noticed that beyond the fact that his hand shook when he raised it to his lips, as he did every few minutes, there were none of the telltale signs of excessive drinking. He walked rapidly down Park Lane to Piccadilly, and I followed him. In Piccadilly he turned, walked eastward, and disappeared up the steps of the Orient Club.

It was at that moment I became conscious—a sort of instinct that is difficult to fathom or analyse—that somebody else was watching Sir Ralph. Maybe it was the knowledge that somebody was sauntering along at the same pace as myself that made me turn my head to the other side of the road, and there I saw a very resplendent gentleman in a top hat, smoking a fat cigar and swinging his cane as he strolled. Now, top-hatted gentlemen are not so common in the West End of London as people imagine, and this fellow was so "brand new" that he would have excited attention anywhere.

He was evidently dressed as he thought the people of the West End ought to dress, which marked him down as an outsider; but my interest turned to joy when I recognised him. It was Dodo Johnson. Half the Cretapace mystery was solved, to my mind, when I laid my eyes on Dodo, for of all the professional blackmailers in the world he is the best known to the English police.

Dodo has served three terms of imprisonment, and has only escaped penal servitude by the skin of his teeth. I did not trouble any more about Sir Ralph; I went to the nearest telephone booth and called my friend at Scotland Yard.

"Is Dodo back?" he said in surprise. "I didn't know it."

"Has he been out of the country?" I asked.

"Yes, he has been in the South of Spain." was the reply. "He cleared out after that Turnbull trouble and he has been away for about five years. Where can we pick him up?"

"Is he wanted?" I asked.

"No. be isn't wanted on any specific charge, but we like to keep our eye on him."

"I'll tell you later." said I grimly. "I want to pick him up myself first."

Dodo Johnson, that complacent man with the twirling moustaches (I never knew how he got his name) had disappeared when I got back to Piccadilly. I strolled past the club and looking up saw that Sir Ralph had taken up a place near the big plate-glass window which overlooked the street. I had not long to wait. Presently I saw the figure of Dodo swaggering towards the club, and with him was a negro youth of about seventeen, very well dressed and, I thought, rather uncomfortable.

They walked past the club and Dodo glanced up. I, who had followed behind them, also looked to see Sir Ralph sitting, his chin on his breast, his eyes closed. I waited till we were some distance past the club, and then I overtook Dodo and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned round with a start and some of the colour left his face,

"Hullo, Dixon," he said uneasily; "what do you want?"

"Five minutes of earnest conversation," said I.

He looked at the native boy and then looked at me.

"I'm afraid I can't see you just now," he said.

"Oh, yes, you can," said I. "Tell the coon to go into the park and wait for you."

He spoke to the native in Spanish and the young man walked away, and I took Dodo's arm very firmly in mine.

"Dodo," I said, "you have got five minutes to spill the beans."

"Spill the beans?" said the innocent Dodo. "I don't understand you, Mr. Dixon."

"Where did you find this interesting native?" I demanded.

"He's a friend of mine," said Dodo.

"Any relation to Sir Ralph Cretapace?"

He shot a glance at me full of apprehension.

"Has he put you on to me?" he said, and then recovering himself. "I really don't know what you mean."

"Listen, Dodo," I said gently, "you have been staying in the South of Spain, and from the South of Spain to Morocco is not even a Sabbath day's journey; the old Gible Musa, which is a slow boat, does the journey in three and a half hours. Now you've got one chance of saving yourself from serious trouble. I am not going to ask you how much money you have got out of Sir Ralph Cretapace; and, so far as that's concerned, we will let bygones be bygones, because I am not a member of the regular police force and it is not my business to gaol you."

"How much do you know," he asked, after a pause.

"I know you have been to Morocco, and in some way you have got the story of Sir Ralph's early marriage and conceived the ingenious idea of fostering a son upon Sir Ralph, a nigger son of whom he would be ashamed."

"Suppose it is his son?" he asked.

"Suppose nothing." said I; "let's keep to the truth. This Moorish wife of his had a child," it was then that I put my big bluff on him, "and it died," I said; "we have all the certificates. In fact, I've enough evidence to send you down to Dartmoor. Now be sensible. Dodo, and tell me all the facts."

It was a bold guess of mine. Indeed, to this day, I am not certain whether the first wife of Sir Ralph had a child or not, and I don't think that Dodo knew either, for he was thrown off his balance.

"Well, I'll own up," he said. "I heard this yarn in Casablanca, and I worked the idea out, made a few inquiries, and brought the kid back to London. I was not certain how Sir Ralph would take it, but he fell for the story like a starving robin falls for a breadcrumb. Mind you," said Dodo, with that quaint pride in his illegal practices which always amuses me, "I was taking a risk, though I was ready to bolt if he turned the story down. Where are you going?"

"You are coming along to my office," said I. "You are going to make a signed statement, and then I am going to give you twenty-four hours to get out of the country with your coon."

"Don't call him a coon," pleaded Dodo; "he's a nice little fellow, and I'm teaching him to play the banjo."

That evening I called upon Sir Ralph and placed the statement before him, and I have never seen a man so relieved as he was. I left it to him to tell the story to his wife.