Читать книгу The Big Four: Crooks of Society - Edgar Wallace - Страница 9

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SCOTLAND YARD is good, but Scotland Yard is slow. Campbell fingered his chin for three days, wrote on fourteen cable blanks, and finally wired to "Brewerston, New York:"

COME TAKE CHARGE OUR DETECTIVE DEPARTMENT. BIG SALARY. EXPENSES REASONABLE. CAMPBELL. FEDERATED ASSURANCES.

To all outward appearance Douglas Campbell was a dour and possibly a short-tempered man of forty-eight, tall and broad of shoulder. He had what women describe as a bad-tempered face, since, through no fault of his own, his eyebrows met, and that, as everybody knows, is an infallible indication of the choleric temperament.

As president of the Scottish Federated Assurances, it was only right and proper that he should be credited with a total absence of any sense of humor. He was, as all who have met him will testify, a grave and serious man, who used precise language cautiously.

He sat at his table one spring morning reading his correspondence. Presently he put the letters down and looked at his watch.

"I am expecting Mr. Robert Brewer in a few minutes," he said. "Show him straight in and see that we are not interrupted."

"Very good, sir," said his secretary.

There was a tap at the door, and the secretary took from the hands of the clerk a viating card.

"Mr. Brewer, sir," he announced.

"Show him in." Campbell rose expectantly.

Mr. Robert Brewer was young, perfectly and fashionably attired, and carried in his very presence the hallmark of "good tone." Clean shaven, big-jawed and bright-eyed, there was about him that air of buoyant freshness which can only come from the consciousness of youth.

He advanced to Campbell with outstretched hand.

"My dear old Highlander, you're glad to see me!"

"I'm not so sure about that," said Campbell. "Sit down. That will do, Mr. George. You're looking very bright and beautiful this morning."

"Aren't I?" rejoined Mr. Bob Brewer delightedly. "Dear old top, I feel positively pretty. Now let us get down to the horrible business. I gather you haven't brought me from New York to hand me compliments."

Mr. Campbell drew up his chair close to the table and lowered his voice.

"Bob, the presidents of three of our companies have advised our sending for you. I represent six of the biggest insurance companies in this country, mostly burglary, accident, and that sort of thing. You know the kind of business; you've been connected with it yourself."

Bob Brewer nodded.

"We insure society against their follies and carelessness," Mr. Campbell went on, "and frankly, it hasn't paid. Bob, you've heard about the sins of society? Well, I'll tell you what its principal sin is—lack of gray-matter. We've got the finest and the best clients in Britain—the cream of the whole bunch. Everybody with money and personal adornment is insured with us. But, Bob, their trouble is that, whilst they had enough brains to get their money, they haven't enough to keep what they buy with it.

"You know what they are," he went on; "they move like automatons from one fashionable place to another, and they move in a crowd like a flock of sheep. We've got to put a man on specially to watch over these sheep and see that they are not torn limb from limb by the wolves. We are going to offer you a very big salary to take this job on, and give you permission to accept any private commissions that may come your way. Is it a bet?"

"It all depends upon what your idea of a handsome salary is," said Bob with a little grin. "In the old days it used to be somewhere in the region of fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars per annum."

"We are more broad-minded how," Campbell assured him, "and we never talk under ten thousand."

Brewer nodded.

"Take in the board," he said, "I am engaged."

Campbell walked to the door and turned the key.

"I'll introduce you to the names of the kingbird of all the birds of prey that rend my lambies," he said; "he's the boss man of the Big Four of Crime—'Reddy' Smith."

Bob laughed quietly.

"Reddy, eh?" he said. "Why, I need no introduction to Reddy! You couldn't live in the seams of New York City and not know him."

"Does he know you?" asked the other quickly.

"He does not," replied Bob. "We've never met in the way of business, but I know him. You see in New York I was on the commercial side of insurance—trade frauds and that sort of thing. Reddy was a con man, an advertisement faker—he used to sell non-existent shares to the deluded agriculturists of the Middle West. I have seen him exercise in a prison yard, but I doubt if he knows me. As a matter of fact, I was on his track about a year ago before he sailed for Europe."

Mr. Campbell nodded.

"All I know about him," he explained, "I have secured from the police. He has been working with a swell crowd in France, but they never brought any charge home to him, although it is pretty well known he was concerned in one or two bad robberies. I had information that he is at Monte Carlo. Unfortunately a number of our clients are there also, including a selection of our brightest muno-profiteers."

"From which effort of word-making I gather you mean gentlemen who have made profits out of munitions," suggested Bob.

"Exactly," said Campbell. "Reddy doesn't work alone. There's a whole gang. You will find them and their women-folk there, incrusted with precious stones and clothed in rainbow raiment. They will be eating ice-cream with diamond spoons and new peas with golden knives, and you will possibly interrupt Mr. Reddy just as he is telling the most bloated of them about a diamond mine that he has discovered in Sicily. Reddy always carries a few spare diamonds as a convincing proof."

"What help do I get from the French police?" asked Bob, and in reply his new employer pulled open the drawer and took out a small leather-bound book.

"Here is your authority, signed by the Minister of the Interior and countersigned by the Minister of State of Monaco. The authorities in Monaco are more anxious to keep out the crooks than we are to pinch them."

Bob took the book, examined it, and slipped it into his pocket.

"Now off you go. You will live at the best hotel—"

"You needn't tell me that," put in Bob briskly. "I can attend to such little things without any assistance whatsoever."

Campbell nodded.

"I will give you a list of the ladies and gentlemen who are at present relieving the Monte Carlo ratepayers, and who are also clients of ours. And for the Lord's sake don't forget, Bob, when you see a diamond as big as a brazil nut sparkling and scintillating in the overhead lights of the casino, that it is nine thousand to one that behind that diamond is a fat policy, and behind that policy is me, sitting with quivering knees waiting for a claim."

"Trust me, old one," said Bob. "Do I draw my salary in advance or when I can get it?"

"I knew your father before he committed the unpardonable sin of naturalizing himself American," said Mr. Campbell, eying Brewer severely, "and he was a good and thrifty Scot. I knew your mother, and she was a Macleod, and a thrifty soul. But you, Bob, you have just developed into a spendthrift Yankee—one of the younger set I'm always reading about in the best American leaders. Shall I give ye a little on account?"

"A lot's a little," said Bob. "I will take six months salary and I will let you know what I want for expenses. I shall stay for a few days in Paris, and Paris costs money."

Mr. Campbell sighed and drew a check.