Читать книгу The British Mysteries Edition: 14 Novels & 70+ Short Stories - Sapper - Страница 68

"Captain, you have me guessing." The American bit the end off another cigar, and leaned back in his chair. "You say that swell Frenchman with the waiters hovering about like fleas round a dog's tail is the reason you came to Paris. Is he kind of friendly with Hiram C. Potts?"

Drummond laughed.

"The first time I met Mr. Potts," he remarked, "that swell Frenchman was just preparing to put a thumbscrew on his second thumb."

"Second?" The detective looked up quickly.

"The first had been treated earlier in the evening," answered Drummond quietly. "It was then that I removed your millionaire pal."

The other lit his cigar deliberately.

"Say, Captain," he murmured, "you ain't pulling my leg by any chance, are you?"

"I am not," said Drummond shortly. "I was told, before I met him, that the gentleman over there was one of the boys.... He is, most distinctly. In fact, though up to date such matters have not been much in my line, I should put him down as a sort of super-criminal. I wonder what name he is passing under here?"

The American ceased pulling at his cigar.

"Do they vary?"

"In England he is clean-shaven, possesses a daughter, and answers to Carl Peterson. As he is at present I should never have known him, but for that little trick of his."

"Possesses a daughter!" For the first time the detective displayed traces of excitement. "Holy Smoke! It can't be him!"

"Who?" demanded Drummond.

But the other did not answer. Out of the corner of his eye he was watching three men who had just joined the subject of their talk, and on his face was a dawning amazement. He waited till the whole party had gone into the restaurant, then, throwing aside his caution, he turned excitedly on Drummond.

"Are you certain," he cried, "that that's the man who has been monkeying with Potts?"

"Absolutely," said Hugh. "He recognised me; whether he thinks I recognised him or not, I don't know."

"Then what," remarked the detective, "is he doing here dining with Hocking, our cotton trust man; with Steinemann, the German coal man; and with that other guy whose face is familiar, but whose name I can't place? Two of 'em at anyrate, Captain, have got more millions than we're ever likely to have thousands."

Hugh stared at the American.

"Last night," he said slowly, "he was foregathering with a crowd of the most atrocious ragged-trousered revolutionaries it's ever been my luck to run up against."

"We're in it, Captain, right in the middle of it," cried the detective, slapping his leg. "I'll eat my hat if that Frenchman isn't Franklyn—or Libstein—or Baron Darott—or any other of the blamed names he calls himself. He's the biggest proposition we've ever been up against on this little old earth, and he's done us every time. He never commits himself, and if he does, he always covers his tracks. He's a genius; he's the goods. Gee!" he whistled gently under his breath. "If we could only lay him by the heels."

For a while he stared in front of him, lost in his dream of pleasant anticipation; then, with a short laugh, he pulled himself together.

"Quite a few people have thought the same, Captain," he remarked, "and there he is—still drinking high-balls. You say he was with a crowd of revolutionaries last night. What do you mean exactly?"

"Bolshevists, Anarchists, members of the Do-no-work-and-have-all-the-money Brigade," answered Hugh. "But excuse me a moment. Waiter."

A man who had been hovering round came up promptly.

"Four of 'em, Ted," said Hugh in a rapid undertone. "Frenchman with a beard, a Yank, and two Boches. Do your best."

"Right-o, old bean!" returned the waiter, "but don't hope for too much."

He disappeared unobtrusively into the restaurant, and Hugh turned with a laugh to the American, who was staring at him in amazement.

"Who the devil is that guy?" asked the detective at length.

"Ted Jerningham—son of Sir Patrick Jerningham, Bart., and Lady Jerningham, of Jerningham Hall, Rutland, England," answered Hugh, still grinning. "We may be crude in our methods, Mr. Green, but you must admit we do our best. Incidentally, if you want to know, your friend Mr. Potts is at present tucked between the sheets at that very house. He went there by aeroplane this morning." He waved a hand towards Jerry. "He was the pilot."

"Travelled like a bird, and sucked up a plate of meat-juice at the end," announced that worthy, removing his eyes with difficulty from a recently arrived fairy opposite. "Who says that's nothing, Hugh: the filly across the road there, with that bangle affair round her knee?"

"I must apologise for him, Mr. Green," remarked Hugh. "He has only recently left school, and knows no better."

But the American was shaking his head a little dazedly.

"Crude!" he murmured, "crude! If you and your pals, Captain, are ever out of a job, the New York police is yours for the asking." He smoked for a few moments in silence, and then, with a quick hunch of his shoulders, he turned to Drummond. "I guess there'll be time to throw bouquets after," he remarked. "We've got to get busy on what your friend Peterson's little worry is; we've then got to stop it—some old how. Now, does nothing sort of strike you?" He looked keenly at the soldier.

"Revolutionaries, Bolshevists, paid agitators last night: international financiers this evening. Why, the broad outline of the plan is as plain as the nose on your face; and it's just the sort of game that man would love...." The detective stared thoughtfully at the end of his cigar, and a look of comprehension began to dawn on Hugh's face.

"Great Scott! Mr. Green," he said, "I'm beginning to get you. What was defeating me was, why two men like Peterson and Lakington should be mixed up with last night's crowd."

"Lakington! Who's Lakington?" asked the other quickly.

"Number Two in the combine," answered Hugh, "and a nasty man."

"Well, we'll leave him out for the moment," said the American. "Doesn't it strike you that there are quite a number of people in this world who would benefit if England became a sort of second Russia? That such a thing would be worth money—big money? That such a thing would be worth paying through the nose for? It would have to be done properly; your small strike here, and your small strike there, ain't no manner of use. One gigantic syndicalist strike all over your country—that's what Peterson's playing for, I'll stake my bottom dollar. How he's doing it is another matter. But he's in with the big financiers: and he's using the tub-thumping Bolshies as tools. Gad! It's a big scheme"—he puffed twice at his cigar—"a durned big scheme. Your little old country, Captain, is, saving one, the finest on God's earth; but she's in a funny mood. She's sick, like most of us are; maybe she's a little bit sicker than a good many people think. But I reckon Peterson's cure won't do any manner of good, excepting to himself and those blamed capitalists who are putting up the dollars."

"Then where the devil does Potts come in?" said Hugh, who had listened intently to every word the American had said. "And the Duchess of Lampshire's pearls?"

"Pearls!" began the American, when the restaurant door opened suddenly and Ted Jerningham emerged. He seemed to be in a hurry, and Hugh half rose in his chair. Then he sat back again, as with miraculous rapidity a crowd of infuriated head waiters and other great ones appeared from nowhere and surrounded Jerningham.

Undoubtedly this was not the way for a waiter to leave the hotel—even if he had just been discovered as an impostor and sacked on the spot. And undoubtedly if he had been a waiter, this large body of scandalised beings would have removed him expeditiously through some secret buttery-hatch, and dropped him on the pavement out of a back entrance.

But not being a waiter, he continued to advance, while his entourage, torn between rage at his effrontery and horror at the thought of a scene, followed in his wake.

Just opposite Hugh he halted, and in a clear voice addressed no one in particular:

"You're spotted. Look out. Ledger at Godalming."

Then, engulfed once more in the crowd, he continued his majestic progress, and finally disappeared a little abruptly from view.

"Cryptic," murmured the American, "but some lad. Gee! He had that bunch guessing."

"The ledger at Godalming," said Hugh thoughtfully. "I watched Peterson, through the skylight last night, getting gay with that ledger. I'm thinking we'll have to look inside it, Mr. Green."

He glanced up as one of the chucking-out party came back, and asked what had happened.

"Mon Dieu, M'sieur," cried the waiter despairingly. "'E vas an impostor, n'est-ce-pas—un scélerat; 'e upset ze fish all over ze shirt-front of Monsieur le Comte."

"Was that the gentleman with the short beard, dining with three others?" asked Drummond gravely.

"Mais oui, M'sieur. He dine here always if 'e is in Paris—does le Comte de Guy. Oh! Mon Dieu! C'est terrible!"

Wringing his hands, the waiter went back into the restaurant, and Hugh shook silently.

"Dear old Ted," he murmured, wiping the tears from his eyes. "I knew he'd keep his end up." Then he stood up. "What about a little dinner at Maxim's? I'm thinking we've found out all we're likely to find, until we can get to that ledger. And thanks to your knowing those birds, Mr. Green, our trip to Paris has been of considerable value."

The American nodded.

"I guess I'm on," he remarked slowly; "but, if you take my advice, Captain, you'll look nippy to-night. I wouldn't linger around corners admiring the mud. Things kind o' happen at corners."