The Complete Four Just Men (50 page)

Manfred shook his head.

‘Stedland graduated as a gun-fighter in South Africa,’ he said quietly. ‘He is the quickest man on the draw I know, and a deadly shot. Of course, he had your husband covered before he could as much as reach his pocket.’

She nodded.

‘That is the story,’ she said quietly. ‘If you can help Jeff, I shall pray for you all my life.’

Manfred rose slowly.

‘It was a mad attempt,’ he said. ‘In the first place Stedland would not keep a compromising document like that in his house, which he leaves for six hours a day. It might even have been destroyed, though that is unlikely. He would keep the letter for future use. Blackmailers are keen students of humanity, and he knows that money may still be made, from that letter of yours. But if it is in existence – ’

‘If it is in existence,’ she repeated – and now the reaction had come and her lips were trembling –

‘I will place it in your hands within a week,’ said Manfred, and with this promise left her.

Mr Noah Stedland had left the Courts of Justice that afternoon with no particular sense of satisfaction save that he was leaving it by the public entrance. He was not a man who was easily scared, but he was sensitive to impressions; and it seemed to him that the Judge’s carefully chosen words had implied, less in their substance than in their tone, a veiled rebuke to himself. Beyond registering this fact, his sensitiveness did not go. He was a man of comfortable fortune, and that fortune had been got together in scraps – sometimes the scraps were unusually large – by the exercise of qualities which were not handicapped by such imponderable factors as conscience or remorse. Life to this tall, broad-shouldered, grey-faced man was a game, and Jeffrey Storr, against whom he harboured no resentment, was a loser.

He could think dispassionately of Storr in his convict clothes, wearing out the years of agony in a convict prison, and at the mental picture could experience no other emotion than that of the successful gambler who can watch his rival’s ruin with equanimity.

He let himself into his narrow-fronted house, closed and double-locked the door behind him, and went up the shabbily carpeted stairs to his study. The ghosts of the lives he had wrecked should have crowded the room; but Mr Stedland did not believe in ghosts. He rubbed his finger along a mahogany table and noted that it was dusty, and the ghost of a well-paid charlady took shape from that moment.

As he sprawled back in his chair, a big cigar between his gold-spotted teeth, he tried to analyse the queer sensation he had experienced in court. It was not the Judge, it was not the attitude of the defending counsel, it was not even the possibility that the world might censure him, which was responsible for his mental perturbation. It was certainly not the prisoner and his possible fate, or the white-faced wife. And yet there had been a something or a somebody which had set him glancing uneasily over his shoulder.

He sat smoking for half an hour, and then a bell clanged and he went down the stairs and opened the front door. The man who was waiting with an apologetic smile on his face, a jackal of his, was butler and tout and general errand-boy to the hard-faced man.

‘Come in, Jope,’ he said, closing the door behind the visitor. ‘Go down to the cellar and get me a bottle of whisky?’

‘How was my evidence, guv’nor?’ asked the sycophant, smirking expectantly.

‘Rotten,’ growled Stedland. ‘What did you mean by saying you heard me call for help?’

‘Well, guv’nor, I thought I’d make it a little worse for him,’ said Jope humbly.

‘Help!’ sneered Mr Stedland. ‘Do you think I’d call on a guy like you for help? A damned lot of use you would be in a rough house! Get that whisky!’

When the man came up with a bottle and a syphon, Mr Stedland was gazing moodily out of the window which looked upon a short, untidy garden terminating in a high wall. Behind that was a space on which a building had been in course of erection when the armistice put an end to Government work. It was designed as a small factory for the making of fuses, and was an eyesore to Mr Stedland, since he owned the ground on which it was built.

‘Jope,’ he said, turning suddenly, ‘was there anybody in court we know?’

‘No, Mr Stedland,’ said the man, pausing in surprise. ‘Not that I know, except Inspector – ’

‘Never mind about the Inspector,’ answered Mr Stedland impatiently. ‘I know all the splits who were there. Was there anybody else – anybody who has a grudge against us?’

‘No, Mr Stedland. What does it matter if there was?’ asked the valorous Jope. ‘I think we’re a match for any of ’em.’

‘How long have we been in partnership?’ asked Stedland unpleasantly, as he poured himself out a tot of whisky.

The man’s face twisted in an ingratiating smile.

‘Well, we’ve been together some time now, Mr Stedland,’ he said.

Stedland smacked his lips and looked out of the window again.

‘Yes,’ he said after a while, ‘we’ve been together a long time now. In fact, you would almost have finished your sentence, if I had told the police what I knew about you seven years ago – ’

The man winced, and changed the subject. He might have realised, had he thought, that the sentence of seven years had been commuted by Stedland to a sentence of life servitude, but Mr Jope was no thinker.

‘Anything for the Bank today, sir?’ he asked.

‘Don’t be a fool,’ said Stedland. ‘The Bank closed at three. Now, Jope,’ he turned on the other, ‘in future you sleep in the kitchen.’

‘In the kitchen, sir?’ said the astonished servant, and Stedland nodded.

‘I’m taking no more risks of a night visitor,’ he said. ‘That fellow was on me before I knew where I was, and if I hadn’t had a gun handy he would have beaten me. The kitchen is the only way you can break into this house from the outside, and I’ve got a feeling at the back of my mind that something might happen.’

‘But he’s gone to gaol.’

‘I’m not talking about him,’ snarled Stedland. ‘Do you understand, take your bed to the kitchen.’

‘It’s a bit draughty – ’ began Jope.

‘Take your bed to the kitchen,’ roared Stedland, glaring at the man.

‘Certainly, sir,’ said Jope with alacrity.

When his servant had gone, Stedland took off his coat and put on one of stained alpaca, unlocked the safe, and took out a book. It was a pass-book from his bank, and its study was very gratifying. Mr Stedland dreamed dreams of a South American ranch and a life of ease and quiet. Twelve years’ strenuous work in London had made him a comparatively rich man. He had worked cautiously and patiently and had pursued the business of blackmail in a businesslike manner. His cash balance was with one of the best-known of the private bankers. Sir William Molbury & Co., Ltd. Molbury’s Bank had a reputation in the City for the privacy and even mystery which enveloped the business of its clients – a circumstance which suited Mr Stedland admirably. It was, too, one of those old-fashioned banks which maintain a huge reserve of money in its vaults; and this was also a recommendation to Mr Stedland, who might wish to gather in his fluid assets in the shortest possible space of time.

The evening and the night passed without any untoward incident, except as was revealed when Mr Jope brought his master’s tea in the morning, and told, somewhat hoarsely, of a cold and unpleasant night. ‘Get more bedclothes,’ said Stedland curtly. He went off to his city office after breakfast, and left Mr Jope to superintend the operations of the charwoman and to impress upon her a number of facts, including the high rate at which she was paid, the glut of good charwomen on the market and the consequences which would overtake her if she left Mr Stedland’s study undusted.

At eleven o’clock that morning came a respectable and somewhat elderly looking gentleman in a silk hat, and him Mr Jope interviewed on the door-mat.

‘I’ve come from the Safe Deposit,’ said the visitor.

‘What Safe Deposit?’ asked the suspicious Mr Jope.

‘The Fetter Lane Deposit,’ replied the other. ‘We want to know if you left your keys behind the last time you came?’

Jope shook his head. ‘We haven’t any Safe Deposit,’ he said with assurance, ‘and the governor’s hardly likely to leave his keys behind.’

‘Then evidently I’ve come to the wrong house,’ smiled the gentleman. ‘This is Mr Smithson’s?’

‘No, it ain’t,’ said the ungracious Jope, and shut the door in the caller’s face.

The visitor walked down the steps into the street and joined another man who was standing at a corner.

‘They know nothing of Safe Deposits, Manfred,’ he said.

‘I hardly thought it would be at a Safe Deposit,’ said the taller of the two. ‘In fact, I was pretty certain that he would keep all his papers at the bank. You saw the man Jope, I suppose?’

‘Yes,’ said Gonsalez dreamily. ‘An interesting face. The chin weak, but the ears quite normal. The frontal bones slope irregularly backward, and the head, so far as I can see, is distinctly oxycephalic.’

‘Poor Jope!’ said Manfred without a smile. ‘And now, Leon, you and I will devote our attention to the weather. There is an anticyclone coming up from the Bay of Biscay, and its beneficent effects are already felt in Eastbourne. If it extends northwards to London in the next three days we shall have good news for Mrs Storr.’

‘I suppose,’ said Gonsalez, as they were travelling back to their rooms in Jermyn Street, ‘I suppose there is no possibility of rushing this fellow.’

Manfred shook his head.

‘I do not wish to die,’ he said, ‘and die I certainly should, for Noah Stedland is unpleasantly quick to shoot.’

Manfred’s prophecy was fulfilled two days later, when the influence of the anticyclone spread to London and a thin yellow mist descended on the city. It lifted in the afternoon, Manfred saw to his satisfaction, but gave no evidence of dispersing before nightfall.

Mr Stedland’s office in Regent Street was small but comfortably furnished. On the glass door beneath his name was inscribed the magic word: ‘Financier,’ and it is true that Stedland was registered as a moneylender and found it a profitable business; for what Stedland the moneylender discovered, Stedland the blackmailer exploited, and it was not an unusual circumstance for Mr Stedland to lend at heavy interest money which was destined for his own pocket. In this way he could obtain a double grip upon his victim.

At half past two that afternoon his clerk announced a caller.

‘Man or woman?’

‘A man, sir,’ said the clerk, ‘I think he’s from Molbury’s Bank.’

‘Do you know him?’ asked Stedland.

‘No, sir, but he came yesterday when you were out, and asked if you’d received the Bank’s balance sheet.’ Mr Stedland took a cigar from a box on the table and lit it.

‘Show him in,’ he said, anticipating nothing more exciting than a dishonoured cheque from one of his clients.

The man who came in was obviously in a state of agitation. He closed the door behind him and stood nervously fingering his hat.

‘Sit down,’ said Stedland. ‘Have a cigar, Mr – ’

‘Curtis, sir,’ said the other huskily. ‘Thank you, sir, I don’t smoke.’

‘Well, what do you want?’ asked Stedland.

‘I want a few minutes’ conversation with you, sir, of a private character.’ He glanced apprehensively at the glass partition which separated Mr Stedland’s office from the little den in which his clerks worked.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Stedland humorously. ‘I can guarantee that screen is sound-proof. What’s your trouble?’

He scented a temporary embarrassment, and a bank clerk temporarily embarrassed might make a very useful tool for future use.

‘I hardly know how to begin, Mr Stedland,’ said the man, seating himself on the edge of a chair, his face twitching nervously. ‘It’s a terrible story, a terrible story.’

Stedland had heard about these terrible stories before, and sometimes they meant no more than that the visitor was threatened with bailiffs and was anxious to keep the news from the ears of his employers. Sometimes the confession was more serious – money lost in gambling, and a desperate eleventh-hour attempt to make good a financial deficiency.

‘Go on,’ he said. ‘You won’t shock me.’ The boast was a little premature, however.

‘It’s not about myself, but about my brother, John Curtis, who’s been cashier for twenty years, sir,’ said the man nervously. ‘I hadn’t the slightest idea that he was in difficulties, but he was gambling on the Stock Exchange, and only today he has told me the news. I am in terrible distress about him, sir. I fear suicide. He is a nervous wreck.’

‘What has he done?’ asked Stedland impatiently.

‘He has robbed the Bank, sir,’ said the man in a hushed voice. ‘It wouldn’t matter if it had happened two years ago, but now, when things have been going so badly and we’ve had to stretch a point to make our balance sheet plausible, I shudder to think what the results will be.’

‘Of how much has he robbed the Bank?’ asked Stedland quickly.

‘A hundred and fifty thousand pounds,’ was the staggering reply, and Stedland jumped to his feet.

‘A hundred and fifty thousand?’ he said incredulously.

‘Yes, sir. I was wondering whether you could speak for him; you are one of the most highly respected clients of the Bank!’

‘Speak for him!’ shouted Stedland, and then of a sudden he became cool. His quick brain went over the situation, reviewing every possibility. He looked up at the clock. It was a quarter to three.

‘Does anybody in the Bank know?’

‘Not yet, sir, but I feel it is my duty to the general manager to tell him the tragic story. After the Bank closes this afternoon I am asking him to see me privately and – ’

‘Are you going back to the Bank now?’ asked Stedland.

‘Yes, sir,’ said the man in surprise.

‘Listen to me, my friend.’ Stedland’s grey face was set and tense. He took a case from his pocket, opened it and extracted two notes. ‘Here are two notes for fifty,’ he said. ‘Take those and go home.’

‘But I’ve got to go to the Bank, sir. They will wonder – ’

‘Never mind what they wonder,’ said Stedland. ‘You’ll have a very good explanation when the truth comes out. Will you do this?’

The man took up the money reluctantly.