Читать книгу The Clue of the New Pin - Edgar Wallace - Страница 7

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"URSULA ARDFERN." Tab woke with the words on his lips. The hour was eleven, and Rex had been out and was back again.

"L'ami de mon oncle has been--did you hear him?" asked Rex, stopping his towel-encompassed companion on his way to the bath-room.

"Who--Bonaparte?"

"Wellington is his name, I believe. Yes, he came rather subdued and apologetic, but full of horrific threats toward Uncle Jesse. I turned him out."

"Why did he come?"

Rex Lander shook his head.

"Heaven knows! Unless it was that he simply had to find somebody who knew uncle well enough to be interested in hearing him curse the old man. I've persuaded him to leave town until the end of next week. But I must say that I was impressed by the brute's threats. He says he will kill Uncle Jesse unless he makes reparation."

"Twiff!" said Tab contemptuously, and went to his tub.

Over his breakfast (Rex had had his two hours before) he returned to the subject of Mr. Jesse Trasmere and his enemy.

"When a man soaks he's dangerous," he said. "There isn't any such thing as a harmless drunkard, any more than there is a harmless lunatic. Carver and I had a talk on the matter early this morning, and he agreed. That man is certainly intelligent, which is more than you can say of the majority of detectives, poor fellow; they are the victims of a system which calls for a sixty-nine-inch brain."

"Eh?"

"A sixty-nine-inch brain," explained Tab, and there was really no excuse for Babe Lander to be puzzled, for Tab was on his favourite topic, "is the brain of a man who is chosen for the subtle business of criminal investigation; not because he is clever or shrewd or has a knowledge of the world, but because he stands sixty-nine inches in his stockings and has a chest expansion to thirty-eight. Funny, isn't it? And yet detectives are chosen that way. They have to strip hard, very hard, but they need not think very hard. Do you ever realize that Napoleon and Julius Caesar, to mention only two bright lads, could never have got into the police force?"

"It hasn't struck me before," admitted Rex. "But I've never had any doubt as to the size of your brain, Tab."

There were exactly seventy inches of Tab, though he did not look so tall, having thickness and breadth to his shoulders. He had a habit of stooping, which made him seem round-shouldered. This trick came from pounding a typewriter or crouching over a desk which was just a little too low for him.

He was fresh-coloured, but brown rather than pink. His face was finer drawn than is usual in a man of his build, his eyes deep-set and steadfastly grey. When he spoke he drawled a little. Those who knew him very well indeed detected one imperfection of speech. He could not say "very"--it was "vethy," but spoken so quickly that only the trained and acquainted ear could detect the lisp.

He came to journalism from one of the Universities, bringing no particular reputation for learning, but universally honoured as the best three-quarter back of his time. Without being rich he was comfortably placed, and as he was one of those fortunates who had innumerable maiden-aunts he received on an average one legacy a year, though he had studiously neglected them because of their possessions.

It would be more true to say that Tab leapt into journalism, and to that peculiar department of journalism which he found most fascinating, when he dived off the end of a river pier and rescued Jasper Dorgon, the defaulting banker who had tried to commit suicide, and had extracted an exclusive story from the banker whilst both sat in a state of nudity before a night watchman's fire watching their clothes dry.

"Let it strike you now, Babe," he said. "The sixty-nine-inch brain, the generally accepted theory that anything under the sixty-nine-inch level is solid ivory, is the theory that keeps Lew Vann and old Joe Haspinell and similar crook acquaintances of mine dining in the Grand Criterion when they ought to be atoning for their sins in the Cold Stone Jug. But Carver is a good man. He thinks, though it is against regulations."

"What does he think about Wellington?"

"Didn't tell him," said Tab. "You ought to warn your uncle."

"I'll see him to-day," nodded Rex.

They went out together before the lunch hour. Tab had a call to make at the office and afterwards he was meeting Carver for lunch. Carver, a lanky and slow-speaking man, was ordinarily no conversationalist. On some subjects he was impressively interesting, and as Tab provided the subject, two hours slipped away very quickly. Before they left the restaurant, Tab told him of the drunken stranger and his threats against Jesse Trasmere.

"I don't worry about threats," said Carver, "but a man with a grievance, and especially a Number One grievance like this man has, is pretty certain to cause trouble. Do you know old Trasmere?"

"I've seen him twice. I was once sent to his house to make an inquiry about an action that the municipality started against him for building without the town architect's permission. Rex Lander, who is a kindergarten architect by the way, and rooms with me, is his nephew, and I've heard a whole lot about him. He writes to Rex from time to time; letters full of good advice about saving money."

"Lander is his heir?"

"Rex hopes so, fervently. But he says it is just as likely that Uncle Jesse will leave his money to a Home for the Incurably Wealthy. Talking of Trasmere, there goes his valet, and he seems in a hurry."

A cab dashed past them, its solitary passenger was Walters, a pinch-faced man, bareheaded, and on his face a tense, haggard look that immediately arrested the attention of the two men.

"Who did you say that was?" asked Carver quickly.

"Walters--old Trasmere's servant," replied Tab; "looks pretty scared to me."

"Walters?" The detective stood stock still, thinking. "I know that man's face...I've got him! Walter Felling!"

"Walter who?"

"Felling--he was through my hands ten years ago, and he has been convicted since. Walters, as you call him, is an incorrigible thief! Old Trasmere's servant, eh? That's his speciality. He takes service with rich people, and one fine morning they wake up to find their loose jewellery and money and plate gone. Did you notice the number of the cab?"

Tab shook his head.

"The question is," said the detective, "has he made a get-away in a hurry, or is he on an urgent errand for his boss? Anyway we ought to see Trasmere. Shall we take a cab or walk?"

"Walk," said Tab promptly. "Only the detectives of fiction take cabs, Carver. The real people know that when they present their cab bills to the head office a soulless clerk will question each item."

"Tab, you certainly know more about the interior economy of thief-catching than an outsider ought to know," responded the detective gloomily.

Between them and Trasmere's house was the better part of a mile. Mayfield, the dwelling-place of old Jesse, was the one ugly building in a road which was famous for the elegance of its houses. Built of hideously yellow brick, without any ornamentation, it stood squat and square in the middle of a cemented "garden." Three microscopic circles of earth had been left at the urgent request of the builder, wherein Mr. Jesse might, if he so desired, win from the sickly earth such blooms and blossoms as might delight his eye. To this he reluctantly agreed, but only after there had been pointed out to him the fact that such an alteration to his plans would save a little money.

"It isn't exactly the Palace of the Fairy Prince, is it?" said Tab, as he pushed open the cast-iron gate.

"I've seen prettier houses," admitted Carver. "I wonder--"

So far he got when the front door was flung violently open and Rex Lander rushed out. His face was the colour of chalk, his big baby eyes were staring wildly. They fell upon the two men on the concrete walk, and his mouth opened to speak, but no words came.

Tab ran to him.

"What is wrong?" he demanded, and that something was badly wrong one glance at Babe Lander told him.

"My uncle..." he gasped. "Go...look..."

Carver rushed into the house and through the open door of the dining-room. It was empty, but at the side of the fireplace was a narrower door.

"Where is he?" asked the detective.

Rex could only point to the narrow aperture.

There was a flight of stone stairs which terminated in a narrow passage, barred by yet another door, which was also open. The corridor was well lighted by three globes set at intervals in the ceiling, and the acrid smell of exploded cordite filled the confined space of the passage, which was empty.

"There must be a room opening from here," said Carver.

"Whose are these?"

He stooped and picked up an old pair of gloves that lay on the floor and pushed them into his pocket.

He looked round for Rex Lander. That young man was sitting on the top step of the stairs, his face in his hands.

"There's no sense in questioning him," said Carver in an undertone, "where is his uncle?"

Tab walked rapidly down the passage and came to a door on the left. It was a narrow door, painted black and deeply recessed in the thick wall. There was no handle, and only a tiny keyhole. Four inches from its top was a steel plate pierced with small holes for the purpose of ventilation. He pushed the door, but it was locked. Then he peered through the ventilator.

He saw a vault which he guessed was about ten feet long by eight feet wide. Fixed to the rough walls were a number of steel shelves, loaded up with black iron boxes. A brilliant light came from a globe in the vaulted roof, and he saw plainly.

At the farther end of the room was a plain table, but it was not at this he was looking, but at the figure crouched against one of its legs. The face was turned in his direction.

It was the face of Jesse Trasmere, and he was dead.