Читать книгу The Leopard's Spots - Fred M. White - Страница 14

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They placed the mysterious stranger in a bed in a comfortable room at the back of the house, where he was soon in a profound sleep. It was the very best thing that could happen, Stagg said, as he preceded Josh down the stairs to the dining-room, where he ordered up the whisky and soda and, lighting a cigarette, threw himself into his chair, whilst Josh sat down on the other side of the fireplace.

"This is a rum go, sir," the latter said.

"Of all my many experiences, the strangest," Stagg replied. "I shouldn't be surprised if this turned out to be a very big thing, Albert. And if it is, then I shall want all your assistance. Our young friend can stay here for the present, and I want you to be particularly careful that no one discovers he is in the house. Of course, I will be responsible for his keep in the rooms. Now, the point is, have you got another lodger just now."

Josh responded to the effect that they had no other visitors just at the moment, and seeing that Stagg occupied one set of rooms and the unfortunate victim of circumstances was now installed in the other, there would not be much likelihood of trouble in that direction.

"You think the gentleman is being watched, sir?" he asked.

"I should think it is more than likely," Stagg said. "But 'you'll soon find that out. As an old detective, and a once prominent member of Pinkerton's, I can safely leave all that in your hands."

"I think you can, sir," Josh said. "If it wasn't for this confounded leg of mine, I would be with Pinkerton still."

This was a regret that Josh frequently alluded to. All his heart and soul had been in his work, and at one time he had bid fair to take a high position in the famous American detective force; but a lively adventure with certain desperate bank forgers of New York had ended in a general mix-up, in which Josh had had the misfortune to break his thigh. The injury had healed badly, with the result that Josh was lame for life. This, of course, acted very adversely in the case of a detective who, clever enough at disguises, could never disguise the foot of his pronounced lameness, which, of course, earmarked him so to speak amongst American criminals. Therefore, he had resigned from the force and married a little Englishwoman who ruled him with a rod of iron. He had come back to England and invested his savings in the house in Caithness Road, where he passed his time looking conscientiously after his lodgers and occupying his spare moments in a close study of such newspapers as devoted their columns to crime. He knew a goodly number of police officers, and on more than one occasion these representatives of the law found Albert Josh's advice valuable. For the rest, he had a weakness for sensational literature, and it was one of the great ambitions of his life to find a publisher for a criminal romance that he had written. He and Stagg were something more than master and servant, and Josh had never forgotten those early days of his when he had first begun to get his living as a farmer's boy on the Stagg estates. Those had long since gone the way of all flesh, but the link remained and some of the most enjoyable moments in Josh's life were when Stagg could pass a night or two in town and invited the ex-detective to a chat in the sitting-room over a whisky and soda and one of Stagg's choice cigarettes.

"I don't know, sir," Josh said. "But perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me some more about it."

"I will tell you the whole story, if you like," Stagg said. "Now listen."

Whereupon he told the interested Josh the whole narrative from the moment when he had mistaken the numbers of the house in Porchester-place till the time when the mysterious stranger had placed those diamonds on the table. From his pocket Josh produced a voluminous notebook.

"Half a minute, sir," he said. "Let me get it all down. We are on the verge of a big case here, and there is nothing I should like better than to have a hand in it. Now, first of all, you went in the wrong house."

"No doubt about that," Stagg said dryly.

"And there you saw a mysterious lady who introduced you to a dead body. From what I gather, sir, she didn't know it was a body till she took you upstairs."

"I don't think she did," Stagg said. "But she was so infernally cool about the whole thing that upon my word I hardly know. Still, if she had known the man had been dead, she would hardly have sent for me—I mean for Dr. Gilbert."

"No, that's a fair inference, sir. Anyway, the man was dead. And he died a violent death. And when you had found that out you thought it was about time to go."

"Well, it did occur to me that I might, with advantage, be engaged elsewhere," Stagg said dryly. "For once in a way that insatiable curiosity or mine had carried me too far. And as I did not want to be mixed up with any public case I gracefully obliterated myself."

"Did you see anything else suspicious?" Josh asked.

"No," Stagg said thoughtfully. "Only the matter of those fragments of gold setting on the dining room table and the diamond star I told you about. I wasn't going to think any more about it, and I don't suppose I should if I hadn't noticed the next morning when I went up to call Mr. Stokes that the house was all shut up. I wasn't surprised to find that, and though that insatiable curiosity of mine still troubled me I was going to hold it down till I read of that extraordinary happening in the station cloak room. I mean the little explosion there that led to the discovery of the body."

"Lord, sir, that was a funny case, wasn't it?" Josh asked. "I read all about that. I read all them things. Go on, sir."

"I thought it was you who were going on," Stagg said. "I told you how I went down to Seymour-street police station and saw that body lying in the mortuary."

"And recognised it as the man you saw in the bedroom, and perhaps more especially by the diamond ring on one of the fingers," Josh said eagerly. "I have been mixed up in some funny cases in my time, but never in one quite as complicated as this. And I shouldn't be at all surprised, sir, if the young man upstairs hasn't got something to do with it."

"I always said you were a shrewd man," Stagg remarked benignly. "I am entirely in agreement with you. From what I have told you it's quite plain that robbery, and a jewel robbery at that, was at the bottom of all the trouble in that mysterious house in Porchester-place. And when I am following it up through the medium of that advertisement in the Agony Column of 'The Times' which you remember pointed to an assignation of a certain restaurant, I blunder straight into a nameless young man who has his pockets full of magnificent diamonds which apparently have been recently removed from their settings. It doesn't matter two straws to us at present whether our young friend upstairs is one of the thieves or some innocent youth who has been used by the miscreants. Personally I am in his favour. But what I want to know now is where Dr. Gilbert comes in. I want you to find out for me what manner of man he is. He was supposed to be the complacent type of medical man who will certify anything for a big fee. Now, I am going to leave it to you to find out all about Dr. Gilbert. You are well in with the police, and I dare say they will help you to get in touch with the telephone people in the neighbourhood of Porchester Place. Mind you get on the track of the right Dr. Gilbert. There may be more than one of them near Porchester Place."