Читать книгу The Square Emerald - Edgar Wallace - Страница 7

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"104, SEVERALL STREET,

"LAMBETH.

"DEAR Miss MAUGHAN,

"I have lodgings at the above address, and, in spite of the neighbourhood, they are very comfortable, though my landlady is certainly the most unprepossessing female. There are six children in the house, ranging from a few months to a little girl of eight years. So, whatever are her faults, Mrs. Inglethorne (who drinks gin and has the fiery face of a Betsey Prig) has served her country most prolifically. I am buying some new clothes and hope to report in a few days that I am riding upward on a tide of prosperity."

Leslie Maughan had the letter on the following afternoon when she came back from her office.

What Mr. Coldwell called "The Dawlish Case," but which she thought about under quite another title, was completely occupying the girl's mind, sleeping and waking. It was her first big case, in the sense that never before had the wheels of investigation moved of her own volition.

There had been more spectacular events with which she had been associated. She had helped Coldwell in the Kent Tunnel murder; it was her quick mind which had first grasped the fact that the principal informant of the police knew too much about the tragedy for one who had not participated in the crime. She it was who, searching the contents of a prisoner's pocket, had found the stain of indelible ink upon a silver coin, and had built upon that slender clue the theory which led to the arrest of the Flack Gang, and the capture of the plant with which they had been flooding Europe with forged 1000—franc notes.

She brought to police work the keenest of woman's wits and a queer instinct for ultimate causes that sometimes amazed and sometimes amused headquarters. And now she was building up a new fabric, but, as she: realized, on the shakiest of foundations—a little book of verse found in a Cumberland cottage.

She took it down from her shelf, a thin volume of Elizabeth Browning's poems. On the flyleaf was an inscription and eight lines of writing in a neat hand. A stanza of free verse, and not especially good free verse. She read it for the fiftieth time.

"Do you recall One dusky night in June Over by Harrlow Copse, Heart of my heart? Ecstasy lay on your lips, Nectar of gods was your gift —All in 'the kiss of one girl' Joy and despair."

The writer was no poet. Even as a writer of vers libre his effort left something to be desired.

She put away the book, returned to her desk, and sat for half an hour, her chin in her hands, her eyes fixed vacantly on the opposite wall. For the moment Peter Dawlish was off her hands, and though he came back again and again to her thoughts, it was not in the role of a responsibility.

She took from a drawer the tin of cigarettes she had offered him on the previous night and examined it absently. She had searched London for this brand of Egyptian cigarettes, and in the end had found them in the last place in the world she expected—Scotland Yard. The Chief Commissioner, an old Egyptian officer, imported them for his own use.

She closed the lid, found an envelope, and, addressing it to "Peter Dawlish, Esq., 104, Severall Street, London," she enclosed the cigarettes. It was nearly dark when Lucretia brought in her tea.

"You're not going out again to—night, miss, are you?" and when Leslie replied in the affirmative: "What about taking me with you, Miss Leslie?"

Leslie did not laugh. "Somehow I can't see you in the setting of a night club, Lucretia," she said.

"I could stay outside," insisted Lucretia stoutly. "Anyway, I'd never dream of going into a night club after what the papers say about 'em. I saw a party getting out of a car the other night—ladies! Why, miss, I could have carried all their dresses in a little bag! Disgraceful, I call it!"

Leslie laughed quietly.

"You've got to understand, Lucretia," she said, "that no woman is properly dressed for dinner unless she feels comfortably nude—don't faint!"

"Women are not what they was," said Lucretia severely.

"That's the devil of it, Lucretia—they are!" said Leslie.

She had only half made up her mind as to the course she should pursue. Mr. Coldwell often twitted her about her luck, but her "luck" was largely a matter of abnormal instinct, and it was in her bones that there was tragedy in the air. Suppose she saw Lady Raytham again, and this time spoke not in parables, but in plain English? It required no particular effort on Leslie's part, for her moral equipment was free from the faintest tinge of cowardice. She had inquired that morning as to whether Lady Raytham had carried her threat into execution and had written to the Chief Commissioner, but apparently her ladyship had reconsidered her decision. Had Peter Dawlish told her of the attack which had been made upon him, and which had so surprisingly led him to Mrs. Inglethorne, she would have called at Berkeley Square before then. But Peter had been silent on the subject, and Leslie did not know till the next day of that surprising outrage.

She went to her bedroom and changed her dress; she was dining that night with Mr. Coldwell at the Ambassadors, which is sometimes called a night club by the uninitiated, but is in reality the centre of London's smart life. Over her flimsy gown, which Lucretia never saw without closing her eyes in mental anguish, she put her heavy fur coat, slipped over her shoes a pair of rubbers, and sent Lucretia for a taxi. At a quarter —past seven she was pressing the visitors' bell at No. 377, Berkeley Square. The door was opened almost instantly by a footman.

"Have you an appointment with her ladyship?" he asked, as he closed the door upon her.

"No, she hasn't an appointment with her ladyship." Leslie turned in amazement at the sound of a loud, raucous voice. It was Druze, who had come into the hall from a door beneath the stairs. The white face was red and blotchy; his hair untidy; there was a stain on his white shirt front, and when he walked towards her his step was unsteady. He was, in point of fact, rather drunk, and Mr. Druze drunk was an exceedingly different person from Mr. Druze sober.

The whole character of the man seemed to have changed. From being a shrinking, rather fearful servitor, he had become a blustering, loud —mouthed bully of a man. "You can get out—go on; we don't want you!" He advanced towards her threateningly, but the girl did not move. The second footman had withdrawn to a respectful distance, and was looking with frowning amusement at the antics of his chief.

"Do you hear what I say? Clear out! We don't want any spying police girls round here."

It looked as though he would use physical force to eject her, but his hand had hardly been raised when she said something in a low voice —one word. The big white hand went down; the blotchy red went out of his face, and he blinked at her like a man who was trying to swallow something that would not be swallowed. And then, looking up, she saw a resplendent figure at the head of the stairs. It was Lady Raytham. "Come up, please."

The voice was hard and metallic. There was neither cordiality nor welcome in it, nor did Leslie expect any such demonstration. She mounted the stairs, but before she could reach the landing Lady Raytham had turned and preceded her into the drawing—room. As she went in, she saw that her unwilling hostess was not alone. Before the fire stood a figure which was not wholly unfamiliar; a square, tall, Eton—cropped figure with a monocle, which fixed her with a keen and penetrating glance.

The contrast between the two women was startling. Lady Raytham had never looked more lovely, more fragile, Leslie thought, than she did at that moment. She also was going out to dinner, and she wore a dress of old gold, and about her neck a magnificent chain of emeralds that terminated in a square emerald pendant which must have been worth a fortune. Anita Bellini was in scarlet, a hard, shrieking scarlet that no human woman could have worn. And yet, for some remarkable reason, it suited her. The godet was of silver lace, decorated with big green and red stones, and the thick jade bracelets and ruby necklet gave her an air of barbaric splendour.

"I am sorry you came, Miss Maughan—it is doubly unfortunate. If Druze had been normal I should have sent you away without seeing you. As it is, I feel that at least an apology is due to you for the disgraceful condition of my servant."

Leslie inclined her head slightly. What she had to say could not be told before this big, steely—eyed woman who stood with her back to the fire, the inevitable cigarette between her lips, the shining eyeglass fixed upon the visitor.

"I wanted to see you alone, if I could, Lady Raytham."

Jane Raytham shook her head. "There is nothing you can tell me that I should not wish Princess Bellini to hear," she said.

Without turning her head, Anita flicked her cigarette ash into the fireplace.

"Perhaps Miss Maughan doesn't wish to speak before a witness," she said, in her hard, deep voice. "If I were Lady Raytham, I should have reported you last night to your superiors and had you kicked out of Scotland Yard."

Leslie smiled faintly.

"If you were Lady Raytham, there are so many things you would do, Princess," she said; "and there would be so many things that it would be quite unnecessary for you to do."

Anita's eyes did not waver. "Such as—? she suggested.

If she expected to frighten the younger woman she must have been disappointed; Leslie's lips were curved in a fixed smile.

"We have now come to the point," she said good—humouredly, "where I should not like to speak before witnesses either—though some day I may speak before more witnesses than you can crowd into a room twice this size; as many, Princess, as can squeeze themselves into Court No. 1 at the Old Bailey."

She said this without raising her voice, and now, for the first time, Anita Bellini gave the slightest hint of her emotion. The eyeglass dropped and was caught deftly and replaced with too elaborate care. The strong mouth drooped a little, but recovered at once.

"That sounds almost like a threat to me," she said harshly. "Young lady, I think you're going to lose a job."

Quick as a flash came the answer:

"Before I lose my job, Princess, you will lose a very profitable source of income."

She did not wait for the answer, but turned to Lady Raytham.

"Will you see me alone, Lady Raytham?"

Jane Raytham's voice shook a little; she was a very bewildered woman.

"I brought you here to apologize to you for Druze," she said breathlessly, "and you have made use of the opportunity to insult my friend, a lady who—"

Her voice grew husky and she stopped, as though she could not articulate further.

There was nothing more to be gained here, unless she was prepared to blurt her questions before the very woman who she was anxious should remain in ignorance of the information which had come to her. Leslie had unfastened her coat in coming upstairs; behind the brown fur Lady Raytham saw the silk—clad figure in mauve. Princess Anita Bellini smiled. She had a flair for Paris models.

"They pay you well in the police, my young friend," she said bluntly. "Who is the lucky gentleman who pays for your clothes?"

"My lawyer until I am twenty—five," said Leslie.

"Fortunate lawyer—who is he?"

Leslie smiled. "You ought to know him; he acted for you in your bankruptcy."

And with that parting shot she went out of the room, knowing she was a cat, but realizing that a cat was entitled to what pleasure she might find in getting under the skin of a tigress.

Half an hour later, Mr. Coldwell unfolded his serviette and shook his head soberly.

"You are a cat, too. But you're a clever little cat. And when, Tabitha, did you discover that her Highness was a bankrupt? I confess that is news to me."

The girl laughed ruefully.

"I read gazettes," she said. "It is depraved in me, but I find them more interesting than the best sex novel that any schoolgirl has ever written. The bankruptcy was arranged ten years ago in the quietest way. The Princess took up her residence in a small country town before she filed her petition, and it is so easy to keep these country proceedings out of the London papers. On this occasion she described herself as Mrs. Bellini. There is no law compelling you to use a foreign title."

"Pussy cat, pussy cat," murmured Mr. Caldwell. "And did she annihilate you?"

"She was slightly withering," said Leslie carelessly. "But Druze —dropped! I'm awfully worried about that."

"I don't see why you should be," said Coldwell, and beckoned a waiter. When the man had taken the order:

"Do you know, you're almost persuading me that there is something big behind this Dawlish mystery? I don't mean the discovery, which is very unlikely to be made, that Druze was the forger, after all."

A tall woman had come into the restaurant and was glaring round through the thick lenses of her horn—rimmed spectacles. She was very straight and spare, her head covered with a mop of white hair, which lent her an almost comical air of ferocity. She nodded curtly to the inspector and went to meet the gesticulating maitre d'hotel.

"That is mamma," said Coldwell.

"Mamma? Whose mamma?"

"Your interesting convict's."

"Margaret Dawlish?" Leslie opened her eyes in astonishment. "This is the last place I should have expected to see her."

"She dines here every night," said Coldwell. "I have a good idea why."

Leslie looked at Peter's mother again; the square jaw, the thin lips, the deep eyes, all fulfilled the mental picture she had made of her.

"If you weren't here, do you know what I should do?" she asked at last.

"Whatever it is, don't!" said Coldwell apprehensively. His relationship with Leslie was a curious one. In the old days of Commissioner Maughan he had been the Colonel's chief assistant; though he was only a sergeant in those days, he was admitted very largely to the confidence of that genius of Scotland Yard, spent long week—ends at Sutton Cawley, and had assumed a sort of guardianship towards Colonel Maughan's motherless child. There never was a time within Leslie's recollection that Josiah Coldwell had not figured largely in her life. He was one of her father's executors, the best trusted of all his friends, and it was only natural, when she conceived the idea of adopting police work as a profession, that he should be her sponsor.

It was not until a very long time after she had put the suggestion to him that he agreed. At first he had pooh—poohed, then he had grown solemn, and then mournful; but in the end she had her way.

"If you don't put me there, Uncle Josiah, I shall go into training as a private detective!"

It only needed this threat to force his capitulation, for private detectives were contemptible figures in the eyes of this regular policeman. For him it was a matter for pride that she had succeeded. To —day, if the truth be told, if she had expressed the slightest hint of weariness and a desire to return to the obscurity of what is termed "civilian life," he would have been thrust in the deeps of gloom.

He did not tell her this in the course of the dinner (she had guessed it easily enough long before), but he did venture to return to a matter which rather worried him. As the band struck up a dance tune and she rose invitingly, he groaned and came to his feet.

"I'll be awfully glad, Leslie, when you find a young man to dance these infernal jazzes with you. How can you expect the high—class crooks of London to have any respect for a man who dances in public?"

He was over sixty, yet, in truth, no better dancer took the floor that night. But it pleased him to talk of ha decrepitude.

"I'm not made right," said Leslie, as he guided her through the dancers who crowded the floor. "Young men have no appeal for me whatever."

Mr. Coldwell peered down at her.

"Are you going to be one of those love—is—not —for—me girls?" he asked gloomily. "Somehow I can't imagine you running a garage of toy poms."

Leslie's eyes roved around the room, and presently they rested upon Margaret Dawlish; hard—faced, inflexible, the type of Roman mother who could never forgive the humiliation that Peter had brought upon her. How queer was the average man's conception of the average woman! The conventional mother, soft, yielding, ready to endure all and forgive all for the sake of her children, was no figment of imagination, but the throw —outs were innumerable. Leslie started to count all the instances she knew, and grew tired of the exercise. She had witnessed, incredible though it might seem, a mother dancing on this very floor whilst her child was dying in a nursing home a few streets away. She knew mothers who could not speak of their daughters without growing incoherent with rage. And this was the fourth instance of a mother who could sweep her only son out of memory, out of existence, for some offence he had committed—not against her, but against society. Margaret Dawlish sat alone at a little table, very upright, very forbidding, and when the maitre d'hotel, in the manner of his kind, approached her with a smile, she dismissed him with a few words, and, raising her lorgnette, made an inspection of the dancers.

"That woman is granite," said Leslie, as the band stopped and they walked back to their table.

"Which? You mean Mrs. Dawlish? Yes, I rather think she is on the hard side. That sort of thing meant a lot to her. She hates this company and this place, but for five years, ever since her son was sent to prison, she has made a point of dining here." Leslie nodded.

"A gesture of defiance. Gosh! these respectable people! They dare not leave a room for fear somebody talks behind their backs."

It was towards eleven o'clock, and Coldwell had summoned the waiter to pay his bill, when a footman came from the vestibule and, bending over, whispered something to him.

"A phone message. I expect it's from the Embankment," he said. "Excuse me, Leslie."

He threaded a way through the dancers on the floor, and was gone ten minutes. When he came back she saw his white eyebrows were met in a frown.

"The Kingston police think they've got a line to those infernal motor—car bandits," he said.

He referred to a gang which was occupying the public—attention at that time. Three men who, in hired or stolen motor—cars, had been travelling through Surrey, holding up isolated residences at the point of a pistol, and getting away with as much portable property as they could lay their hands upon.

"I'll see you home," he said as he paid the bill, "and then I'll toddle down to Kingston. I wish to Heaven the Kingston police would make their discoveries at a reasonable hour."

"I'll go with you," she said. "I'm not a bit sleepy, and. it's a braw bricht moonlicht nicht!"

He looked at her dubiously.

"I don't know that you're dressed for a motor—car journey, but if you wish you can come, along. I have phoned for the police car; it will be here in a few minutes."

She went out into the lobby to put on the woollen spencer she had brought in preparation for a cold journey home, and over that her coat. It was true that she never felt less like sleep; in a sense, she was at a loose end, and the prospect of doing a little work before she went to bed was a pleasing one, though in all probability she would play no other part than that of spectator and audience.

The trip promised to be the more interesting because she had, that day, been tracing the previous convictions of three men who were suspected of being the motor bandits—and very commonplace individuals they were. That had been the most shocking discovery she made when she came to Scotland Yard—the commonplaceness, indeed the insignificance, of what is described as the criminal class. Out—of—work plumbers, labourers, carters, and clerks, with a painter here and there, formed the bulk of them. The women only had an individuality. There was no habitual woman criminal quite untouched by romance; their stories were altogether different, their lives more varied, and, if the truth be told, their enterprise and inventive qualities more fascinating.

She passed through the swing doors into the street. The night was bitterly cold and the sky overhead was clear. The bright moon which she had recklessly inferred was not in evidence, but there were all the other attractive conditions for a midnight ride.

The car was an open tourer, with a plenitude of rugs, and Mr. Coldwell fixing the rear screen to shield her face from the cutting air, the journey promised no discomforts. The car passed swiftly through Kensington and across Hammersmith Bridge, and in an incredibly short space of time was running down Kingston Vale. The driver pulled up at the police station behind a big touring car, which was unattended, and they got down.

In the charge—room they found the inspector talking to a middle—aged man, who was apparently the owner of the car. "Sorry to bring you down, Mr. Coldwell," said the inspector, "but this sounds almost like one of the motor crowd's little jokes."

The car owner apparently was the proprietor of a small garage. That afternoon he had been approached by a seemingly decent man who asked him if he would come to London with the idea of negotiating for an important journey. The garage keeper, as it happened, had some business in town, and had met the hirer at a little restaurant in the Brompton Road.

"He seemed all right to me," the garage keeper continued his narrative. "It was only after I got home that I began to smell a rat. He wanted me to pick him up at the end of Barnes Common, near the Wimbledon Road, at a quarter—past ten to—night, and drive him to Southampton. He asked for a closed car, but I told him I hadn't got one that could do the journey, and I didn't like the idea anyway. But as he offered me double the fare I should have asked, and paid half of it down, I agreed."

"Did you ask him why he wanted to go to Southampton at a quarter —past ten?"

"That was the first question I asked," said the man. "He told me he was dining with some friends, and that that would mean he would lose the boat—train—the Berengaria pulls out at five o'clock to —morrow morning, and all passengers must be on the ship overnight. I've had that job before, so it wasn't unusual; the only queer thing about it was that, instead of asking me to pick him up at a house, he fixed this place on Barnes Common. But he told me he didn't want his friends to know that he was leaving the next day. At any rate, I fell for him, but as time went on I began to get suspicious and communicated with the police."

"What sort of looking man was he?" asked Leslie.

"A middle—aged man, miss," said the chauffeur—owner, a little surprised at a question from this quarter. "It struck me that he'd been booz—drinking a little, but that's neither here nor there. He was well dressed, and that's all I can tell you about him except that he was clean—shaven, had rather a big face, and wore a soft felt hat."

Coldwell turned to the girl.

"Does that describe any of the people we have been looking over?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"No," she said quietly; "but it rather accurately describes Druze."

"Druze?" he said incredulously. "You're not suggesting that Druze is one of the gang?"

"I'm not suggesting anything," she said, biting her lip thoughtfully. "Did you notice his hands, Mr.—?

"Porter," said the chauffeur. "Yes, miss, I did notice his hands when he took off his gloves to pay me. They were very white."

She looked at Coldwell. "That is an even more accurate description," she said.

"You didn't go to the Common, did you?" asked Coldwell.

"No, sir. The inspector went up in my car with a couple of policemen."

"He must have smelt a rat," said the local inspector. "There was no sign of anybody at a quarter—past ten, and apparently he was very particular about his being there absolutely on time. He told Mr. Porter: 'If I'm not there by twenty—five minutes past, don't wait for me.' That sounds rather like the gang, Mr. Coldwell," he added. "It is an old trick of theirs to hire a car and arrange to be picked up in some quiet spot—"

The telephone bell tinkled in another room, and he went to the instrument. He was gone five minutes. When he came back:

"The gang 'busted' a house the other side of Guildford at nine o'clock," he said. "The car smashed into a ditch and two of them have been caught by the Surrey police."

Coldwell pursed his lips.

"That disposes of your theory," he said.

Driving back up Kingston Vale, Coldwell expatiated upon his favourite theme, which might be headed: "No effort is wasted when you're dealing with law—breakers."

"A lot of men would grouse about being brought out in the middle of the night on a fool's errand, but it isn't possible to investigate the reason why a condensed milk tin has been found in an ashpit without learning something valuable. And if that hirer was friend Druze—"

"As it was," said Leslie promptly.

"—well, we've learnt something," continued Coldwell. "It brings him into a new list, so to speak. He's in the people—who —do—strange—things class, and that makes him stand out from the mass of law—abiding citizens."

They passed swiftly down Roehampton Lane, climbed the little slope that carried them over the railway bridge, and had reached the middle of the common when Chief Inspector Coldwell began to enlarge and illustrate his theory. Just ahead of them Leslie saw the rear lights of a car moving out from the side of the road.

"Never despise little cases," he began, "because—"

There was a grinding of brakes; the car stopped so violently that Leslie's nose touched the glass screen painfully.

"What's wrong?" asked Coldwell sharply. He, too, had seen the car ahead, and his first thought was that his driver was avoiding a collision.

The police chauffeur was looking round.

"I'm sorry, sir; I was rather startled. Did you see a man lying on the sidewalk?"

"No—where?" asked the interested ColdwelL

The driver reversed and the car moved slowly backward. They saw a black something in the darkness, and then, as the machine moved back a few more feet, the head—lamps showed the figure of a man.

Coldwell got down from the car slowly.

"It looks like a drunk," he grumbled. "You'd better stay where you are, Leslie."

But his foot had hardly touched the ground before she had followed.

Well enough Inspector Coldwell knew that this was no drunk. The attitude, the outstretched arms, the legs slightly doubled, told him, before he saw the little pool of blood on the sidewalk, that there was no life here.

For a second the two stood gazing down at the pitiable figure.

"Druze," said the girl quietly. "Somehow I expected it."

It was Druze, and he was dead. The heavy overcoat was buttoned across his breast, there was no sign of a hat, and his hands, ungloved, were tightly clenched. As she looked, Leslie saw a queer green glitter in the light of the motor—lamps.

"He has something in his left hand," she said in a hushed voice, and, kneeling down, Inspector Coldwell prised loose the fingers, and the thing that the dead man held fell with a tinkle to the gravelled path.

Coldwell picked it up and examined it curiously. It was a large, square emerald in a platinum setting, one edge of which was broken, as though it had been torn forcibly from a larger ornament.

"That is queer," he said.

She took the emerald from his hand and carried it nearer to the lamp. Now she knew that she had made no mistake. It was the pendant on the chain she had seen that evening glittering on Lady Raytham's neck!