Читать книгу The Golden Hades - Edgar Wallace - Страница 4

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HE had little to tell, as it proved, and as he frankly admitted half an hour later.

"The first time I saw the Golden Hades it was real gold," he explained. "It had been stamped on the back of a thousand-dollar bill and had been dusted over with gold-leaf. Then it had the word 'Hades' in Greek beneath it, and that's how I came to identify the picture; it is pretty easy to identify from any classical dictionary. The bill came into my hands in a very curious way. There was a poor woman down on the east side who worked as a help in one of the Brooklyn hotels. According to her story she was returning home one night when a man walked up to her and gave her a big package of bills and walked away. She got back to her room, switched on the light, and found that she had a hundred thousand dollars. She couldn't believe her eyes, supposed somebody had been having a joke with her, and thought, as you thought, that the money was fake. She put it under her pillow, intending in the morning to take it to somebody who could tell real money from counterfeit. In the night she was awakened by hearing somebody in her room. She was about to cry out when a voice told her to be silent, somebody switched on the light and she discovered that there was not one, but three masked men standing about her bed."

Frank looked at the detective.

"Are you stringing me?"

Wilbur Smith shook his head.

"This is dead serious. They asked where the money was, and she, speechless with terror at the sight of their guns, pointed to the pillow and fainted. When she recovered, the money was gone all except one bill, which they overlooked in their hurry. She brought this to the office the next day and told her story. The chief thought it was a lie and that the woman had stolen the money from the hotel where she was working, that she got scared, and prepared this very thin yarn to clear herself."

"And was this so?" The detective shook his head.

"No," he said, "I took up the case. There was no money missing from the hotel. The woman had a very good character, was, in fact, one of the poor but transparently honest types, and we'd no other course to pursue but to hand over the thousand dollars to her. That was the first time I ever met the Golden Hades.

"The second time," he went on, "the circumstances were almost as remarkable. This time the notes, several of them, were in the possession of a man named Henry Laste, a confirmed gambler, who was picked up drunk in the street by a patrolman and taken to the station. I happened to be there and when the man was searched eight of these bills for a thousand dollars were found in his pocket. We got him sober and he told us a story that his wife had found the notes between the leaves of a book she'd bought. I got this information from him about eight o'clock in the morning," Wilbur Smith went on slowly, "and started off for his house to interview his wife. He lived in a tenement house, and when we got to the door and knocked there was no answer. I was pretty interested in the business, and I knew there was something big behind it. I got the janitor to unlock the door with a master key."

"And the woman was gone?" asked Frank. The detective shook his head.

"The woman was there," he said simply, "dead! Shot through the heart, every room ransacked, drawers turned out, wardrobes stripped—"

"The Higgins Tenement Murder!" gasped Alwin. Wilbur nodded gravely.

"The Higgins Tenement Murder," he said.

"And did you find any notes?"

"None. We wanted to charge the husband, but he had no difficulty in proving an alibi. He had been at a gaming house until five minutes before he was picked up, and had been in custody since one o'clock in the morning, and the murder had been committed at ten minutes past two. The shot that killed the woman passed through her body and through an alarm clock which stopped at that hour."

They sat looking at each other in silence; the clatter and chatter of the restaurant jangled in the ears of Frank Alwin, and there came to him a sudden realisation of danger, mysterious, menacing and real

"I see," he said slowly; "everybody who has handled those notes stamped with the Golden Hades has been—"

"Hold up," the detective finished the sentence. "That's just it, and that is just why I am going to stick with you through the night, Frank."

They had been friends for many years, the leading man at the Coliseum- Majestic and his old-time school-fellow, who had more crime discoveries to his credit than any man who drew a salary from the Department of Justice.

Frank Alwin himself had three strenuous years of wartime service in the Justice Department to his credit and had he not been a born producer, a brilliant actor, and a comfortably rich man, he might have made a reputation equally great to that which he enjoyed, in the same service as his friend.

"I don't like it," said Alwin, after a while. "It's uncanny. Who was Pluto anyway?"

"He was the deity of the underworld, the one deity who is worshipped today by certain cranks. I suppose there is something about him that appeals to the modern demonologist."

A waiter came to the table at that moment.

"Mr. Alwin," be said, "there's a phone message for you."

Frank got up and the detective half rose to accompany him.

"Don't worry," laughed Frank, "they're not going to kill me by 'phone. Anyway, they couldn't get the money, it's in your pocket."

Three minutes passed and he did not return. Five minutes went by and the detective grew uneasy. He beckoned the waiter.

"Go into the vestibule and see if Mr. Alwin is still at the 'phone," he said.

The man returned almost immediately.

"Mr. Alwin's not in the vestibule, sir," he said.

"Not there?" Wilbur Smith leaped to his feet, pushed the chair aside, and went into the vestibule. The hall porter said he had not seen Alwin go out, but he had been absent from the entrance for five minutes. He had seen a car waiting at the door which was gone when he returned.

Wilbur Smith ran into the deserted street. There was nobody in sight. The entrance stood between and at equal distance from two electric light standards, whose rays were so thrown that immediately before the entrance of the restaurant was a little patch of darkness. He saw something at the edge of the pavement, stooped and picked it up. It was Frank's hat, battered and damp. He carried it to the light. One look was sufficient. His hand, where it had touched the crushed crown, was red with blood.