‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
‘I’m wondering,’ said Art slowly. ‘They told me next week…why, no, I’m foolish.’
It was dark. The butler had turned on the lights and drawn the blinds when they went indoors again, and it was not difficult for Bertie to realize that something had happened which was very disturbing to his host. He was taciturn, and for the next half hour scarcely spoke, sitting in front of the fire gazing into the leaping flames and starting at every sound.
Dinner, a simple meal, was served early; and whilst the servants were clearing away, the two men strolled into the tiny drawing-room.
‘What’s the trouble, Lomer?’
‘Nothing,’ said the other with a start, ‘only–’
At that moment they heard the tinkle of a bell, and Art listened tensely. He heard the sound of voices in the hall, and then the butler came in.
‘There’s two men and a lady to see you, sir,’ he said.
Bertie saw the other bite his lip.
‘Show them in,’ said Art curtly, and a second later a tall man walked into the room swinging in his hand a pilot’s head set.
‘Marsham! What in hell – !’
The girl who followed instantly claimed Bertie Claude’s attention. She was slim and dark, and her face was beautiful, despite the pallor of her cheeks and the tired look in her eyes. The second of the men visitors was hardly as prepossessing: a squat, foreign-looking individual with a short-clipped beard, he was wrapped to his neck in an old overcoat, and his wild-looking head was bare.
Art closed the door.
‘What’s the great idea?’ he asked.
‘There’s been trouble,’ said the tall man sulkily. ‘The Prince has had another offer. He has sent some of the stuff, but he won’t part with the pearls or the diamonds until you pay him half of the money you promised. This is Princess Pauline, the Prince’s daughter,’ he explained.
Art shot an angry look at the girl.
‘Say, see here, young lady,’ he said, ‘I suppose you speak English?’
She nodded.
‘This isn’t the way we do business in our country. Your father promised–’
‘My father has been very precipitate,’ she said, with the slightest of foreign accent, which was delightful to Bertie’s ear. ‘He has taken much risk. Indeed, I am not sure that he has been very honest in the matter. It is very simple for you to pay. If he has your money tonight–’
‘Tonight?’ boomed Art. ‘How can I get the money for him tonight?’
‘He is in Holland,’ said the girl. ‘We have the aeroplane waiting.’
‘But how can I get the money tonight?’ repeated the Canadian angrily. ‘Do you think I carry a hundred thousand pounds in my pistol pocket?’
Again she shrugged and, turning to the unkempt little man, said something to him in a language which was unintelligible to Mr Staffen. He replied in his hoarse voice, and she nodded.
‘Pieter says my father will take your cheque. He only wishes to be sure that there is no–’ She paused, at a loss for an English word.
‘Did I ever double-cross your father?’ asked Art savagely. ‘I can’t give you either the money or the cheque. You can call off the deal – I’m through!’
By this time the pilot had unrolled the package he carried under his other arm, placed it on the table, and Bertie Claude grew breathless at the sight of the glittering display that met his eyes. There were diamonds, set and unset; quaint and ancient pieces of jewellery that must have formed the heirlooms of old families; but their historical value did not for the moment occur to him. He beckoned Art aside.
‘If you can keep these people here tonight,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I’ll undertake to raise all the money you want on that collection alone.’
Art shook his head.
‘It’s no use, Mr Staffen. I know this guy. Unless I can send him the money tonight, we’ll not smell the rest of the stuff.’
Suddenly he clapped his hands.
‘Gee!’ he breathed. ‘That’s an idea! You’ve got your chequebook.’
Cold suspicion showed in the eyes of Bertie Claude. ‘I’ve got my chequebook, certainly,’ he said, ‘but–’
‘Come into the dining-room.’
Art almost ran ahead of him, and when they reached the room he closed the door.
‘A cheque can’t be presented for two or three days. It certainly couldn’t be presented tomorrow,’ he said, speaking rapidly. ‘By that time we could get this stuff up to town to your bankers, and you could keep it until I redeem it. What’s more, you can stop payment of the cheque tomorrow morning if the stones aren’t worth the money.’
Bertie looked at the matter from ten different angles in as many seconds.
‘Suppose I gave them a post-dated cheque to make sure?’ he said.
‘Post-dated?’ Mr Lomer was puzzled. ‘What does that mean?’ And when Bertie explained, his face brightened. ‘Why, sure!’ he said. ‘That’s a double protection. Make it payable the day after tomorrow.’
Bertie hesitated no more. Sitting down at the table he took out his chequebook and a fountain pen, and verified the date.
‘Make it “bearer”,’ suggested Art, when the writer paused, ‘same as you did the other cheque.’
Bertie nodded and added his signature, with its characteristic underlining.
‘Wait a second.’
Art went out of the room and came back within a minute.
‘They’ve taken it!’ he said exultantly. ‘Boy,’ he said, as he slapped the gratified young man on the shoulder, ‘you’ve gotta come in on this now and I didn’t want you to. It’s fifty-fifty – I’m no hog. Come along, and I’ll show you something else that I never intended showing a soul.’
He went out into the passage, opened a little door that led down a flight of stone steps to the cellar, switching on the light as he went down the stairs. Unlocking a heavy door, he threw it open.
‘See here,’ he said, ‘did you ever see anything like this?’
Bertie Claude peered into the dark interior.
‘I don’t see–’ he began, when he was so violently pushed into the darkness that he stumbled.
In another second the door closed on him; he heard the snap of a lock and shrieked:
‘I say, what’s this!’
‘I say, you’ll find out in a day or two,’ came the mocking voice of Mr Lomer.
Art closed the second door, ran lightly up the stairs and joined the butler, the valet, the maid and the three visitors in the drawing-room.
‘He’s well inside. And he stays there till the cheque matures – there’s enough food and water in the cellar to last him a week.’
‘Did you get him?’ asked the bearded man.
‘Get him! He was easy,’ said the other scornfully. ‘Now, you boys and girls, skip, and skip quick! I’ve got a letter from this guy to his bank manager, telling him to’ – he consulted the letter and quoted – ‘“to cash the attached cheque for my friend Mr Arthur Lomer”.’
There was a murmur of approval from the troupe.
‘The plane’s gone back, I suppose?’
The tall man nodded.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I only hired it for the afternoon.’
‘Well, you can get back too. Ray and Al, you go to Paris and take the CP boat from Havre, Slicky, you get those whiskers off and leave honest from Liverpool. Pauline and Aggie will make Genoa, and we’ll meet at Leoni’s on the fourteenth of next month and cut the stuff all ways!’
Two days later Mr Art Lomer walked into the noble offices of the Northern Commercial Bank and sought an interview with the manager. That gentleman read the letter, examined the cheque and touched a bell.
‘It’s a mighty big sum,’ said Mr Lomer, in an almost awe-stricken voice.
The manager smiled.
‘We cash fairly large cheques here,’ he said, and, to the clerk who came at his summons: ‘Mr Lomer would like as much of this as possible in American currency. How did you leave Mr Staffen?’
‘Why, Bertie and I have been in Paris over that new company of mine,’ said Lomer. ‘My! it’s difficult to finance Canadian industries in this country, Mr Soames, but we’ve made a mighty fine deal in Paris.’
He chatted on purely commercial topics until the clerk returned and laid a heap of bills and banknotes on the table. Mr Lomer produced a wallet, enclosed the money securely, shook hands with the manager and walked out into the general office. And then he stopped, for Mr J G Reeder stood squarely in his path.
‘Payday for the troupe, Mr Lomer – or do you call it “treasury”? My theatrical glossary is rather rusty.’
‘Why, Mr Reeder,’ stammered Art, ‘glad to see you, but I’m rather busy just now–’
‘What do you think has happened to our dear friend, Mr Bertie Claude Staffen?’ asked Reeder anxiously.
‘Why, he’s in Paris.’
‘So soon!’ murmured Reeder. ‘And the police only took him out of your suburban cellar an hour ago! How wonderful are our modern systems of transportation! Marlow one minute, Paris the next.’
Art hesitated no longer. He dashed past, thrusting the detective aside, and flew for the door. He was so annoyed that the two men who were waiting for him had the greatest difficulty in putting the handcuffs on his wrists.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Mr Reeder to his chief. ‘Art always travels with his troupe. The invisibility of the troupe was to me a matter for grave suspicion, and of course I’ve had the house under observation ever since Mr Staffen disappeared. It is not my business, of course,’ he said apologetically, ‘and really I should not have interfered. Only, as I have often explained to you, the curious workings of my mind–’
Margaret Belman’s chief claim to Mr Reeder’s notice was that she lived in the Brockley Road, some few doors from his own establishment. He did not know her name, being wholly incurious about law abiding folk, but he was aware that she was pretty, that her complexion was that pink and white which is seldom seen away from a magazine cover. She dressed well, and if there was one thing that he noted about her more than any other, it was that she walked and carried herself with a certain grace that was especially pleasing to a man of aesthetic predilections.
He had, on occasions, walked behind her and before her, and had ridden on the same bus with her to Westminster Bridge. She invariably descended at the corner of the Embankment, and was as invariably met by a good-looking young man and walked away with him. The presence of that young man was a source of passive satisfaction to Mr Reeder, for no particular reason, unless it was that he had a tidy mind, and preferred a rose when it had a background of fern and grew uneasy at the sight of a saucerless cup.
It did not occur to him that he was an object of interest and curiosity to Miss Belman.
‘That was Mr Reeder – he has something to do with the police, I think,’ she said.
‘Mr J G Reeder?’
Roy Master looked back with interest at the middle-aged man scampering fearfully across the road, his unusual hat on the back of his head, his umbrella over his shoulder like a cavalryman’s sword.
‘Good Lord! I never dreamt he was like that.’
‘Who is he?’ she asked, distracted from her own problem.
‘Reeder? He’s in the Public Prosecutor’s Department, a sort of a detective – there was a case the other week where he gave evidence. He used to be with the Bank of England–’
Suddenly she stopped, and he looked at her in surprise.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
‘I don’t want you to go any farther, Roy,’ she said. ‘Mr Telfer saw me with you yesterday, and he’s quite unpleasant about it.’
‘Telfer?’ said the young man indignantly. ‘That little worm! What did he say?’
‘Nothing very much,’ she replied, but from her tone he gathered that the ‘nothing very much’ had been a little disturbing.
‘I’m leaving Telfers,’ she said unexpectedly. ‘It’s a good job, and I shall never get another like it – I mean, so far as the pay is concerned.’
Roy Master did not attempt to conceal his satisfaction.
‘I’m jolly glad,’ he said vigorously. ‘I can’t imagine how you’ve endured that boudoir atmosphere so long. What did he say?’ he asked again, and, before she could answer: ‘Anyway, Telfers are shaky. There are all sorts of queer rumours about them in the City.’
‘But I thought it was a very rich corporation!’ she said in astonishment.
He shook his head.
‘It was – but they’ve been doing lunatic things – what can you expect with a half-witted weakling like Sidney Telfer at the head of affairs? They underwrote three concerns last year that no brokerage business would have touched with a barge-pole, and they had to take up the shares. One was a lost treasure company to raise a Spanish galleon that sank three hundred years ago! But what really did happen yesterday morning?’
‘I’ll tell you tonight,’ she said, and bade him a hasty farewell.
Mr Sidney Telfer had arrived when she went into a room which, in its luxurious appointments, its soft carpet and dainty etceteras, was not wholly undeserving of Roy Master’s description.
The head of Telfers Consolidated seldom visited his main office on Threadneedle Street. The atmosphere of the place, he said, depressed him; it was all so horrid and sordid and rough. The founder of the firm, his grandfather, had died ten years before Sidney had been born, leaving the business to his son, a chronic invalid, who had died a few weeks after Sidney first saw the light. In the hands of trustees the business had flourished, despite the spasmodic interferences of his eccentric mother, whose peculiarities culminated in a will which relieved him of most of that restraint which is wisely laid upon a boy of sixteen.
The room, with its luxurious furnishing, fitted Mr Telfer perfectly, for he was exquisitely arrayed. He was tall and so painfully thin that the abnormal smallness of his head was not at first apparent. As the girl came into the room he was sniffing delicately at a fine cambric handkerchief, and she thought that he was paler than she had ever seen him – and more repulsive.
He followed her movements with a dull stare, and she had placed his letters on his table before he spoke.
‘I say, Miss Belman, you won’t mention a word about what I said to you last night?’
‘Mr Telfer,’ she answered quietly, ‘I am hardly likely to discuss such a matter.’
‘I’d marry you and all that, only…clause in my mother’s will,’ he said disjointedly. ‘That could be got over – in time.’