The Complete Four Just Men (86 page)

‘Only just a . . . well, this is the truth, Joan. It may be the only way to get her money. Now you’re in on this graft, and you know what you are to me. A marriage – a formal marriage – for a year or two, and then a divorce, and we could go away together, man and wife.’

‘Is that what he meant?’ She jerked her head to the door. ‘About “married so soon”?’

‘He wants to marry her himself.’

‘Let him,’ she said viciously. ‘Do you think I care about money? Isn’t there any other way of getting it?’

He was silent. There were too many other ways of getting it for him to advance a direct negative.

‘Oh, Monty, you’re not going to do that?’

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do yet,’ he said.

‘But not that?’ she insisted, clinging to him by his coat.

‘We’ll talk about it tonight. The old man’s got us tickets for the theatre. We’ll have a bit of dinner up West and go on, and it really doesn’t matter if anybody sees us, because they know very well you’re not in Brussels. What is that queer scent you’ve got?’

Joan laughed, forgetting for the moment the serious problem which faced her.

‘Joss-sticks,’ she said. ‘The place got so close and stuffy, and I found them in the pantry with the provisions. As a matter of fact, it was a silly thing to do, because we had the place full of smoke. It’s gone now, though. Monty, you do these crazy things when you’re locked up,’ she said seriously. ‘I don’t think I can go back again.’

‘Go back tomorrow,’ he almost pleaded. ‘It’s only for two or three days,
and
it means a lot to
me.
Especially
now that
Oberzohn has ideas.’

‘You’re not going to think any more about – about marrying her, are you?’

‘We’ll talk of it tonight at dinner. I thought you’d like the idea of the graft,’ he added untruthfully.

Joan had to return to her prison to collect some of her belongings. She found the girl lying on the bed, reading, and Mirabelle greeted her with a smile.

‘Well, is your term of imprisonment ended?’

Joan hesitated. ‘Not exactly. Do you mind if I’m not here tonight?’

Mirabelle shook her head. If the truth be told, she was glad to be alone. All that day she had been forced to listen to the plaints and weepings of this transfigured girl, and she felt that she could not well stand another twenty-four hours.

‘You’re sure you won’t mind being alone?’

‘No, of course not. I shall miss you,’ added Mirabelle, more in truth than in compliment. ‘When will you return?’

The girl made a little grimace. ‘Tomorrow.’

‘You don’t want to come back, naturally? Have you succeeded in persuading your – your friend to let me out too?’

Joan shook her head.

‘He’ll never do that, my dear, not till . . . ’ She looked at the girl. ‘You’re not engaged, are you?’

‘I? No. Is that another story they’ve heard?’ Mirabelle got up from the bed, laughing. ‘An heiress, and engaged?’

‘No, they don’t say you were engaged.’ Joan hastened to correct the wrong impression. There was genuine admiration in her voice when she said: ‘You’re wonderful, kid! If I were in your shoes I’d be quaking. You’re just as cheerful as though you were going to the funeral of a rich aunt!’

She did not know how near to a breakdown her companion had been that day, and Mirabelle, who felt stronger and saner now, had no desire to tell her.

‘You’re rather splendid,’ Joan nodded. ‘I wish I had your pluck.’

And then, impulsively, she came forward and kissed the girl.

‘Don’t feel too sore at me,’ she said, and was gone before Mirabelle could make a reply.

The doctor was waiting for her in the factory.

‘The spy has walked up to the canal bridge. We can go forward,’ he said. ‘Besides – ’ he had satisfaction out of this – ‘he cannot see over high walls.’

‘What is this story about marrying Mirabelle Leicester?’

‘So he has told you? Also did he tell you that – that he is going to marry her?’

‘Yes, and I’ll tell you something, doctor. I’d rather he married her than you.’

‘So!’ said the doctor.

‘I’d rather anybody else married her, except that snake of yours.’

Oberzohn looked round sharply. She had used the word quite innocently, without any thought of its application, and uttered an ‘Oh!’ of dismay when she realized her mistake.

‘I meant Gurther,’ she said.

‘Well, I know you meant Gurther, young miss,’ he said stiffly.

To get back to the house they had to make a half-circle of the factory and pass between the canal wall and the building itself. The direct route would have taken them into a deep hollow into which the debris of years had been thrown, and which now Nature, in her kindness, had hidden under a green mantle of wild convolvulus. It was typical of the place that the only beautiful picture in the grounds was out of sight.

They were just turning the corner of the factory when the doctor stopped and looked up at the high wall, which was protected by a
cheval de frise
of broken glass. All except in one spot, about two feet wide, where not only the glass but the mortar which held it in place had been chipped off. There were fragments of the glass, and, on the inside of the wall, marks of some implement on the hard surface of the mortar.

‘So!’ said the doctor.

He was examining the scratches on the wall.

‘Wait,’ he ordered, and hurried back into the factory, to return, carrying in each hand two large rusty contraptions which he put on the ground.

One by one he forced open the jagged rusty teeth until they were wide apart and held by a spring catch. She had seen things like that in a museum. They were man-traps – relics of the barbarous days when trespass was not only a sin but a crime.

He fixed the second of the traps on the path between the factory and the wall.

‘Now we shall see,’ he said. ‘Forward!’

Monty was waiting for her impatiently. The Rolls had been turned out in her honour, and the sulky-looking driver was already in his place at the wheel.

‘What is the matter with that chauffeur?’ she asked, as they bumped up the lane towards easier going. ‘He looks so happy that I shouldn’t be surprised to hear that his mother was hanged this morning.’

‘He’s sore with the old man,’ explained Monty. ‘Oberzohn has two drivers. They do a little looking round in the morning. The other fellow was supposed to come back to take over duty at three o’clock, and he hasn’t turned up. He was the better driver of the two.’

The chauffeur was apparently seeking every pothole in the ground, and in the next five minutes she was alternately clutching the support of the arm-strap and Monty. They were relieved when at last the car found a metal road and began its noiseless way towards the lights. And then her hand sought his, and for a moment this beautiful flower which had grown in such foul soil, bloomed in the radiance of a love common to every woman, high and low, good and bad.

Chapter 28

At Frater’s

Manfred suggested an early dinner at the Lasky, where the soup was to his fastidious taste. Leon, who had eaten many crumpets for tea – he had a weakness for this indigestible article of diet – was prepared to dispense with the dinner, and Poiccart had views, being a man of steady habits. They dined at the Lasky, and Leon ordered a baked onion, and expatiated upon the two wasted years of Poiccart’s life, employing a wealth of imagery and a beauty of diction worthy of a better subject.

Manfred looked at his watch.

‘Where are they dining?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know yet,’ said Leon. ‘Our friend will be here in a few minutes: when we go out he will tell us. You don’t want to see her?’

Manfred shook his head.

‘No,’ he said.

‘I’m going to be bored,’ complained Poiccart.

‘Then you should have let me bring Alma,’ said Leon promptly.

‘Exactly.’ Raymond nodded his sober head. ‘I have the feeling that I am saving a lady from an unutterably dreary evening.’

There was a man waiting for them when they came out of the restaurant – a
very
uninteresting-looking man who
had
three
sentences to say
sotto voce
as they stood near him, but apparently in ignorance of his presence.

‘I did not wish to go to Mero’s,’ said Manfred, ‘but as we have the time, I think it would be advisable to stroll in that direction. I am curious to discover whether this is really Oberzohn’s little treat, or whether the idea emanated from the unadmirable Mr Newton.’

‘And how will you know, George?’ asked Gonsalez.

‘By the car. If Oberzohn is master of the ceremonies, we shall find his machine parked somewhere in the neighbourhood. If it is Newton’s idea, then Oberzohn’s limousine, which brought them from South London, will have returned, and Newton’s car will be in its place.’

Mero’s was one of the most fashionable of dining clubs, patronized not only by the élite of society, but having on its books the cream of the theatrical world. It was situated in one of those quiet, old-world squares which are to be found in the very heart of London, enjoying, for some mysterious reason, immunity from the hands of the speculative property owner. The square retained the appearance it had in the days of the Georges; and though some of the fine mansions had been given over to commerce and the professions, and the lawyer and the manufacturer’s agent occupied the drawing-rooms and bedrooms sacred to the bucks and beauties of other days, quite a large number of the houses remained in private occupation.

There was nothing in the fascia of Mero’s to advertise its character. The club premises consisted of three of these fine old dwellings. The uninitiated might not even suspect that there was communication between the three houses, for the old doorways and doorsteps remained untouched, though only one was used.

They strolled along two sides of the square before, amidst the phalanx of cars that stood wheel to wheel, their backs to the railings of the centre gardens, they saw Oberzohn’s car. The driver sat with his arms folded on the wheel, in earnest conversation with a pale-faced man, slightly and neatly bearded, and dressed in faultless evening dress. He was evidently a cripple: one shoulder was higher than the other; and when he moved, he walked painfully with the aid of a stick.

Manfred saw the driver point up the line of cars, and the lame gentleman limped in the direction the chauffeur had indicated and stopped to speak to another man in livery. As they came abreast of him, they saw that one of his boots had a thick sole, and the limp was explained.

‘The gentleman has lost his car,’ said Manfred, for now he was peering short-sightedly at the number-plates.

The theft of cars was a daily occurrence. Leon had something to say on the potentialities of that branch of crime. He owned to an encyclopaedic knowledge of the current fashions in wrongdoing, and in a few brief sentences indicated the extent of these thefts.

‘Fifty a week are shipped to India and the Colonies, after their numbers are erased and another substituted. In some cases the “knockers off”, as they call the thieves, drive them straightway into the packing-cases which are prepared for every make of car; the ends are nailed up, and they are waiting shipment at the docks before the owner is certain of his loss. There are almost as many stolen cars in India, South Africa and Australia as there are honest ones!’

They walked slowly past the decorous portals of Mero’s, and caught a glimpse, through the curtained windows, of soft table lamps burning, of bare-armed women and white-shirted men, and heard faintly the strains of an orchestra playing a Viennese waltz.

‘I should like to see our Jane,’ said Gonsalez. ‘She never came to you, did she?’

‘She came, but I didn’t see her,’ said Manfred. ‘From the moment she leaves the theatre she must not be left.’

Leon nodded.

‘I have already made that arrangement,’ he said. ‘Digby – ’

‘Digby takes up his duty at midnight,’ said Manfred. ‘He has been down to Oberzohn’s place to get the lie of the land: he thought it advisable that he should study the topography in daylight, and I agreed. He might get himself into an awkward tangle if he started exploring the canal bank in the dark hours. Summer or winter, there is usually a mist on the water.’

They reached Frater’s theatre so early that the queues at the pit door were still unadmitted, and Leon suggested that they make a circuit of this rambling house of entertainment. It stood in Shaftesbury Avenue and occupied an island site. On either side two narrow streets flanked the building, whilst the rear formed the third side of a small square, one of which was taken up by a County Council dwelling, mainly occupied by artisans. From the square a long passageway led to Cranbourn Street; whilst, in addition to the alley which opened just at the back of the theatre, a street ran parallel to Shaftesbury Avenue from Charing Cross Road to Rupert Street.

The theatre itself was one of the best in London, and although it had had a succession of failures, its luck had turned, and the new mystery play was drawing all London.

‘That is the stage door,’ said Leon – they had reached the square – ‘and those are emergency exits – ’ he pointed back the way they had come – ‘which are utilized at the end of a performance to empty the theatre.’

‘Why are you taking such an interest in the theatre itself?’ asked Poiccart.

‘Because,’ said Gonsalez slowly, ‘I am in agreement with George. We should have found Newton’s car parked in Fitzreeve Gardens – not Oberzohn’s. And the circumstances are a little suspicious.’

The doors of the pit and gallery were open now; the queues were moving slowly to the entrances; and they watched the great building swallow up the devotees of the drama, before they returned to the front of the house.

Cars were beginning to arrive, at first at intervals, but, as the hour of the play’s beginning approached, in a ceaseless line that made a congestion and rendered the traffic police articulate and occasionally unkind. It was short of the half-hour after eight when Manfred saw Oberzohn’s glistening car in the block, and presently it pulled up before the entrance of the theatre. First Joan and then Monty Newton alighted and passed out of view.

Gonsalez thought he had never seen the girl looking quite as radiantly pretty. She had the colouring and the shape of youth, and though the more fastidious might object to her daring toilette, the most cantankerous could not cavil at the pleasing effect.

‘It is a great pity – ’ Leon spoke in Spanish – ‘a thousand pities! I have the same feeling when I see a perfect block of marble placed in the hands of a tombstone-maker to be mangled into ugliness!’

Manfred put out his hand and drew him back into the shadow. A cab was dropping the lame man. He got out with the aid of a linkman, paid the driver, and limped into the vestibule. It was not a remarkable coincidence: the gentleman had evidently come from Mero’s, and as all London was flocking to the drama, there was little that was odd in finding him here. They saw that he went up into the dress circle, and later, when they took their places in the stalls, Leon, glancing up, saw the pale, bearded face and noted that he occupied the end seat of the front row.

‘I’ve met that man somewhere,’ he said, irritated. ‘Nothing annoys me worse than to forget, not a face, but where I have seen it!’

Did Gurther but know, he had achieved the height of his ambition: he had twice passed under the keen scrutiny of the cleverest detectives in the world, and had remained unrecognized.