Jack O' Judgment
by Edgar Wallace · English · Gutenberg #24767 · 421,193 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Jack O' Judgment
Author: Edgar Wallace
Release date: March 6, 2008 [eBook #24767]
Most recently updated: August 15, 2013
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JACK O' JUDGMENT ***
Produced by D. Alexander, Martin Pettit and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)
JACK O' JUDGMENT
BY
EDGAR WALLACE
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON AND MELBOURNE
_Made and Printed in Great Britain by_
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED, LONDON.
JACK O' JUDGMENT
POPULAR NOVELS
BY
EDGAR WALLACE
PUBLISHED BY
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED.
_In Various Editions_
SANDERS OF THE RIVER
BONES
BOSAMBO OF THE RIVER
BONES IN LONDON
THE KEEPERS OF THE KING'S PEACE
THE COUNCIL OF JUSTICE
THE DUKE IN THE SUBURBS
THE PEOPLE OF THE RIVER
DOWN UNDER DONOVAN
PRIVATE SELBY
THE ADMIRABLE CARFEW
THE MAN WHO BOUGHT LONDON
THE JUST MEN OF CORDOVA
THE SECRET HOUSE
KATE, PLUS TEN
LIEUTENANT BONES
THE ADVENTURES OF HEINE
JACK O' JUDGMENT
THE DAFFODIL MYSTERY
THE NINE BEARS
THE BOOK OF ALL POWER
MR. JUSTICE MAXELL
THE BOOKS OF BART
THE DARK EYES OF LONDON
CHICK
SANDI, THE KING-MAKER
THE THREE OAK MYSTERY
THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE FROG
BLUE HAND
GREY TIMOTHY
A DEBT DISCHARGED
THOSE FOLK OF BULBORO'
THE MAN WHO WAS NOBODY
THE GREEN RUST
THE FOURTH PLAGUE
THE RIVER OF STARS
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I.--THE KNAVE OF CLUBS 7
II.--JACK O' JUDGMENT--HIS CARD 14
III.--THE DECOY 24
IV.--THE MISSING HANSON 28
V.--IN THE MAGISTRATE'S COURT 35
VI.--STAFFORD KING RESIGNS 42
VII.--THE COLONEL CONDUCTS HIS BUSINESS 48
VIII.--THE LISTENER AT THE DOOR 54
IX.--THE COLONEL EMPLOYS A DETECTIVE 61
X.--THE GREEK PHILLOPOLIS 67
XI.--THE COLONEL AT SCOTLAND YARD 71
XII.--BUYING A NURSING HOME 80
XIII.--THE LOVE OF STAFFORD KING 84
XIV.--THE TAKING OF MAISIE WHITE 88
XV.--THE COMMISSIONER HAS A THEORY 92
XVI.--IN THE TURKISH BATHS 96
XVII.--SOLOMON COMES BACK 100
XVIII.--THE JUDGMENT OF DEATH 106
XIX.--THE COLONEL IS SHOCKED 111
XX.--"SWELL" CREWE BACKS OUT 119
XXI.--THE BRIDE OF DEATH 123
XXII.--MAISIE TELLS HER STORY 126
XXIII.--THE GANG FUND 134
XXIV.--PINTO GOES NORTH 141
XXV.--A PATRON OF CHARITY 150
XXVI.--THE SOLDIER WHO FOLLOWED 157
XXVII.--THE CAPTURE OF "JACK" 162
XXVIII.--THE PASSING OF PHILLOPOLIS 169
XXIX.--THE VOICE IN THE ROOM 178
XXX.--DIAMONDS FOR THE BANK 186
XXXI.--THE VOICE AGAIN 194
XXXII.--LOLLIE GOES AWAY 201
XXXIII.--WHERE THE VOICE LIVED 205
XXXIV.--CONSCIENCE MONEY 210
XXXV.--IN A BOX AT THE ORPHEUM 217
XXXVI.--LOLLIE PROPOSES 224
XXXVII.--THE FALL OF PINTO 229
XXXVIII.--A USE FOR OLD FILMS 234
XXXIX.--JACK O' JUDGMENT REVEALED 244
JACK O' ... JUDGMENT
CHAPTER I
THE KNAVE OF CLUBS
They picked up the young man called "Snow" Gregory from a Lambeth
gutter, and he was dead before the policeman on point duty in Waterloo
Road, who had heard the shots, came upon the scene.
He had been shot in his tracks on a night of snow and storm and none saw
the murder.
When they got him to the mortuary and searched his clothes they found
nothing except a little tin box of white powder which proved to be
cocaine, and a playing card--the Jack of Clubs!
His associates had called him "Snow" Gregory because he was a doper, and
cocaine is invariably referred to as "snow" by all its votaries. He was
a gambler too, and he had been associated with Colonel Dan Boundary in
certain of his business enterprises. That was all. The colonel knew
nothing of the young man's antecedents except that he had been an Oxford
man who had come down in the world. The colonel added a few particulars
designed, as it might seem to the impartial observer, to prove that he,
the colonel, had ever been an uplifting quantity. (This colonelcy was an
honorary title which he held by custom rather than by law.)
There were people who said that "Snow" Gregory, in his more exalted
moments, talked too much for the colonel's comfort, but people were very
ready to talk unkindly of the colonel, whose wealth was an offence and a
shame.
So they buried "Snow" Gregory, the unknown, and a jury of his
fellow-countrymen returned a verdict of "Wilful murder against some
person or persons unknown."
And that was the end of a sordid tragedy, it seemed, until three months
later there dawned upon Colonel Boundary's busy life a brand new and
alarming factor.
One morning there arrived at his palatial flat in Albemarle Place a
letter. This he opened because it was marked "Private and Personal." It
was not a letter at all--as it proved--but a soiled and stained playing
card, the Knave of Clubs.
He looked at the thing in perplexity, for the fate of his erstwhile
assistant had long since passed from his mind. Then he saw writing on
the margin of the card, and twisting it sideways read:
"JACK O' JUDGMENT."
Nothing more!
"Jack o' Judgment!"
The colonel screwed up his tired eyes as if to shut out a vision.
"Faugh!" he said in disgust and dropped the pasteboard into his
waste-paper basket.
For he had seen a vision--a white face, unshaven and haggard, its lips
parted in a little grin, the smile of "Snow" Gregory on the last time
they had met.
Later came other cards and unpleasant, not to say disconcerting
happenings, and the colonel, taking counsel with himself, determined to
kill two birds with one stone.
It was a daring and audacious thing to have done, and none but Colonel
Dan Boundary would have taken the risk. He knew better than anybody else
that Stafford King had devoted the whole of his time for the past three
years to smashing the Boundary Gang. He knew that this grave young man
with the steady, grey eyes, who sat on the other side of the big Louis
XV table in the ornate private office of the Spillsbury Syndicate, had
won his way to the chief position in the Criminal Intelligence
Department by sheer genius, and that he was, of all men, the most to be
feared.
No greater contrast could be imagined than that which was presented
between the two protagonists--the refined, almost æsthetic chief of
police on the one hand, the big commanding figure of the redoubtable
colonel on the other.
Boundary with his black hair parted in the centre of his sleek head, his
big weary eyes, his long, yellow walrus moustache, his double chin, his
breadth and girth, his enormous hairy hands, now laid upon the table,
might stand for force, brutal, remorseless, untiring. He stood for
cunning too--the cunning of the stalking tiger.
Stafford was watching him with dispassionate interest. He may have been
secretly amused at the man's sheer daring, but if he was, his
inscrutable face displayed no such emotion.
"I dare say, Mr. King," said the colonel, in his slow, heavy way, "you
think it is rather remarkable in all the circumstances that I should ask
for you? I dare say," he went on, "my business associates will think the
same, considering all the unpleasantness we have had."
Stafford King made no reply. He sat erect, alert and watchful.
"Give a dog a bad name and hang him," said the colonel sententiously.
"For twenty years I've had to fight the unjust suspicions of my enemies.
I've been libelled," he shook his head sorrowfully. "I don't suppose
there's anybody been libelled more than me--and my business associates.
I've had the police nosing--I mean investigating--into my affairs, and
I'll be straight with you, Mr. Stafford King, and tell you that when it
came to my ears and the ears of my business associates, that you had
been put on the job of watching poor old Dan Boundary, I was glad."
"Is that intended as a compliment?" asked Stafford, with the faintest
suspicion of a smile.
"Every way," said the colonel emphatically. "In the first place, Mr.
King, I know that you are the straightest and most honest police
official in England, and possibly in the world. All I want is justice.
My life is an open book, which courts the fullest investigation."
He spread out his huge hands as though inviting an even closer
inspection than had been afforded him hitherto.
Mr. Stafford King made no reply. He knew, very well he knew, the stories
which had been told about the Boundary Gang. He knew a little and
guessed a lot about its extraordinary ramifications. He was well aware,
at any rate, that it was rich, and that this slow-speaking man could
command millions. But he was far from desiring to endorse the colonel's
inferred claim as to the purity of his business methods.
He leant a little forward.
"I am sure you didn't send for me to tell me all about your hard lot,
colonel," he said, a little ironically.
The colonel shook his head.
"I wanted to get to know you," he said with fine frankness. "I've heard
a lot about you, Mr. King. I am told you do nothing but specialise on
the Boundary enterprises, and I tell you, sir, that you can't know too
much about me, nor can I know too much about you."
He paused.
"But you're quite right when you say that I didn't ask you to come
here--and a great honour it is for a big police chief to spare time to
see me--to discuss the past. It is the present I want to talk to you
about."
Stafford King nodded.
"I'm a law-abiding citizen," said the colonel unctuously, "and anything
I can do to assist the law, why, I'm going to do it. I wrote you on this
matter about a fortnight ago."
He opened a drawer and took out a large envelope embossed with a
monogram of the Spillsbury Syndicate. This he opened and extracted a
plain playing-card. It was a white-backed card of superfine texture,
gilt-edged, and bore a familiar figure.
"The Knave of Clubs," said Stafford King lifting his eyes.
"The Jack of Clubs," said the colonel gravely; "that is its name I
understand, for I am not a gambling man."
He did not bat a lid nor did Stafford King smile.
"I remember," said the detective chief, "you received one before. You
wrote to my department about it."
The colonel nodded.
"Read what's written underneath."
King lifted the card nearer to his eyes. The writing was almost
microscopic and read:
"Save crime, save worry, save all unpleasantness. Give back the property
you stole from Spillsbury."
It was signed "Jack o' Judgment."
King put the card down and looked across at the colonel.
"What happened after the last card came?" he asked, "there was a
burglary or something, wasn't there?"
"The last card," said the colonel, clearing his throat, "contained a
diabolical and unfounded charge that I and my business associates had
robbed Mr. George Fetter, the Manchester merchant, of £60,000 by means
of card tricks--a low practice of which I would not be guilty nor would
any of my business associates. My friends and myself knowing nothing of
any card game, we of course refused to pay Mr. Fetter, and I am sure Mr.
Fetter would be the last person who would ask us to do so. As a matter
of fact, he did give us bills for £60,000, but that was in relation to a
sale of property. I cannot imagine that Mr. Fetter would ever take money
from us or that he knew of this business--I hope not, because he seems a
very respectable--gentleman."
The detective looked at the card again.
"What is this story of the Spillsbury deal?" he asked.
"What is that story of the Spillsbury deal?" said the colonel.
He had a trick of repeating questions--it was a trick which frequently
gave him a very necessary breathing space.
"Why, there's nothing to it. I bought the motor works in Coventry. I
admit it was a good bargain. There's no law against making a profit. You
know what business is."
The detective knew what business was. But Spillsbury was young and wild,
and his wildness assumed an unpleasant character. It was the kind of
wildness which people do not talk about--at least, not nice people. He
had inherited a considerable fortune, and the control of four factories,
the best of which was the one under discussion.
"I know Spillsbury," said the detective, "and I happen to know
Spillsbury's works. I also know that he sold you a property worth
£300,000 in the open market for a sum which was grossly
inadequate--£30,000, was it not?"
"£35,000," corrected the colonel. "There's no law against making a
bargain," he repeated.
"You've been very fortunate with your bargains."
Stafford King rose and picked up his hat.
"You bought Transome's Hotel from young Mrs. Rachemeyer for a sum which
was less than a twentieth of its worth. You bought Lord Bethon's slate
quarries for £12,000--their value in the open market was at least
£100,000. For the past fifteen years you have been acquiring property at
an amazing rate--and at an amazing price."
The colonel smiled.
"You're paying me a great compliment, Mr. Stafford King," he said with a
touch of sarcasm, "and I will never forget it. But don't let us get away
from the object of your coming. I am reporting to you, as a police
officer, that I have been threatened by a blackguard, a thief, and very
likely a murderer. I will not be responsible for any action I may
take--Jack o' Judgment indeed!" he growled.
"Have you ever seen him?" asked Stafford.
The colonel frowned.
"He's alive, ain't he?" he growled. "If I'd seen him, do you think he'd
be writing me letters? It is your job to pinch him. If you people down
at Scotland Yard spent less time poking into the affairs of honest
business men----"
Stafford King was smiling now, frankly and undisguisedly. His grey eyes
were creased with silent laughter.
"Colonel, you have _some_ nerve!" he said admiringly, and with no other
word he left the room.
CHAPTER II
JACK O' JUDGMENT--HIS CARD
The wrong side of a stage door was the outside on a night such as this
was. The rain was bucketing down and a chill north-wester howled up the
narrow passage leading from the main street to the tiny entry.
But the outside, and the darkest corner of the _cul-de-sac_ whence the
stage door of the Orpheum Music Hall was reached, satisfied Stafford
King. He drew further into the shadow at sight of the figure which
picked a finicking way along the passage and paused only at the open
doorway to furl his umbrella.
Pinto Silva, immaculately attired with a white rose in the button-hole
of his faultless dress-jacket, had no doubt in his mind as to which was
the most desirable side of the stage door. He passed in, nodding
carelessly to the doorkeeper.
"A rotten night, Joe," he said. "Miss White hasn't gone yet, has she?"
"No, sir," said the man obsequiously, "she's only just left the stage a
few minutes. Shall I tell her you're here, sir?"
Pinto shook his head.
He was a good-looking man of thirty-five. There were some who would go
further and describe him as handsome, though his peculiar style of good
looks might not be to everybody's taste. The olive complexion, the black
eyes, the well-curled moustache and the effeminate chin had their
attractions, and Pinto Silva admitted modestly in his reminiscent
moments that there were women who had raved about him.
"Miss White is in No. 6," said the doorkeeper. "Shall I send somebody
along to tell her you're here?"
"You needn't trouble," said the other, "she won't be long now."
The girl, hurrying along the corridor, fastening her coat as she came,
stopped dead at the sight of him and a look of annoyance came to her
face. She was tall for a girl, perfectly proportioned and something more
than pretty.
Pinto lifted his hat with a smile.
"I've just been in front, Miss White. An excellent performance!"
"Thank you," she said simply. "I did not see you."
He nodded.
There was a complacency in his nod which irritated her. It almost seemed
to infer that she was not speaking the truth and that he was humouring
her in her deception.
"You're quite comfortable?" he asked.
"Quite," she replied politely.
She was obviously anxious to end the interview, and at a loss as to how
she could.
"Dressing room comfortable, everybody respectful and all that sort of
thing?" he asked. "Just say the word, if they give you trouble or cheek,
and I'll have them kicked out whoever they are, from the manager
downwards."
"Oh, thank you," she said hurriedly, "everybody is most polite and
nice." She held out her hand. "I am afraid I must go now. A--a friend is
waiting for me."
"One minute, Miss White." He licked his lips, and there was an
unaccustomed embarrassment in his manner. "Maybe you'll come along one
night after the show and have a little supper. You know I'm very keen on
you and all that sort of thing."
"I know you're very keen on me and all that sort of thing," said Maisie
White, a note of irony in her voice, "but unfortunately I'm not very
keen on supper and all that sort of thing."
She smiled and again held out her hand.
"I'll say good night now."
"Do you know, Maisie----" he began.
"Good night," she said and brushed past him.
He looked after her as she disappeared into the darkness, a little frown
gathering on his forehead, then with a shrug of his shoulders he walked
slowly back to the doorkeeper's office.
"Send somebody to get my car," he snapped.
He waited impatiently, chewing his cigar, till the dripping figure of
the doorkeeper reappeared with the information that the car was at the
end of the passage. He put up his umbrella and walked through the
pelting rain to where his limousine stood.
Pinto Silva was angry, and his anger was of the hateful, smouldering
type which grew in strength from moment to moment and from hour to hour.
How dare she treat him like this? She, who owed her engagement to his
influence, and whose fortune and future were in his hands. He would
speak to the colonel and the colonel could speak to her father. He had
had enough of this.
He recognised with a start that he was afraid of the girl. It was
incredible, but it was true. He had never felt that way to a woman
before, but there was something in her eyes, a cold disdain which cowed
even as it maddened him.
The car drew up before a block of buildings in a deserted West End
thoroughfare. He flashed on the electric light and saw that the hour was
a little after eleven. The last thing in the world he wanted was to take
part in a conference that night. But if he wanted anything less, it was
to cross the colonel at this moment of crisis.
He walked through the dark vestibule and entered an automatic lift,
which carried him to the third floor. Here, the landing and the corridor
were illuminated by one small electric lamp sufficient to light him to
the heavy walnut doors which led to the office of the Spillsbury
Syndicate. He opened the door with a latchkey and found himself in a big
lobby, carpeted and furnished in good style.
A man was sitting before a radiator, a paper pad upon his knees, and he
was making notes with a pencil. He looked up startled as the other
entered and nodded. It was Olaf Hanson, the colonel's clerk--and Olaf,
with his flat expressionless face, and his stiff upstanding hair, always
reminded Pinto of a Struwwelpeter which had been cropped.
"Hullo, Hanson, is the colonel inside?"
The man nodded.
"They're waiting for you," he said.
His voice was hard and unsympathetic, and his thin lips snapped out
every syllable.
"Aren't you coming in?" asked Pinto in surprise, his hand upon the door.
The man called Hanson shook his head.
"I've got to go to the colonel's flat," he said, "to get some papers.
Besides, they don't want me."
He smiled quickly and wanly. It was a grimace rather than an expression
of amusement and Pinto eyed him narrowly. He had, however, the good
sense to ask no further questions. Turning the handle of the door, he
walked into the large, ornate apartment.
In the centre of the room was a big table and the chairs at its sides
were, for the most part, filled.
He dropped into a seat on the colonel's right and nodded to the others
at the table. Most of the principals were there--"Swell" Crewe, Jackson,
Cresswell, and at the farther end of the table, Lollie Marsh with her
baby face and her permanent expression of open-mouthed wonder.
"Where's White?" he asked.
The colonel was reading a letter and did not immediately reply.
Presently he took off his pince-nez and put them into his pocket.
"Where's White?" he repeated. "White isn't here. No, White isn't here,"
he repeated significantly.
"What's wrong?" asked Pinto quickly.
The colonel scratched his chin and looked up to the ceiling.
"I'm settling up this Spillsbury business," he said. "White isn't in
it."
"Why not?" asked Pinto.
"He never was in it," said the colonel evasively. "It was not the kind
of business that White would like to be in. I guess he's getting
religious or something, or maybe it's that daughter of his."
The eyelids of Pinto Silva narrowed at the reference to Maisie White and
he was on the point of remarking that he had just left her, but changed
his mind.
"Does she know anything about--about her father?" he asked.
The colonel smiled.
"Why, no--unless you've told her."
"I'm not on those terms," said Pinto savagely. "I'm getting tired of
that girl's airs and graces, colonel, after what we've done for her!"
"You'll get tireder, Pinto," said a voice from the end of the table and
he turned round to meet the laughing eyes of Lollie Marsh.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"I've been out taking a look at her to-day," she said, and the colonel
scowled at her.
"You were out taking a look at something else if I remember rightly," he
said quietly. "I told you to get after Stafford King."
"And I got after him," she said, "and after the girl too."
"What do you mean?"
"That's a bit of news for you, isn't it?" She was delighted to drop the
bombshell: "you can't shadow Stafford King without crossing the tracks
of Maisie White."
The colonel uttered an exclamation.
"What do you mean?" he asked again.
"Didn't you know they were acquainted? Didn't you know that Stafford
King goes down to Horsham to see her, and takes her to dinner twice a
week?"
They looked at one another in consternation. Maisie White was the
daughter of a man who, next to the colonel, had been the most daring
member of the gang, who had organised more coups than any other man,
save its leader. The news that the daughter of Solomon White was meeting
the Chief of the Criminal Intelligence Department, was incredible and
stunning.
"So that's it, is it?" said the colonel, licking his dry lips. "That's
why Solomon White's fed up with the life and wants to break away."
He turned to Pinto Silva, whose face was set and hard.
"I thought you were keen on that girl, Pinto," he said coarsely. "We
left the way open to you. What do you know about it?"
"Nothing," said the man shortly. "I don't believe it."
"Don't believe it," broke in the girl. "Listen! There was a matinée at
the Orpheum to-day and King went there. I followed him in and got a seat
next to him and tried to get friendly. But he had only eyes for the girl
on the stage, and I might as well have been the paper on the wall for
all the notice he took of me. After her turn, he went out and waited for
her at the stage door. They went to Roymoyers for tea. I went back to
the theatre and saw her dresser. She is the woman I recommended when
Pinto put her on the stage."
"What sort of work is Maisie doing?" asked the saturnine Crewe.
"Male impersonations," said the girl. "Say! she looks dandy in a man's
kit! She's the best male impersonator I've ever seen. Why, when she
talks----"
"Never mind about that," interrupted the colonel, "what did you
discover?"
"I discovered that Stafford King comes regularly to the theatre, that he
takes her to dinner and that he visits the house at Horsham."
"Solly never told me that--the swine!" rapped the colonel, "he's going
to double-cross us, that fellow."
"I don't believe it."
It was Crewe that spoke. "Swell" Crewe, whose boast it was that he had
a suit for every day in the year.
"I know Solomon and I've known him for years," he said. "I know him as
well as you, colonel. As far as we are concerned, Solly is straight. I'm
not denying the possibility that he wants to break away, but that's only
natural. He's a man with a daughter, and he's made his pile, but I'll
stake my life that he'll never double-cross us."
"Double-cross us?" the colonel had recovered his wonted equanimity.
"What has he to 'double-cross'?" he demanded almost jovially. "We have a
straightforward business! I am not aware that any of us are guilty of
dishonest actions. Double-cross! Bah!"
He brought his big hand down with a thump on the table, and they knew
from experience that this was the gavel of the chairman that ended all
discussions.
"Now, gentlemen," said the colonel, "let us get to business. Ask Hanson
to come in--he's got the figures. It is the last lot of figures of ours
that he'll ever handle," he added.
Somebody went to the door of the ante-room and called the secretary, but
there was no reply.
"He's gone out."
"Gone out?" said the colonel and bent his brows. "Who told him to go
out? Never mind, he'll be back in a minute. Shut the door."
He lifted a deed-box from the floor at his feet, placed it on the table,
opened it with a key attached to his watch-chain and removed a bundle of
documents.
"We're going to settle the Spillsbury business to-night," he said.
"Spillsbury looks like squealing."
"Where is he?" asked Pinto.
"In an inebriates' home," said the colonel grimly; "it seems there are
some trustees to his father's estate who are likely to question the
legality of the transfers. But I've had the best legal opinion in London
and there is no doubt that our position is safe. The only thing we've
got to do to-night is to make absolutely sure that all those fool
letters he wrote to Lollie have been destroyed."
"You've got them?" said the girl quickly.
"I had them?" said the colonel, "and I burnt them all except one when
the transfer was completed. And the question is, gentlemen," he said,
"shall we burn the last?"
He took from the bundle before him an envelope and held it up.
"I kept this in case there was anything coming, but if he's in a booze
home, why, he's not going to be influenced by the threat of publishing a
slushy letter to a girl. I guess his trustees are not going to be very
much influenced either. On the other hand, if this letter were found
among business documents, it would look pretty bad for us."
"Found by whom?" asked Pinto.
"By the police," said the colonel calmly.
"Police?"
The colonel nodded.
"They're getting after us, but you needn't be alarmed," he said. "King
is working to get a case, and he is not above applying for a search
warrant. But I'm not scared of the police so much." His voice slowed and
he spoke with greater emphasis. "I guess there are enough court cards in
the Boundary pack to beat that combination. It's the Jack----"
"_The Jack--ha! ha! ha!_"
It was a shrill bubble of laughter which cut into his speech and the
colonel leapt to his feet, his hand dropping to his hip-pocket. The door
had opened and closed so silently that none had heard it, and a figure
stood confronting them.
It was clad from head to foot in a long coat of black silk, which
shimmered in the half-light of the electrolier. The hands were gloved,
the head covered with a soft slouch hat and the face hidden behind a
white silk handkerchief.
The colonel's hand was in his hip-pocket when he thought better and
raised both hands in the air. There was something peculiarly
businesslike in the long-barrelled revolver which the intruder held, in
spite of the silver-plating and the gold inlay along the chased barrel.
"Everybody's hands in the air," said the Jack shrilly, "right up to the
beautiful sky! Yours too, Lollie. Stand away from the table, everybody,
and back to the wall. For the Jack o' Judgment is amongst you and life
is full of amazing possibilities!"
They backed from the table, peering helplessly at the two unwinking eyes
which showed through the holes in the handkerchief.
"Back to the wall, my pretties," chuckled the Thing. "I'm going to make
you laugh and you'll want some support. I'm going to make you rock with
joy and merriment!"
The figure had moved to the table, and all the time it spoke its nimble
fingers were turning over the piles of documents which the colonel had
disgorged from the dispatch box.
"I'm going to tell you a comical tale about a gang of blackmailers."
"You're a liar," said the colonel hoarsely.
"About a gang of blackmailers," said the Jack with shrill laughter,
"fellows who didn't work like common blackmailers, nor demand money. Oh,
no! not naughty blackmailers! They got the fools and the vicious in
their power and made them sell things for hundreds of pounds that were
worth thousands. And they were such a wonderful crowd! They were such
wonderfully amusing fellows. There was Dan Boundary who started life by
robbing his dead mother, there was 'Swell' Crewe, who was once a
gentleman and is now a thief!"
"Damn you!" said Crewe, lurching forward, but the gun swung round on him
and he stopped.
"There was Lollie who would sell her own child----"
"I have no child," half-screamed the girl.
"Think again, Lollie darling--dear little soul!"
He stopped. The envelope that his fingers had been seeking was found.
He slipped it beneath the black silk cloak and in two bounds was at the
door.
"Send for the police," he mocked. "Send for the police, Dan! Get
Stafford King, the eminent chief. Tell him I called! My card!"
With a dexterous flip of his fingers he sent a little pasteboard planing
across the room. In an instant the door opened and closed upon the
intruder and he was gone.
For a second there was silence, and then, with a little sob, Lollie
Marsh collapsed in a heap on the floor. Colonel Dan Boundary looked from
one white face to the other.
"There's a hundred thousand pounds for any one of you who gets that
fellow," he said, breathing hard, "whether it is man or woman."
CHAPTER III
THE DECOY
Colonel Boundary, sitting at his desk the morning after, pushed a bell.
It was answered by the thick-set Olaf. He was dressed, as usual, in
black from head to foot and the colonel eyed him thoughtfully.
"Hanson," he said, "has Miss Marsh come?"
"Yes, she has come," said the other resentfully.
"Tell her I want her," said the colonel and then as the man was leaving
the room: "Where did you get to last night when I wanted you?"
"I was out," said the man shortly. "I get some time for myself, I
suppose?"
The colonel nodded slowly.
"Sure you do, Hanson."
His tone was mild, and that spelt danger to Hanson, had he known it.
This was the third sign of rebellion which the man had shown in the past
week.
"What's happened to your temper this morning, Hanson?" he asked.
"Everything," exploded the man and in his agitation his foreign origin
was betrayed by his accent. "You tell me I shall haf plenty money,
thousands of pounds! You say I go to my brother in America. Where is dot
money? I go in March, I go in May, I go in July, still I am here!"
"My good friend," said the colonel, "you're too impatient. This is not a
moment I can allow you to go away. You're getting nervous, that's what's
the matter with you. Perhaps I'll let you have a holiday next week."
"Nervous!" roared the man. "Yes, I am. All the time I feel eyes on me!
When I walk in the street, every man I meet is a policeman. When I go to
bed, I hear nothing but footsteps creeping in the passage outside my
room."
"Old Jack, eh?" said the colonel, eyeing him narrowly.
Hanson shivered.
He had seen the Jack o' Judgment once. A figure in gossamer silk who had
stood beside the bed in which the Scandinavian lay and had talked wisdom
whilst Olaf quaked in a muck sweat of fear.
The colonel did not know this. He was under the impression that the
appearance of the previous night had constituted the first of this
mysterious menace.
So he nodded again.
"Send Miss Marsh to me," he said.
Hanson would have got on his nerves if he had nerves. The man, at any
rate, was becoming an intolerable nuisance. The colonel marked him down
as one of the problems calling for early solution.
The secretary had not been gone more than a few seconds before the door
opened again and the girl came in. She was tall, pretty in a doll-like
way, with an aura of golden hair about her small head. She might have
been more than pretty but for her eyes, which were too light a shade of
blue to be beautiful. She was expensively gowned and walked with the
easy swing of one whose position was assured.
"Good morning, Lollie," said the colonel. "Did you see him again?"
She nodded.
"I got a pretty good view of him," she said.
"Did he see you?"
She smiled.
"I don't think so," she said; "besides, what does it matter if he did?"
"Was the girl with him?"
She shook her head.
"Well?" asked the colonel after a pause. "Can you do anything with him?"
She pursed her lips.
If she had expected the colonel to refer to their terrifying experience
of the night before, she was to be disappointed. The hard eyes of the
man compelled her to keep to the matter under discussion.
"He looks pretty hard," said the girl. "He is not the man to fall for
that heart-to-heart stuff."
"What do you mean?" asked the colonel.
"Just that," said the girl with a shrug. "I can't imagine his picking me
up and taking me to dinner and pouring out the secrets of his young
heart at the second bottle."
"Neither can I," said the colonel thoughtfully. "You're a pretty clever
girl, Lollie, and I'm going to make it worth your while to get close to
that fellow. He's the one man in Scotland Yard that we want to put out
of business. Not that we've anything to be afraid of," he added vaguely,
"but he's just interfering with----"
He paused for a word.
"With business," said the girl. "Oh, come off it, colonel! Just tell me
how far you want me to go."
"You've got to go to the limit," said the other decidedly. "You've got
to put him as wrong as you can. He must be compromised up to his neck."
"What about my young reputation?" asked the girl with a grimace.
"If you lose it, we'll buy you another," said the colonel drily, "and I
reckon it's about time you had another one, Lollie."
The girl fingered her chin thoughtfully.
"It is not going to be easy," she said again. "It isn't going to be like
young Spillsbury--Pinto Silva could have done that job without help--or
Solomon White even."
"You can shut up about Spillsbury," growled the colonel. "I've told you
to forget everything that has ever happened in our business! And I've
told you a hundred times not to mention Pinto or any of the other men in
this business! You can do as you're told! And take that look off your
face!"
He rose with extraordinary agility and leant over, glowering at the
girl.
"You've been getting a bit too fresh lately, Lollie, and giving yourself
airs! You don't try any of that grand lady stuff with me, d'ye hear?"
There was nothing suave in the colonel's manner, nothing slow or
ponderous or courtly. He spoke rapidly and harshly and revealed the
brute that many suspected but few knew.
"I've no more respect for women than I have for men, understand! If you
ever get gay with me, I'll take your neck in my hand like that," he
clenched his two fists together with a horribly suggestive motion and
the frightened girl watched him, fascinated. "I'll break you as if you
were a bit of china! I'll tear you as if you were a rag! You needn't
think you'll ever get away from me--I'll follow you to the ends of the
earth. You're paid like a queen and treated like a queen and you play
straight--there was a man called 'Snow' Gregory once----"
The trembling girl was on her feet now, her face ashen white.
"I'm sorry, colonel," she faltered. "I didn't intend giving you offence.
I--I----"
She was on the verge of tears when the colonel, with a quick gesture,
motioned her back to the chair. His rage subsided as suddenly as it had
risen.
"Now do as you're told, Lollie," he said calmly. "Get after that young
fellow and don't come back to me until you've got him."
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and almost tiptoed from his
dread presence.
At the door he stopped her.
"As to Maisie," he said, "why, you can leave Maisie to me."
CHAPTER IV
THE MISSING HANSON
Colonel Dan Boundary descended slowly from the Ford taxi-cab which had
brought him up from Horsham station and surveyed without emotion the
domicile of his partner. It was Colonel Boundary's boast that he was in
the act of lathering his face on the tenth floor of a Californian hotel
when the earthquake began, and that he finished his shaving operations,
took his bath and dressed himself before the earth had ceased to
tremble.
"I shall want you again, so you had better wait," he said to the driver
and passed through the wooden gates toward Rose Lodge.
He stopped half-way up the path, having now a better view of the house.
It was a red brick villa, the home of a well-to-do man. The trim lawn
with its border of rose trees, the little fountain playing over the
rockery, the quality of the garden furniture within view and the general
air of comfort which pervaded the place, suggested the home of a
prosperous City man, one of those happy creatures who have never
troubled to get themselves in line for millions, but have lived happily
between the four and five figure mark.
Colonel Boundary grunted and continued his walk. A trim maid opened the
door to him and by her blank look it was evident that he was not a
frequent visitor.
"Boundary--just say Boundary," said the colonel in a deep voice which
carried to the remotest part of the house.
He was shown to the drawing-room and again found much that interested
him. He felt no twinge of pity at the thought that Solomon White would
very soon exchange this almost luxury for the bleak discomfort of a
prison cell, and not even the sight of the girl who came through the
door to greet him brought him a qualm.
"You want to see my father, colonel?" she asked.
Her tone was cold but polite. The colonel had never been a great
favourite of Maisie White's, and now it required a considerable effort
on her part to hide her deep aversion.
"Do I want to see your father?" said Colonel Boundary. "Why, yes, I
think I do and I want to see you too, and I'd just as soon see you
first, before I speak to Solly."
She sat down, a model of patient politeness, her hands folded on her
lap. In the light of day she was pretty, straight of back, graceful as
to figure and the clear grey eyes which met his faded blue, were very
understanding.
"Miss White," he said, "we have been very good to you."
"We?" repeated the girl.
"We," nodded the colonel. "I speak for myself and my business
associates. If Solomon had ever told you the truth you would know that
you owe all your education, your beautiful home," he waved his hand, "to
myself and my business associates." His tongue rolled round the last two
words. They were favourites of his.
She nodded her head slightly.
"I was under the impression that I owed it to my father," she said, with
a hint of irony in her voice, "for I suppose that he earned all he has."
"You suppose that he earned all that he has?" repeated the colonel.
"Well, very likely you are right. He has earned more than he has got but
pay-day is near at hand."
There was no mistaking the menace in his tone, but the girl made no
comment. She knew that there had been trouble. She knew that her father
had for days been locked in his study and had scarcely spoken a word to
anybody.
"I saw you the other night," said the colonel, changing the direction
of his attack. "I saw you at the Orpheum. Pinto Silva came with me. We
were in the stage box."
"I saw you," said the girl quietly.
"A very good performance, considering you're a kid," said Boundary; "in
fact, Pinto says you're the best mimic he has ever seen on the
stage----" He paused--"Pinto got you your contracts."
She nodded.
"I am very grateful to Mr. Silva," she said.
"You have all the world before you, my girl," said Boundary in his slow,
ponderous way, "a beautiful and bright future, plenty of money, pearls,
diamonds," he waved his hand with a vague gesture, "and Pinto, who is
the most valuable of my business associates, is very fond of you."
The girl sighed helplessly.
"I thought that matter had been finished and done with, colonel," she
said. "I don't know how people in your world would regard such an offer,
but in my world they would look upon it as an insult."
"And what the devil is your world?" asked the colonel, without any sign
of irritation.
She rose to her feet.
"The clean, decent world," she said calmly, "the law-abiding world. The
world that regards such arrangements as you suggest as infamous. It is
not only the fact that Mr. Silva is already married----"
The colonel raised his hand.
"Pinto talks very seriously of getting a divorce," he said solemnly,
"and when a gentleman like Pinto Silva gives his word, that ought to be
sufficient for any girl. And now you have come to mention law-abiding
worlds," he went on slowly, "I would like to speak of one of the
law-abiders."
She knew what was coming and was silent.
"There's a young gentleman named Stafford King hanging round you." He
saw her face flush but went on, "Mr. Stafford King is a policeman."
"He is an official of the Criminal Intelligence Department," said the
girl, "but I don't think you would call him a policeman, would you,
colonel?"
"All policemen are policemen to me," said Boundary, "and Mr. Stafford
King is one of the worst of the policemen from my point of view, because
he's trying to trump up a cock-and-bull story about me and get me into
very serious trouble."
"I know Mr. King is connected with a great number of unpleasant cases,"
said the girl coolly. "It would be a coincidence if he was in a case
which interested you."
"It would be a coincidence, would it?" said the colonel, nodding his
huge head. "Perhaps it is a coincidence that my clerk, Hanson, has
disappeared and has been seen in the company of your friend, eh? It is a
coincidence that King is working on the Spillsbury case--the one case
that Solly knows nothing about--eh?"
She faced him, puzzled and apprehensive.
"Where does all this lead?" she asked.
"It leads to trouble for Solly, that's all," said the colonel. "He's
trying to put me away and put his business associates away, and he has
got to go through the mill unless----"
"Unless what?" she asked.
"Pinto's a merciful man, I'm a merciful man. We don't want to make
trouble with former business associates, but trouble there is going to
be, believe me."
"What kind of trouble?" asked the girl. "If you mean that your so-called
business association with my father will cease, I shall be happier. My
father can earn his living and I have my stage work."
"You have your stage work," the colonel did not smile but his tone
betrayed his amusement, "and your father can earn his living, eh? He can
earn his living in Portland Gaol," he said, raising his voice.
"For the matter of that, so can you, colonel."
The colonel turned his head slowly and surveyed the spare figure in the
doorway.
"Oh, you heard me, did you, Solly," he said not unpleasantly.
"I heard you," said Solomon White, his lean face a shade whiter than the
girl had ever seen it and his breathing was a little laboured.
"If you are thinking of gaoling me," said White, "why, I think we shall
make up a pretty jolly party."
"Meaning me?" said the colonel, raising his eyebrows.
"You amongst others. Pinto Silva, 'Swell' Crewe and Selby, to name a
few."
Colonel Boundary permitted himself to chuckle.
"On what charge?" he asked, "tell me that, Solly? The cleverest men in
Scotland Yard have been laying for me for years and they haven't got
away with it. Maybe they have your assistance and that dog Hanson----"
"That's a lie," interrupted White, "so far as I am concerned--I know
nothing about Hanson."
"Hanson," said the colonel slowly, "is a thief. He bolted with £300 of
mine, as I've reported to the police."
"I see," said White with a little smile of contempt, "got your charge in
first, eh, colonel--discredit the witness. And what have you framed for
me?"
"Nothing," said the colonel, "except this. I've just had from the bank a
cheque for £4,000 drawn in your favour on our joint account and
purporting to be signed by Silva and myself."
"As it happens," said White, "it was signed by you fellows in my
presence."
The colonel shook his head.
"Obdurate to the last, brazening it out to the end--why not make a frank
confession to an old business associate, Solly? I came here to see you
about that cheque."
"That's the game, is it?" said White. "You are going to charge me with
forgery, and suppose I spill it?"
"Spill what?" asked the colonel innocently. "If by 'spill' you mean make
a statement to the police derogatory to myself and my business
associates, what can you tell? I can bring a dozen witnesses to prove
that both Pinto and I were in Brighton the morning that cheque was
signed."
"You came up by car at night," said White harshly. "We arranged to meet
outside Guildford to split the loot."
"Loot?" said Colonel Boundary, puzzled. "I don't understand you."
"I'll put it plainer," said White, his eyes like smouldering fire: "a
year ago you got young Balston the shipowner to put fifty thousand
pounds into a fake company."
He heard Maisie gasp, but went on.
"How you did it I'm not going to tell before the girl, but it was
blackmail which you and Pinto engineered. He paid his last
instalment--the four thousand pounds was my share."
Colonel Boundary rose and looked at his watch.
"I have a taxi-cab waiting, and with a taxi-cab time is money. If you
are going to bring in the name of an innocent young man, who will
certainly deny that he had any connection with myself and my business
associates, that is a matter for your own conscience. I tell you I know
nothing about this cheque. I have made your daughter an offer."
"I can guess what it is," interrupted White, "and I can tell you this,
Boundary, that if you are going to sell me, I'll be even with you, if I
wait twenty years! If you imagine I am going to let my daughter into
that filthy gang----" His voice broke, and it was some time before he
could recover himself. "Do your worst. But I'll have you, Boundary! I
don't doubt that you'll get a conviction, and you know the things that I
can't talk about, and I'll have to take my medicine, but you are not
going to escape."
"Wait, colonel." It was the girl who spoke in so low a voice that he
would not have heard her, but that he was expecting her to speak. "Do
you mean that you will--prosecute my father?"
"With law-abiding people," said the colonel profoundly, "the demands of
justice come first. I must do my duty to the state, but if you should
change your mind----"
"She won't change her mind," roared White.
With one stride he had passed between the colonel and the door. Only for
a second he stood, and then he fell back.
"Do your worst," he said huskily, and Colonel Boundary passed out,
pocketing the revolver which had come from nowhere into his hand, and
presently they heard the purr of the departing motor.
He came to Horsham station in a thoughtful frame of mind. He was still
thinking profoundly when he reached Victoria.
Then, as he stepped on the platform, a hand was laid on his arm, and he
turned to meet the smiling face of Stafford King.
"Hullo," said the colonel, and something within him went cold.
"Sorry to break in on your reverie, colonel," said Stafford King, "but
I've a warrant for your arrest."
"What is the charge?" asked the colonel, his face grey.
"Blackmail and conspiracy," said King, and saw with amazement the look
of relief in the other's eyes.
Then:
"Boundary," he said between his teeth, "you thought I wanted you for
'Snow' Gregory!"
The colonel said nothing.
CHAPTER V
IN THE MAGISTRATE'S COURT
Never before in history had the dingy little street, in which North
Lambeth Police Court stands, witnessed such scenes as were presented on
that memorable 4th of December, when counsel for the Crown opened the
case against Colonel Dan Boundary.
Long before the building was open the precincts of the court were
besieged by people anxious to secure one of the very few seats which
were available for the public. By nine o'clock it became necessary to
summon a special force of police to clear a way for the numerous
motor-cars which came bowling from every point of the compass and which
were afterwards parked in the narrow side streets, to the intense
amazement and interest of the curious denizens of the unsavoury
neighbourhood in which the court is located.
Admission was by ticket. Even the reporters, those favoured servants of
democracy, had need to produce a printed pass before the scrutinising
policeman at the door allowed them to enter. Every available seat had
been allotted. Even the magistrate's sacristy had been invaded, and
chairs stood three-deep to left and right of him.
There were some who came out of sheer morbid curiosity, in order that
they might boast that they were present when this remarkable case was
heard. There were others who came, inwardly quaking at the revelations
which were promised or hinted at in the daily Press, for the influence
which the Boundary gang exercised was wide and far-reaching.
A young man stood upon the congested pavement, watching with evident
impatience the arrival of belated cars. The magistrate had already come
and had disappeared behind the slate-coloured gates which led to the
courtyard. Stafford saw fashionably-dressed women and (with a smile)
worried-looking men who were figures in the political and social world,
and presently he involuntarily stepped forward into the roadway as
though to meet the electric limousine which came noiselessly to the main
entrance.
The solitary occupant of the car was a man of sixty--a grey-haired
gentleman of medium height, dressed with scrupulous care, and wearing on
his clean-shaven face a perpetual smile, as though life were an
amusement which never palled.
Stafford King took the extended hand with a little twinkle in his eye.
"I was afraid we shouldn't be able to keep your place for you, Sir
Stanley," he said.
Sir Stanley Belcom, First Commissioner of Criminal Intelligence,
accentuated his smile.
"Well, Stafford," he drawled, "I've come to see the culminating triumph
of your official career."
Stafford King made a little grimace.
"I hope so," he said dryly.
"I hope so, too," said the baronet, "yet--I'll tell you frankly,
Stafford, I have a feeling that the ordinary processes of the law are
inadequate to trap this organisation. The law has too wide a mesh to
deal with the terror which this man exercises. Such men are the only
justification of lynch law, the quick, sharp justice which is
administered without subtlety and without quibble."
Stafford looked at the other and made no attempt to hide his
astonishment.
"You believe in--the Jack o' Judgment?" he asked.
Sir Stanley shot a swift glance at him.
"That is the bugbear of the gang, isn't it?"
"So Hanson says," replied the other. "I verily believe that Hanson is
more afraid of that mysterious person than he is of Boundary himself."
The Attorney-General had begun his opening speech when the two men made
their way into the crowded court and found their seats at the end of
the solicitors table.
In the dock sat Colonel Boundary, the least concerned of all that
assembly. The colonel was leaning forward, his arms resting on the
rails, his chin on the back of his hairy hand, his eyes glued upon the
grey-haired lawyer who was dispassionately opening the case.
"The contention of the Crown," the Attorney-General was saying, "is that
Colonel Boundary is at the head of a huge blackmailing organisation, and
that in the course of the past twenty years, by such means as I shall
suggest and as the principal witness for the Crown will tell you, he has
built up his criminal practice until he now controls the most complex
and the most iniquitous organisation that has been known in the long and
sordid history of crime.
"Your Worship will doubtless hear," he went on, "of a bizarre and
fantastic figure which flits through the pages of this story, a
mysterious somebody who is called the 'Jack.' But I shall ask your
Worship, as I shall ask the jury, when this case reaches, as it must
reach ultimately, the Central Criminal Court, to disregard this
apparition, which displayed no part in bringing Boundary to justice.
"The contention of the Crown is, as I say, that Boundary, by means of
terrorisation and blackmail, through the medium and assistance of his
creatures, has from time to time secured a hold over rich and foolish
men and women, and from these has acquired the enormous wealth which is
now his and his associates'. As to these latter, their prosecution
depends very largely upon the fate of Boundary. There are, I believe,
some of them in court at this moment, and though they are not arrested,
it will be no news to them to learn that they are under police
observation."
"Swell" Crewe, sitting at the back of the court, shifted uneasily and,
turning his head, he met the careless gaze of the tall, military-looking
man who had "detective" written all over him.
There had been a pause in the Attorney-General's speech whilst he
examined, short-sightedly, the notes before him.
"In the presentation of this case, your Worship," he went on, "the Crown
is in somewhat of a dilemma. We have secured one important and, I think,
convincing witness--a man who has been closely associated with the
prisoner, a Scandinavian named Hanson, who, considering himself badly
treated by this gang, has been for a long time secretly getting together
evidence of an incriminating character. As to his object we need not
inquire. There is a possibility suggested by my learned friend, the
counsel for the defence, that Hanson intended blackmailing the
blackmailers, and presenting such a weight of evidence against Boundary
that he could do no less than pay handsomely for his confederate's
silence. That is as may be. The main fact is that Hanson has accumulated
this documentary evidence, and that that documentary evidence is in
existence in certain secret hiding-places in this country, which will be
revealed in the course of his examination.
"We are at this disadvantage, that Hanson has not yet made anything but
the most scanty of statements. Fearing for his life, since this gang
will stick at nothing, he has been closely guarded by the police from
the moment he made his preliminary statement. Every effort which has
been made to induce him to commit his revelations to writing has been in
vain, and we are compelled to take what is practically his affidavit in
open court."
"Do I understand," interrupted the magistrate, in that weary tone which
is the prerogative of magistrates, "that you are not as yet in
possession of the evidence on which I am to be asked to commit the
prisoner to the Old Bailey?"
"That is so, your Worship," said the counsel. "All we could procure from
Hanson was the bald affidavit which was necessary to secure the man's
arrest."
"So that if anything happened to your witness, there would be no case
for the Crown?"
The Attorney-General nodded.
"Those are exactly the circumstances, your Worship," he said, "and that
is why we have been careful to keep our witness in security. The man is
in a highly nervous condition, and we have been obliged to humour him.
But I do not think your Worship need have any apprehension as to the
evidence which will be produced to-day, or that there will not be
sufficient to justify a committal."
"I see," said the magistrate.
Sir Stanley turned to Stafford and whispered:
"Rather a queer proceeding."
Stafford nodded.
"It is the only thing we could do," he said. "Hanson refused to speak
until he was in court--until, as he said, he saw Boundary under arrest."
"Does Boundary know this?"
"I suppose so," replied Stafford with a little smile, "he knows
everything. He has a whole army of spies. Sir Stanley, you don't know
how big this organisation is. He has roped in everybody. He has Members
of Parliament, he has the best lawyers in London, and two of the big
detective agencies are engaged exclusively on his work."
Sir Stanley pursed his lips thoughtfully and turned his attention to the
prosecuting counsel. The address was not a long one, and presently the
Attorney-General sat down, to be followed by a leading member of the
Bar, retained for the defence. Presently he too had finished, and again
the Attorney-General rose.
"Call Olaf Hanson," he said, and there was a stir of excitement.
The door leading to the cells opened, and two tall detectives came
through, and two others followed. In the midst of the four walked the
short, grey-faced man, in whose hands was the fate, and indeed the life,
of Colonel Dan Boundary.
He did not as much as glance at the dock, but hurried across the floor
of the court and was ushered to the witness stand, his four guardians
disposing themselves behind and before him. The man seemed on the point
of crumbling. His fear-full eyes ranged the court, always avoiding the
gross figure in the railed dock. The lips of the witness were white and
trembling. The hands which clutched the front of the box for support
twitched spasmodically.
"Your name is Olaf Hanson?" asked the Attorney-General soothingly.
The witness tried to speak but his lips emitted no sound. He nodded.
"You are a native of Christiania?"
Again Hanson nodded.
"You must speak out," said Counsel kindly, "and you need have no fear.
How long have you known Colonel Boundary?"
This time Hanson found his voice.
"For ten years," he said huskily.
An usher came forward from the press at the back of the court with a
glass of water and handed it to the witness, who drank eagerly. Counsel
waited until he had drained the glass before he spoke again.
"You have in your possession certain documentary evidence convicting
Colonel Boundary of certain malpractices?"
"Yes," said the witness.
"You have promised the police that you will reveal in court where those
documents have been stored?"
"Yes," said Hanson again.
"Will you tell the court now, in order that the police may lose as
little time as possible, where you have hidden that evidence?"
Colonel Boundary was showing the first signs of interest he had evinced
in the proceedings. He leaned forward, his head craned round as though
endeavouring to catch the eye of the witness.
Hanson was speaking, and speaking with difficulty.
"I haf--put those papers,"--he stopped and swayed--"I haf put those
papers----" he began again, and then, without a second's warning, he
fell limply forward.
"I am afraid he has fainted," said the magistrate.
Detectives were crowding round the witness, and had lifted him from the
witness stand. One said something hurriedly, and Stafford King left his
seat. He was bending over the prostrate figure, tearing open the collar
from his throat, and presently was joined by the police surgeon, who was
in court. There was a little whispered consultation, and then Stafford
King straightened himself up and his face was pale and hard.
"I regret to inform your Worship," he said, "that the witness is dead."
CHAPTER VI
STAFFORD KING RESIGNS
A week later, Stafford King came into the office of the First
Commissioner of the Criminal Intelligence Department, and Sir Stanley
looked up with a kindly but pitying look in his eye.
"Well, Stafford," he said gently, "sit down, won't you. What has
happened?"
Stafford King shrugged his shoulders.
"Boundary is discharged," he said shortly.
Sir Stanley nodded.
"It was inevitable," he said, "I suppose there's no hope of connecting
him and his gang with the death of Hanson?"
"Not a ghost of a hope, I am afraid," said Stafford, shaking his head.
"Hanson was undoubtedly murdered, and the poison which killed him was in
the glass of water which the usher brought. I've been examining the
usher again to-day, and all he can remember is that he saw somebody
pushing through the crowd at the back of the court, who handed the glass
over the heads of the people. Nobody seems to have seen the man who
passed it. That was the method by which the gang got rid of their
traitor."
"Clever," said Sir Stanley, putting his finger-tips together. "They knew
just the condition of mind in which Hanson would be when he came into
court. They had the dope ready, and they knew that the detectives would
allow the usher to bring the man water, when they would not allow
anybody else to approach him. This is a pretty bad business, Stafford."
"I realise that," said the young chief. "Of course, I shall resign.
There's nothing else to do. I thought we had him this time, especially
with the evidence we had in relation to the Spillsbury case."
"You mean the letter which Spillsbury wrote to the woman Marsh? How did
that come, by the way?"
"It reached Scotland Yard by post."
"Do you know who sent it?"
"There was no covering note at all," replied Stafford. "It was in a
plain envelope with a typewritten address and was sent to me personally.
The letter, of course, was valueless by itself."
"Have you made any search to discover the documents which Hanson spoke
about?"
"We have searched everywhere," said the other a little wearily, "but it
is a pretty hopeless business looking through London for a handful of
documents. Anyway, friend Boundary is free."
The other was watching him closely.
"It is a bitter disappointment to you, my young friend," he said;
"you've been working on the case for years. I fear you'll never have
another such chance of putting Boundary in the dock. He's got a lot of
public sympathy, too. Your thorough-paced rascal who escapes from the
hands of the police has always a large following amongst the public, and
I doubt whether the Home Secretary will sanction any further
proceedings, unless we have most convincing proof. What's this?"
Stafford had laid a letter on the table.
"My resignation," said that young man grimly.
The First Commissioner took up the envelope and tore it in four pieces.
"It is not accepted," he said cheerfully; "you did your best, and you're
no more responsible than I am. If you resign, I ought to resign, and so
ought every officer who has been on this game. A few years ago I took
exactly the same step--offered my resignation over a purely private and
personal matter, and it was not accepted. I have been glad since, and so
will you be. Go on with your work and give Boundary a rest for awhile."
Stafford was looking down at him abstractedly.
"Do you think we shall ever catch the fellow, sir?"
Sir Stanley smiled.
"Frankly, I don't," he admitted. "As I said before, the only danger I
see to Boundary is this mysterious individual who apparently crops up
now and again in his daily life, and who, I suspect, was the person who
sent you the Spillsbury letter--the Jack o' Judgment, doesn't he call
himself? Do you know what I think?" he asked quietly. "I think that if
you found the 'Jack,' if you ran him to earth, stripped him of his
mystic guise, you would discover somebody who has a greater grudge
against Boundary than the police."
Stafford smiled.
"We can't run about after phantoms, sir," he said, with a touch of
asperity in his voice.
The chief looked at him curiously.
"I hear you do quite a lot of running about," he said carelessly, as he
began to arrange the papers on his table. "By the way, how is Miss
White?"
Stafford flushed.
"She was very well when I saw her last night," he said stiffly; "she is
leaving the stage."
"And her father?"
Stafford was silent for a second.
"He left his home a week before the case came into court and has not
been seen since," he said.
The chief nodded.
"Whilst White is away and until he turns up I should keep a watchful eye
on his daughter," he said.
"What do you mean, sir?" asked Stafford.
"I'm just making a suggestion," said the other. "Think it over."
Stafford thought it over on his way to meet the girl, who was waiting
for him on a sunny seat in Temple Gardens, for the day was fine and even
warm, and, two hours before luncheon, the place was comparatively empty
of people.
She saw the trouble in his face and rose to meet him, and for a moment
forgot her own distress of mind, her doubts and fears. Evidently she
knew the reason for his attendance at Scotland Yard, and something of
the interview which he had had.
"I offered my resignation," he replied, in answer to her unspoken
question, "and Sir Stanley refused it."
"I think he was just," she said. "Why, it would be simply monstrous if
your career were spoilt through no fault of your own."
He laughed.
"Don't let us talk about me," he said. "What have you done?"
"I've cancelled all my contracts; I have other work to do."
"How are----" He hesitated, but she knew just what he meant, and patted
his arm gratefully.
"Thank you, I have all the money I want," she said. "Father left me
quite a respectable balance. I am closing the house at Horsham and
storing the furniture, and shall keep just sufficient to fill a little
flat I have taken in Bloomsbury."
"But what are you going to do?" he asked curiously.
She shook her head.
"Oh, there are lots of things that a girl can do," she said vaguely,
"besides going on the stage."
"But isn't it a sacrifice? Didn't you love your work?"
She hesitated.
"I thought I did at first," she said. "You see, I was always a very good
mimic. When I was quite a little girl I could imitate the colonel.
Listen!"
Suddenly to his amazement he heard the drawling growl of Dan Boundary.
She laughed with glee at his amazement, but the smile vanished and she
sighed.
"I want you to tell me one thing, Mr. King----"
"Stafford--you promised me," he began.
She reddened.
"I hardly like calling you by your christian name but it sounds so like
a surname that perhaps it won't be so bad."
"What do you want to ask?" he demanded.
She was silent for a moment, then she said:
"How far was my father implicated in this terrible business?"
"In the gang?"
She nodded.
He was in a dilemma. Solomon White was implicated as deeply as any save
the colonel. In his younger days he had been the genius who was
responsible for the organisation and had been for years the colonel's
right-hand man until the more subtle villainy of Pinto Silva, that
Portuguese adventurer, had ousted him, and, if the truth be told, until
the sight of his girl growing to womanhood had brought qualms to the
heart of this man, who, whatever his faults, loved the girl dearly.
"You don't answer me," she said, "but I think I am answered by your
silence. Was my father--a bad man?"
"I would not judge your father," he said. "I can tell you this, that for
the past few years he has played a very small part in the affairs of the
gang. But what are you going to do?"
"How persistent you are!" she laughed. "Why, there are so many things I
am going to do that I haven't time to tell you. For one thing, I am
going to work to undo some of the mischief which the gang have wrought.
I am going to make such reparation as I can," she said, her lips
trembling, "for the evil deeds my father has committed."
"You have a mission, eh?" he said with a little smile.
"Don't laugh at me," she pleaded. "I feel it here." She put her hand on
her heart. "There's something which tells me that, even if my father
built up this gang, as you told me once he did--ah! you had forgotten
that."
Stafford King had indeed forgotten the statement.
"Yes?" he said. "You intend to pull it down?"
She nodded.
"I feel, too, that I am at bay. I am the daughter of Solomon White, and
Solomon White is regarded by the colonel as a traitor. Do you think they
will leave me alone? Don't you think they are going to watch me day and
night and get me in their power just as soon as they can? Think of the
lever that would be, the lever to force my father back to them!"
"Oh, you'll be watched all right," he said easily, and remembered the
commissioner's warning. "In fact, you're being watched now. Do you
mind?"
"Now?" she asked in surprise.
He nodded towards a lady who sat a dozen yards away and whose face was
carefully shaded by a parasol.
"Who is she?" asked the girl curiously.
"A young person called Lollie Marsh," laughed Stafford. "At present she
has a mission too, which is to entangle me into a compromising
position."
The girl looked towards the spy with a new interest and a new
resentment.
"She has been trailing me for weeks," he went on, "and it would be
embarrassing to tell you the number of times we have been literally
thrown into one another's arms. Poor girl!" he said, with mock concern,
"she must be bored with sitting there so long. Let us take a stroll."
If he expected Lollie to follow, he was to be disappointed She stayed on
watching the disappearing figures, without attempting to rise, and
waiting until they were out of sight, she walked out on to the
Embankment and hailed a passing taxi. She seemed quite satisfied in her
mind that the plan she had evolved for the trapping of Stafford King
could not fail to succeed.
CHAPTER VII
THE COLONEL CONDUCTS HIS BUSINESS
A merry little dinner party was assembled that night in a luxurious flat
in Albemarle House. It was a bachelor party, and consisted of three--the
colonel, resplendent in evening dress, "Swell" Crewe and a middle-aged
man whose antique dress coat and none too spotless linen certainly did
not advertise their owner's prosperity. Yet this man with the stubbly
moustache and the bald head could write his cheque for seven figures,
being Mr. Thomas Crotin, of the firm of Crotin and Principle, whose
swollen mills occupy a respectable acreage in Huddersfield and Dewsbury.
"You're Colonel Boundary, are you?" he said admiringly, and for about
the seventh time since the meal started.
The colonel nodded with a good-humoured twinkle in his eye.
"Well, fancy that!" said Mr. Crotin. "I'll have something to talk about
when I go back to Yorkshire. It is lucky I met your friend, Captain
Crewe, at our club in Huddersfield."
There was something more than luck in that meeting, as the colonel well
knew.
"I read about the trial and all," said the Yorkshireman; "I must say it
looked very black against you, colonel."
The colonel smiled again and lifted a bottle towards the other.
"Nay, nay!" said the spinner. "I'll have nowt more. I've got as much as
I can carry, and I know when I've had enough."
The colonel replaced the bottle by his side.
"So you read of the trial, did you?"
"I did and all," said the other, "and I said to my missus: 'Yon's a
clever fellow, I'd like to meet him.'"
"You have an admiration for the criminal classes, eh?" said the colonel
good-humouredly.
"Well, I'm not saying you're a criminal," said the other, taking his
host literally, "but being a J.P. and on the bench of magistrates, I
naturally take an interest in these cases. You never know what you can
learn."
"And what did your lady wife say?" asked Boundary.
The Yorkshireman smiled broadly.
"Well, she doesn't take any interest in these things. She's a proper
London lady, my wife. She was in a high position when I married."
"Five years ago," said Boundary, "you married the daughter of Lord
Westsevern. It cost you a hundred thousand pounds to pay the old man's
debts."
The Yorkshireman stared at him.
"How did you know that?" he asked.
"You're nominated for Parliament, too, aren't you. And you're to be
Mayor of Little Thornhill?"
Mr. Crotin laughed uproariously.
"Well, you've got me properly taped," he said admiringly, and the
colonel agreed with a gesture.
"So you're interested in the criminal classes?"
Mr. Crotin waved a protesting hand.
"I'm not saying you're a member of the criminal classes, colonel," he
said. "My friend Crewe here wouldn't think I would be so rude. Of
course, I know the charge was all wrong."
"That's where you're mistaken," interrupted the colonel calmly; "it was
all right."
"Eh?"
The man stared.
"The charge was perfectly sound," said the colonel, playing with his
fruit knife; "for twenty years I have been making money by buying
businesses at about a twentieth of their value and selling them again."
"But how----" began the other.
"Wait, I'll tell you. I've got men working for me all over the country,
agents and sub-agents, who are constantly on the look-out for scandal.
Housekeepers, servants, valets--you know the sort of people who get hold
of information."
Mr. Crotin was speechless.
"Sooner or later I find a very incriminating fact which concerns a
gentleman of property. I prefer those scandals which verge on the
criminal," the colonel went on.
The outraged Mr. Crotin was rolling his serviette.
"Where are you going? What are you going to do? The night's young," said
the colonel innocently.
"I'm going," said Mr. Crotin, very red of face. "A joke's a joke, and
when friend Crewe introduced me to you, I hadn't any idea that you were
that kind of man. You don't suppose that I'm going to sit here in your
society--me with my high connections--after what you've said?"
"Why not?" asked the colonel; "after all, business is business, and as
I'm making an offer to you for the Riverborne Mill----"
"The Riverborne Mill?" roared the spinner. "Ah! that's a joke of yours!
You'll buy no Riverborne Mill of me, sitha!"
"On the contrary, I shall buy the Riverborne Mill from you. In fact, I
have all the papers and transfers ready for you to sign."
"Oh, you have, have you?" said the man grimly. "And what might you be
offering me for the Riverborne?"
"I'm offering you thirty thousand pounds cash," said the colonel, and
his bearer was stricken speechless.
"Thirty thousand pounds cash!" he said after awhile. "Why, man, that
property is worth two hundred thousand pounds."
"I thought it was worth a little more," said the colonel carelessly.
"You're a fool or a madman," said the angry Yorkshireman. "It isn't my
mill, it is a limited company."
"But you hold the majority of the shares--ninety-five per cent., I
think," said the colonel. "Those are the shares which you will transfer
to me at the price I suggest."
"I'll see you damned first," roared Crotin, bringing his hand down smash
on the table.
"Sit down again for one moment." The colonel's voice was gentle but
insistent. "Do you know Maggie Delman?"
Suddenly Crotin's face went white.
"She was one of your father's mill-girls when you were little more than
a boy," the colonel proceeded, "and you were rather in love with her,
and one Easter you went away together to Blackpool. Do you remember?"
Still Crotin did not speak.
"You married the young lady and the marriage was kept secret because you
were afraid of your father, and as the years went on and the girl was
content with the little home you had made for her and the allowance you
gave her, there seemed to be no need to admit your marriage, especially
as there were no children. Then you began to take part in local politics
and to accumulate ambitions. You dared not divorce your wife and you
thought there was no necessity for it. You had a chance of improving
yourself socially by marrying the daughter of an English lord, and you
jumped at it."
"You've got to prove that," he said huskily.
The man found his voice.
"I can prove it all right. Oh, no, your wife hasn't betrayed you--your
real wife, I mean. You've betrayed yourself by insisting on paying her
by telegraphic money orders. We heard of these mysterious payments but
suspected nothing beyond a vulgar love affair. Then one night, whilst
your placid and complacent wife was in a cinema, one of my people
searched her box and came upon the certificate of marriage. Would you
like to see it?"
"I've nothing to say," said Crotin thickly. "You've got me, mister. So
that is how you do it!"
"That is how I do it," said the colonel. "I believe in being frank with
people like you. Here are the transfers. You see the place for your
signature marked with a pencil."
Suddenly Crotin leaped at him in a blind fury, but the colonel gripped
him by the throat with a hand like a steel vice, and shook him as a dog
would shake a rat. And the gentle tone in his voice changed as quickly.
"Sit down and sign!" snarled Boundary. "If you play that game, I'll
break your damned neck! Come any of those tricks with me and I'll smash
you. Give him the pen, Crewe."
"I'll see you in gaol for this," said the white-faced man shakily.
"That's about the place you will see me, if you don't sign, and it is
the inside of that gaol you'll be to see me."
The man rose up unsteadily, flinging down the pen as he did so.
"You'll suffer for this," he said between his teeth.
"Not unduly," said the colonel.
There was a tap at the door and the colonel swung round.
"Who's that?" he asked.
"Can I come in?" said a voice.
Crewe was frowning.
"Who is it?" asked the colonel.
The door opened slowly. A gloved hand, and then a white, hooded face,
slipped through the narrow entry.
"Jack o' Judgment! Poor old Jack o' Judgment come to make a call,"
chuckled the hateful voice. "Down, dog; down!" He flourished the
long-barrelled revolver theatrically, then turned with a chuckle of
laughter to the gaping Mr. Crotin.
"Poor Jacob!" he crooned, "he has sold his birthright for a mess of
pottage! Don't touch that paper, Crewe, or you die the death!"
His hand leapt out and snatched the transfer, which he thrust into the
hand of the wool-spinner.
"Get out and go home, my poor sheep," he said, "back to the blankets! Do
you think they'd be satisfied with one mill? They'd come for a mill
every year and they'd never leave you till you were dead or broke. Go to
the police, my poor lamb, and tell them your sad story. Go to the
admirable Mr. Stafford King--he'll fall on your neck. You won't, I see
you won't!"
The laughter rose again, and then swiftly with one arm he swung back the
merchant and stood in silence till the door of the flat slammed.
The colonel found his voice.
"I don't know who you are," he said, breathing heavily, "but I'll make a
bargain with you. I've offered a hundred thousand pounds to anybody who
gets you. I'll offer you the same amount to leave me alone."
"Make it a hundred thousand millions!" said Jack o' Judgment in his
curious, squeaky voice, "give me the moon and an apple, and I'm yours!"
He was gone before they could realise he had passed through the door,
and he had left the flat before either moved.
"Quick! The window!" said the colonel.
The window commanded a view of the front entrance of Albemarle House,
and the entry was well lighted. They reached the window in time to see
the Yorkshireman emerge with unsteady steps and stride into the night.
They waited for their visitor to follow. A minute, two minutes passed,
and then somebody walked down the steps to the light. It was a woman,
and as she turned her face the colonel gasped.
"Maisie White!" he said in a wondering voice. "What the devil is she
doing here?"
CHAPTER VIII
THE LISTENER AT THE DOOR
Maisie White had taken up her abode in a modest flat in Doughty Street,
Bloomsbury. The building had been originally intended for a dwelling
house, but its enterprising owner had fitted a kitchenette and a
bathroom to every floor and had made each suite self-contained.
She found the one bedroom and a sitting-room quite sufficient for her
needs. Since the day of her father's departure she had not heard from
him, and she had resolutely refused to worry. What was Solomon White's
association with the Boundary gang, she could only guess. She knew it
had been an important one, but her fears on his behalf had less to do
with the action the police might take against him than with Boundary's
sinister threat.
She had other reasons for leaving the stage than she had told Stafford
King. On the stage she was a marked woman and her movements could be
followed for at least three hours in the day, and she was anxious for
more anonymity. She was conscious of two facts as she opened the outer
door that night to let herself into the hallway, and hurried up to her
apartments. The first was that she had been followed home, and that
impression was the more important of the two. She did not switch on the
light when she entered her room, but bolting the door behind her, she
moved swiftly to the window and raised it noiselessly. Looking out, she
saw two men on the opposite side of the street, standing together in
consultation. It was too dark to recognise them, but she thought that
one figure was Pinto Silva.
She was not frightened, but nevertheless she looked thoughtfully at the
telephone, and her hand was on the receiver before she changed her mind.
After all, they would know where she lived and an inquiry at her agents
or even at the theatre would tell them to where her letters had been
readdressed. She hesitated a moment, then pulled down the blinds and
switched on the light.
Outside the two men saw the light flash up and watched her shadow cross
the blind.
"It is Maisie all right," said Pinto. "Now tell me what happened."
In a few words Crewe described the scene which he had witnessed in the
Albemarle flat.
"Impossible!" said Pinto; "are you suggesting that Maisie is Jack o'
Judgment?"
Crewe shrugged.
"I know nothing about it," he said; "there are the facts."
Pinto looked up at the light again.
"I'm going across to see her," he said, and Crewe made a grimace.
"Is that wise?" he asked; "she doesn't know we have followed her home.
Won't she be suspicious?"
Pinto shrugged.
"She's a pretty clever girl that," he said, "and if she doesn't know
we're outside, there's nothing of Solomon White in her composition."
He crossed the road and struck a match to discover which was her bell.
He guessed right the first time. Maisie heard the tinkle and knew what
it portended. She had not started to disrobe, and after a few moments'
hesitation she went down the stairs and opened the door.
"It is rather a late hour to call on you," said Pinto pleasantly, "but
we saw you going away from Albemarle Place, and could not overtake you."
There was a question in his voice, though he did not give it actual
words.
"It is rather late for small talk," she said coolly. "Is there any
reason for your call?"
"Well, Miss White, there were several things I wanted to talk to you
about," said Pinto, taken aback by her calm. "Have you heard from your
father?"
"Don't you think," she said, "it would be better if you came at a more
conventional hour? I don't feel inclined to gossip on the doorstep and
I'm afraid I can't ask you in."
"The colonel is worrying," Pinto hastened to explain. "You see, Solly's
one of his best friends."
The girl laughed softly.
"I know," she said. "I heard the colonel talking to my father at
Horsham," she added meaningly.
"You've got to make allowances for the colonel," urged Pinto; "he lost
his temper, but he's feeling all right now. Couldn't you persuade your
father to communicate with us--with him?"
She shook her head.
"I am not in a position to communicate with my father," she replied
quietly. "I am just as ignorant of his whereabouts as you are. If
anybody is anxious it is surely myself, Mr. Silva."
"And another point," Silva went on, so that there should be no gap in
the conversation, "why did you give up your theatrical engagements,
Maisie? I took a lot of trouble to get them for you, and it is stupid to
jeopardise your career. I have plenty of influence, but managers will
not stand that kind of treatment, and when you go back----"
"I am not going back," she said. "Really, Mr. Silva, you must excuse me
to-night. I am very tired after a hard day's work----" she checked
herself.
"What are you doing now, Maisie?" asked Silva curiously.
"I have no wish to prolong this conversation," said the girl, "but there
is one thing I should like to say, and that is that I would prefer you
to call me Miss White."
"All right, all right," said Silva genially, "and what were you doing at
the flat to-night, Mai--Miss White?"
"Good night," said the girl and closed the door in his face.
He cursed angrily in the dark and raised his hand to rap on the panel of
the door, but thought better of it and, turning, walked back to the
interested Crewe, who stood in the shadow of a lamp-post watching the
scene.
"Well?" asked Crewe.
"Confound the girl, she won't talk," grumbled Silva. "I'd give something
to break that pride of hers, Crewe. By jove, I'll do it one of these
days," he added between his teeth.
Crewe laughed.
"There's no sense in going off the deep end because a girl turns you
down," he said. "What did she say about the flat? And what did she say
about her visit to Albemarle Place?"
"She said nothing," said the other shortly. "Come along, let's go back
to the colonel."
On the return journey he declined to be drawn into any kind of
conversation, and Crewe, after one or two attempts to procure
enlightenment as to the result of the interview, relapsed into silence.
They found the colonel waiting for them, and to all appearances the
colonel was undisturbed by the happenings of the evening.
"Well?" he asked.
"She admits she was here," said Pinto.
"What was she doing?"
"You'd better ask her yourself," said the other with some asperity. "I
tell you, colonel, I can't handle that woman."
"Nobody ever thought you could," said the colonel. "Did she give you any
idea as to what her business was?"
Pinto shook his head and the colonel paced the big room thoughtfully,
his big hands in his pockets.
"Here's a situation," he said. "There's some outsider who's following
every movement we make, who knew that boob from Huddersfield was coming,
and who knew what our business was. That somebody was this infernal Jack
o' Judgment, but who is Jack o' Judgment, hey?"
He looked round fiercely.
"I'll tell you who he is," he went on, speaking slowly "He's somebody
who knows our gang as well as we know it ourselves, somebody who has
been on the inside, somebody who has access, or who has had access, to
our working methods. In fact," he said using his pet phrase, "a business
associate."
"Rubbish!" said Pinto.
This polished man of Portugal, who had come into the gang very late in
the day, was one of the few people who were privileged to offer blunt
opposition to the leader of the Boundary Gang.
"You might as well say it is I, or that it is Crewe, or Dempsey, or
Selby----"
"Or White," said the colonel slowly; "don't forget White."
They stared at him.
"What do you mean?" asked Crewe with a frown.
White had been a favourite of his.
"How could it be White?"
"Why shouldn't it be White?" said the colonel. "When did Jack o'
Judgment make his first appearance? I'll tell you. About the time we
started getting busy framing up something against White. Did we ever see
him when White was with us--no! Isn't it obviously somebody who has been
a business associate and knows our little ways? Why, of course it is.
Tell me somebody else?
"You don't suggest it is 'Snow' Gregory, anyway?" he added
sarcastically.
Crewe shivered and half-closed his eyes.
"For heaven's sake don't mention 'Snow' Gregory," he said irritably.
"Why shouldn't I?" snarled the colonel. "He's worth money and life and
liberty to us, Crewe. He's an awful example that keeps some of our
business associates on the straight path. Not," he added with elaborate
care, "not that we were in any way responsible for his untimely end. But
he died--providentially. A doper's bad enough, but a doper who talks and
boasts and tells me, as he told me in this very room, just where he'd
put me, is a mighty dangerous man, Crewe."
"Did he do that?" asked Crewe with interest.
The colonel nodded.
"In this very room where you're standing," he said impressively, "at the
end of that table he stood, all lit up with 'coco' and he told me things
about our organisation that I thought nobody knew but myself. That's the
worst of drugs," he said, shaking his head reprovingly; "you never know
how clever they'll make a man, and they made 'Snow' a bit too clever.
I'm not saying that I regretted his death--far from it. I don't know how
he got mixed up in the affair----"
"Oh, shut up!" growled Pinto; "why go on acting before us? We were all
in it."
"Hush!" said the colonel with a glance at the door.
There was a silence. All eyes were fixed on the door.
"Did you hear anything?" asked the colonel under his breath.
His face was a shade paler than they had ever remembered seeing it.
"It is nothing," said Pinto; "that fellow's got on your nerves."
The colonel walked to the sideboard and poured out a generous portion of
whisky and drank it at a gulp.
"Lots of things are getting on my nerves," he said, "but nothing gets on
my nerves so much as losing money. Crewe, we've got to go after that
Yorkshireman again--at least somebody has got to go after him."
"And that somebody is not going to be me," said Crewe quietly. "I did my
part of the business. Let Pinto have a cut."
Pinto Silva shook his head.
"We'll drop him," he said decisively, and for the first time Crewe
realised how dominating a factor Pinto had become in the government of
the band.
"We'll drop him----"
Suddenly he stopped and craned his head round.
It was he who had heard something near the door, and now with noiseless
steps he tiptoed across the room to the door, and gripping the handle,
opened it suddenly. A gun had appeared in his hand, but he did not use
it. Instead, he darted through the open doorway and they heard the sound
of a struggle. Presently he came back, dragging by the collar a man.
"Got him!" he said triumphantly, and hurled his captive into the nearest
chair.
CHAPTER IX
THE COLONEL EMPLOYS A DETECTIVE
Their prisoner was a stranger. He was a lean, furtive-looking man of
thirty-five, below middle height, respectably dressed, and at first
glance, the colonel, whose hobby was distinguishing at a look the social
standing of humanity, was unable to place him.
Crewe locked the door.
"Now then," said the colonel, "what the devil were you doing listening
at my door? Was that his game, Mr. Silva?"
"That was his game," said the other, brushing his hands.
"What have you got to say before I send for the police?" asked the
colonel virtuously. "What have you got to say for yourself? Sneaking
about a gentleman's flat, listening at keyholes!"
The man, who had been roughly handled, had risen and was putting his
collar straight. If he had been taken aback by the sudden onslaught, he
was completely self-possessed now.
"If you want to send for the police, you'd better start right away," he
said; "you've got a telephone, haven't you? Perhaps I'll have a job for
the policeman, too. You've no right to assault me, my friend," he said,
addressing Pinto resentfully.
"What were you doing?" asked the colonel.
"Find out," said the man sharply.
The colonel stroked his long moustache, and his manner underwent a
change.
"Now look here, old man," he said almost jovially; "we're all friends
here, and we don't want any trouble. I daresay you've made a mistake,
and my friend has made a mistake. Have a whisky and soda?"
The man grinned crooked.
"Not me, thank you," he said emphatically; "if I remember rightly, there
was a young gentleman who took a glass of water in North Lambeth Police
Court the other day, and----"
The colonel's eyes narrowed.
"Well, sit down and be sociable. If you're suggesting that I'm going to
poison you, you're also suggesting that you know something which I don't
want you to tell. Or that you have discovered one of those terrible
secrets that the newspapers are all writing about. Now be a sensible
man; have a drink."
The man hesitated.
"You have a drink of whisky out of the same bottle, and I'll join you."
"Help yourself," said the colonel good-naturedly. "Give me any glass you
like."
The man went to the sideboard, poured out two pegs and sent the
soda-water sizzling into the long glasses.
"Here's yours and here's mine," he said; "good luck!"
He drank the whisky off, after he had seen the colonel drink his, and
wiped his mouth with a gaudy handkerchief.
"I'm taking it for granted," said the colonel, "that we've made no
mistake and that you were listening at our door. Now we want no
unpleasantness, and we'll talk about this matter as sensible human
beings and man to man."
"That's the way to talk," said the other, smacking his lips.
"You've been sent here to watch me."
"I may have and I may not have," said the other.
Pinto shifted impatiently, but the colonel stopped him with a look.
"Now let me see what you are," mused the colonel, still wearing that
benevolent smile of his. "You're not an ordinary tradesman. You've got a
look of the book canvasser about you. I have it--you're a private
detective!"
The man smirked.
"Perhaps I am," said he, "and," he added, "perhaps I'm not."
The colonel slapped him on the shoulder.
"Of course you are," he said confidently; "we don't see shrewd-looking
fellows like you every day. You're a split!"
"Not official," said the man quickly.
He had all the English private detective's fear of posing as the genuine
article.
"Now look here," said the colonel, "I'm going to be perfectly straight
with you, and you've got to be straight with me. That's fair, isn't it?"
"Quite fair," said the man; "if I've been misconducting myself in any
manner----"
"Don't mention it," said the colonel politely, "my friend here will
apologise for handling you roughly, I'm sure; won't you, Mr. Silva?"
"Sure!" said the other, without any great heartiness.
He was tired of this conversation and was anxious to know where it was
leading.
"You're not in the private detective business for your health," said the
colonel, and the man shook his head.
"I bet you're working for a firm that's paying you about three pounds a
week and your miserable expenses--a perfect dog's life."
"You're quite right there," said the man, and he spoke with the
earnestness of the ill-used wage-earner, "it is a dog's life; out in all
kinds of weather, all hours of the day and night, and never so much as
'thank you' for any work you do. Why, we get no credit at all, sir. If
we go into the witness-box, the lawyers treat us like dirt."
"I absolutely agree with you," said the colonel, shaking his head. "I
think the private detective business in this country isn't appreciated
as it ought to be. And it is very curious we should have met you," he
went on; "only this evening I was saying to my friends here, that we
ought to get a good man to look after our interests. You've heard about
me, I'm sure, Mr.----"
"Snakit," said the other; "here's my card."
He produced a card from his waistcoat pocket, and the colonel read it.
"Mr. Horace Snakit," he said, "of Dooby and Somes. Now what do you say
to coming into our service?"
The man blinked.
"I've got a good job----" he began inconsistently.
"I'll give you a better--six pounds a week, regular expenses and an
allowance for dressing."
"It's a bet!" said Mr. Snakit promptly.
"Well, you can consider yourself engaged right away. Now, Mr. Snakit, as
frankness is the basis of our intercourse, you will tell me straight
away whether you were engaged in watching me?"
"I'll admit that, sir," said the man readily. "I had a job to watch you
and to discover if you knew the whereabouts of a certain person."
"Who engaged you?"
"Well----" the man hesitated. "I don't know whether it isn't betraying
the confidence of a client," he waited for some encouragement to pursue
the path of rectitude and honour, but received none. "Well, I'll tell
you candidly, our firm has been engaged by a young lady. She brought me
here to-night----"
"Miss White, eh?" said the colonel quickly.
"Miss White it was, sir," said Snakit.
"So that was why she was here? She wanted to show you----"
"Just where your rooms were, sir," said the man. "She also wanted to
show me the back stairs by which I could get out of the building if I
wanted to."
"What were your general instructions?"
"Just to watch you, sir, and if I had an opportunity when you were out,
of sneaking in and nosing round."
"I see," said the colonel. "Crewe, just take Mr. Snakit downstairs and
tell him where to report. Fix up his pay--you know," he gave a
significant sideways jerk of his head, and Crewe escorted the gratified
little detective from the apartment.
When the door had closed, the colonel turned on Silva.
"Pinto," he said and there was a rumble in his voice which betrayed his
anger, "that girl is dangerous. She may or may not know where her father
is--this detective business may be a blind. Probably Snakit was sent
here knowing that he would be captured and spill the beans."
"That struck me, too," said Pinto.
"She's dangerous," repeated the colonel.
He resumed his promenade up and down the room.
"She's an active worker and she's working against us. Now, I'm going to
settle with Miss White," he said gratingly. "I'm going to settle with
her for good and all. I don't care what she knows, but she probably
knows too much. She's hand in glove with the police and maybe she's
working with her father. You'll get Phillopolis here to-morrow
morning----"
The other's eyes opened.
"Phillopolis?" he almost gasped. "Good heavens! You're not going to----"
The colonel faced him squarely.
"You've had your chance with the girl and you've missed it," he said.
"You've tried your fancy method of courting and you've fallen down."
"But I'm not going to stand for Phillopolis," said the other, with tense
face. "I tell you I like the girl. There's going to be none of that----"
"Oh, there isn't, isn't there?" said the colonel in his silkiest tone.
Then suddenly he leaned forward across the table and his face was the
face of a devil.
"There's only one Boundary Gang, Pinto, and this is it," he said between
his clenched white teeth, "and there's only one Dan Boundary and that's
me. Do you get me, Pinto? You can go a long way with me if I happen to
be going that way. But you stand in the road and you're going to get
what's coming. I've been good to you, Pinto. I've stood your
interference because it amused me. But you come up against me, really up
against me, and by the Lord Harry! you'll know it. Did you get that?"
"I've got it" said Pinto sullenly.
CHAPTER X
THE GREEK PHILLOPOLIS
The upbuilding of the Boundary gang had neither been an accident, nor
was it exactly designed on the lines which it ultimately followed.
The main structure was Boundary himself, with his extraordinary
financial genius, his plausibility, his lightning exploitation of every
advantage which offered. Outwardly he was the head of three trading
corporations which complied with the laws, paid small but respectable
dividends and cloaked other operations which never appeared in the
official records of the companies.
The sidelines of the gang came through force of circumstances.
Men--good, bad and indifferent--were drawn into the orbit of its
activities, as extraordinary circumstances arose or dire necessities
dictated. Throughout the length and breadth of Britain, through France,
Italy, and in the days before the war, and even during the war, in
Germany, in Russia and in the United States, were men who, if they could
not be described as agents, were at least ready tools.
He had a finger in every unsavoury pie. The bank robber discharged from
gaol did not ask Colonel Boundary to finance him in the purchase of a
new kit of tools--an up-to date burglar's kit costs something over two
hundred pounds--but there were people who would lend the money, which
eventually came out of the colonel's pocket. Some of the businesses he
financed were on the border line of respectability. Some into which his
money was sunk were frankly infamous. But it was a popular fiction that
he knew nothing of these. Or, if he did know, that he was financing or
at the back of a scoundrel, it was insisted that that scoundrel was
engaged in (so far as the colonel knew) legitimate enterprise.
Paul Phillopolis was a small Greek merchant, who had an office in
Mincing Court--a tiny room at the top of four flights of stairs. On the
glass panel of its door was the announcement: "General Exporter."
Mr. Phillopolis spent three or four hours at his office daily and for
the rest of the time, particularly towards the evening, was to be found
in a _brasserie_ in Soho. He was a dark little man, with fierce
moustachios and a set of perfect white teeth which he displayed readily,
for he was easily amused. His most intimate acquaintances knew him to be
an exporter of Greek produce to South America, and he was, in the large
sense of the word, eminently respectable.
Occasionally he would be seen away from his customary haunt, discussing
with a compatriot some very urgent business, which few knew about. For
there were ships which cleared from the Greek ports, carrying cargoes to
the order of Mr. Phillopolis, which did not appear in any bill of
lading. Dazed-looking Armenian girls, girls from South Russia, from
Greece, from Smyrna, en route to a promised land, looked forward to the
realisation of those wonderful visions which the Greek agent had so
carefully sketched.
In half a dozen South American towns the proprietors of as many dance
halls would look over the new importations approvingly and remit their
bank drafts to the merchant of Mincing Court. It was a profitable
business, particularly in pre-war days.
The colonel departed from his usual practice and met the Greek himself,
the place of meeting being a small hotel in Aldgate. Whatever other
pretences the colonel made, he did not attempt to continue the fiction
that he was ignorant of the Greek's trade.
"Paul," he said after the first greetings were over, "I've been a good
friend to you."
"You have indeed, colonel," said the man gratefully.
He spoke English with a very slight accent, for he had been born and
educated in London.
"If ever I can render you a service----"
"You can," said the colonel, "but it is not going to be easy."
The Greek eyed him curiously.
"Easy or hard," he said, "I'll go through with it."
The colonel nodded.
"How is the business in South America?" he asked suddenly.
The Greek spread out his hands in deprecation.
"The war!" he said tragically, "you can imagine what it has been like.
All those girls waiting for music-hall engagements and impossible to
ship them owing to the fleets. I must have lost thousands of pounds."
"The demand hasn't slackened off, eh?" asked the colonel, and the Greek
smiled.
"South America is full of money. They have millions--billions. Almost
every other man is a millionaire. The music-halls have patrons but no
talent."
The colonel smiled grimly.
"There's a girl in London of exceptional ability," he said. "She has
appeared in a music-hall here, and she's as beautiful as a dream."
"English?" asked the Greek eagerly.
"Irish, which is better," said the other; "as pretty as a picture, I
tell you. The men will rave about her."
The Greek looked puzzled.
"Does she want to go?" he asked.
The colonel snarled round at him:
"Do you think I should come and ask you to book her passage if she
wanted to go?" he demanded. "Of course she doesn't want to go, and she
doesn't know she's going. But I want her out of the way, you
understand?"
Mr. Phillopolis pulled a long face.
"To take her from England?"
"From London," said the colonel.
The Greek shook his head.
"It is impossible," he said; "passports are required and unless she was
willing to go it would be impossible to take her. You can't kidnap a
girl and rush her out of the country except in storybooks, colonel."
Boundary interrupted him impatiently.
"Don't you think I know that?" he asked; "your job is, when she's in a
fit state of mind, to take her across and put her somewhere where she's
not coming back for a long time. Do you understand?"
"I understand that part of it very well," said the Greek.
"I'm not to be mixed up in it," said Boundary. "The only thing I can
promise you is that she'll go quietly. I'll have her passports fixed.
She'll be travelling for her health--you understand? When you get to
South America I want you to take her into the interior of the country.
You're not to leave her in the music-halls in one of the coast towns
where English and American tourists are likely to see her."
"But how are you going to----"
"That's my business," said the colonel. "You understand what you have to
do. I'll send you the date you leave and I'll pay her passage and yours.
For any out-of-pocket expenses you can send the bill to me, you
understand?"
Obviously it was not a job to the liking of Phillopolis, but he had good
reason to fear the colonel and acquiesced with a nod. Boundary went back
to where he had left Pinto and found the Portuguese biting his
finger-nails--a favourite spare-time occupation of his.
"Did you fix it?" he asked in a low voice.
"Of course, I fixed it," said the colonel sharply.
"I'm not going to have anything to do with it," said the other, and the
colonel smiled.
"Maybe you'll change your mind," he said significantly.
There was a knock at the door and the colonel himself answered it. He
took the card from the servant's hand and read:
"Mr. STAFFORD KING,
"Criminal Intelligence Department."
He looked from the card to Pinto, then:
"Show him in."
CHAPTER XI
THE COLONEL AT SCOTLAND YARD
The two men had not met since they had parted at the door of the North
Lambeth Police Court, and there was in Colonel Boundary's smile
something of forgiveness and gentle reproach.
"Well, Mr. King," he said, "come in, come in, won't you?"
He offered his hand to the other, but Stafford apparently did not see
it.
"No malice, I trust, Mr. King?" said the colonel genially. "You know my
friend Mr. Silva? A business associate of mine, a director of several of
my companies."
"I know him all right," said Stafford and added, "I hope to know him
better."
Pinto recognised the underlying sense of the words, but not a muscle of
his face moved. For Stafford King the hatred with which he regarded the
law lost its personal character. This man was something more than a
thief-taker and a tracker of criminals. Pinto chose to regard him as the
close friend of Maisie White, and as such, his rival.
"And to what are we indebted for this visit?" asked the bland colonel.
"The chief wants to see you."
"The chief?"
"Sir Stanley Belcom. Being the chief of our department I should have
thought you had heard of him."
"Sir Stanley Belcom," repeated the other; "why, of course, I know Sir
Stanley by repute. May I ask what he wants to see me about? And how is
my young friend--er--Miss White?" asked the colonel.
"When I saw her last," replied Stafford steadily, "she was looking
pretty well, so far as I could tell."
"Indeed!" said the colonel politely. "I have a considerable interest in
the welfare of Miss White. May I ask when you saw her?
"Last night," replied Stafford. "She was standing at the door of her
apartments in Doughty Street, having a little talk with your friend," he
nodded to Pinto, and Pinto started; "also," said the cheerful Stafford,
"another mutual friend of ours, Mr. Crewe, was within hailing distance,
unless I am greatly mistaken."
"So you were watching, eh?" burst out Pinto "I thought after the lesson
you had a couple of weeks ago, you'd have----"
"Let me carry on this conversation, if you don't mind," said the
colonel, and the fury in his eyes silenced the Portuguese.
"We have agreed to let bygones be bygones, Mr. King, and I am sure it is
only his excessive zeal on my behalf that induced our friend to be so
indiscreet as to refer to the unpleasant happenings--which we will allow
to pass from our memories."
So the girl was being watched. That made things rather more difficult
than he had imagined. Nevertheless, he anticipated no supreme obstacle
to the actual abduction. His plans had been made that morning, when he
saw in the columns of the daily newspaper a four-line advertisement
which, to a large extent, had cleared away the greatest of his
difficulties.
"And if Mr. King is looking after our young friend, Maisie White, the
daughter of one of our dearest business associates--why, I'm glad," he
went on heartily. "London, Mr. King, is a place full of danger for young
girls, particularly those who are deprived of the loving care of a
parent, and one of the chief attractions, if I may be allowed to say so,
which the police have for me, is the knowledge that they are the
protectors of the unprotected, the guardians of the unguarded."
He made a little bow, and for all his amusement Stafford gravely
acknowledged the handsome compliment which the most notorious scoundrel
in London had paid the Metropolitan Police Force.
"When am I to see your chief?"
"You can come along with me now, if you like, or you can go to-morrow
morning at ten o'clock," said Stafford.
The colonel scratched his chin.
"Of course, I understand that this summons is in the nature of a
friendly----" he stopped questioningly.
"Oh, certainly," said Stafford, his eyes twinkling, "it isn't the
customary 'come-along-o'-me' demand. I think the chief wants to meet
you, to discover just the kind of person you are. You will like him, I
think, colonel. He is the sort of man who takes a tremendous interest
in--er----"
"In crime?" said the colonel gently.
"I was trying to think of a nice word to put in its place," admitted
Stafford; "at any rate, he is interested in you."
"There is no time like the present," said the colonel. "Pinto, will you
find my hat?"
On the way to Scotland Yard they chatted on general subjects till
Stafford asked:
"Have you had another visitation from your friend?"
"The Jack o' Judgment?" asked the colonel. "Yes, we met him the other
night. He's rather amusing. By the way, have you had complaints from
anywhere else?"
Stafford shook his head.
"No, he seems to have specialised on you, colonel. You have certainly
the monopoly of his attentions."
"What is going to happen supposing he makes an appearance when I happen
to have a lethal weapon ready?" asked the colonel. "I have never killed
a person in my life, and I hope the sad experience will not be mine. But
from the police point of view, how do I stand suppose--there is an
accident?"
Stafford shrugged his shoulders.
"That is his look out," he said. "If you are threatened, I dare say a
jury of your fellow countrymen will decide that you acted in
self-defence."
"He came the other night," the colonel said reminiscently, "when we
were fixing up a particularly difficult--er--business negotiation."
"Bad luck!" said Stafford. "I suppose the mug was scared?"
"The what?" asked the puzzled colonel.
"The mug," said Stafford. "You may not have heard the expression. It
means 'can'--'fool'--'dupe.'"
The colonel drew a long breath.
"You still bear malice, I see, Mr. King," he said sadly.
He entered the portals of Scotland Yard without so much as a tremor,
passed up the broad stairs and along the unlovely corridors, till he
came to the double doors which marked the First Commissioner's private
office. Stafford disappeared for a moment and presently returned with
the news that the First Commissioner would not be able to see his
visitor for half an hour. Stafford apologised but the colonel was
affability itself and kept up a running conversation until a beckoning
secretary notified them that the great man was disengaged.
It was King who ushered the colonel into his presence. Sir Stanley was
writing at a big desk and looked up as the colonel entered.
"Sit down, colonel," he said, nodding his head to a chair on the
opposite side of the desk. "You needn't wait, King. There are one or two
things I want to speak to the colonel about."
When the door had closed behind the detective, Sir Stanley leaned back
in his chair. Their eyes met, the grey and the faded blue, and for the
space of a few seconds they stared. Sir Stanley Belcom was the first to
drop his eyes.
"I've sent for you, colonel," he said, "because I think you might give
me a great deal of information, if you're willing."
"Command me," said the colonel grandly.
"It is on the matter of a murder which was committed in London a few
months ago," said the commissioner quietly and for a moment Colonel
Boundary did not speak.
"I presume you are referring to the 'Snow' Gregory murder?" he said at
last.
"Exactly," nodded the commissioner. "We have had an inquiry from America
as to the identity of this young man. Now, you knew him better than
anybody else in London, colonel. Can you tell me, was he an American?"
"Emphatically not," said the colonel with a little sigh, as though he
were relieved at the turn the conversation was taking. "I came to know
him through--er--circumstances, and exactly what they were I cannot for
the moment remember. I had a lot to do with him. He did odd jobs for
me."
"Was he well educated?" asked the commissioner.
"Yes, I should say he was," said the colonel slowly. "There was a story
that he had been to Oxford, and that's very likely true. He spoke like a
college man."
"Do you know if he had any relations in England?"
The commissioner eyed the other straightly and the colonel hesitated.
How much does this man know? he wondered, and decided that he could do
no harm if he told all the truth.
"He had no relations in England," he said, "but he had a father who was
abroad."
"Ah, now we're getting at some facts," said the commissioner and drew a
slip of paper towards him. "What was the father's name?"
The colonel shook his head.
"That I can't tell you, sir," he said. "I should like to oblige you but
I have no more idea of what his name was than the man in the moon. I
believe he was in India, because letters from India used to come to
Gregory."
"Was Gregory his name?"
"His Christian name, I think," said the colonel after a moment's
thought. "He went wrong at college and was sent down. Then he went to
Paris and started to study art, and he got in trouble there, too. That's
as much as he ever told me."
"He had no brothers?" asked the commissioner.
"None," said the colonel emphatically. "I am certain of that, because he
once thanked God that he was the only child."
"I see," the commissioner nodded; "you have formed no theory as to why
he met his death or how?"
"No theory at all," said the colonel, but corrected himself. "Of course,
I've had ideas and opinions, but none of them has ever worked out. So
far as I know, he had no enemies, although he was a quick-tempered chap,
especially when he was recovering from a dose of 'coco,' and would
quarrel with his own grandmother."
"You've no idea why he was in London? Apparently he did not live here."
The colonel shrugged his massive shoulders.
"No, I couldn't tell you anything about that, sir," he said.
"He was not an American?" asked the commissioner again.
"I could swear to that," answered the colonel.
There was a pause and he waited.
"There's another matter." The commissioner spoke slowly. "I understand
that you are being bothered by a mysterious individual who calls himself
the Knave of Judgment."
"Jack o' Judgment," corrected the colonel with a contemptuous smile.
"Those sort of monkey tricks don't bother me, I can assure you."
"I have my theories about the Jack o' Judgment," said the commissioner.
"I have been looking up the circumstances of the murder, and I seem to
remember that on the body was found a playing card."
"That's right," said the colonel, who had remembered the fact himself
many times, "the Jack of Clubs."
"Do you know what that Jack of Clubs signified?" asked the commissioner,
but the colonel could honestly say that he did not. Its presence on the
body had frequently puzzled him and he had never found a solution.
"There is a certain type of ruffian to be found, particularly in Paris,
who affects this sort of theatrical trade-mark--did you know that?"
asked the commissioner.
The colonel was suddenly stricken to silence. He did not know this fact,
in spite of his extraordinary knowledge of the criminal world.
"These men have their totems and their sign manuals," said the
commissioner. "For example, the apache Flequier, who was executed at
Nantes the other day, invariably left a domino--the double-six--near his
victim."
This was news to the colonel too.
"I've been giving a great deal of thought and time to this case," said
the commissioner, "and I was hoping that perhaps you could help me. The
most workable theory that I can suggest is that this unfortunate man was
destroyed by a French criminal of the class which I have indicated, the
bullying apache type, which is so common in France. Why the murder was
committed," the commissioner fingered his paper-knife carelessly, "what
led to it and who committed it, and more especially who instigated the
crime, are matters which seem to me to defy detection. Do you agree?"
"I quite agree," said the colonel, licking his dry lips.
"Now I suggest to you," said the commissioner, "that your Jack o'
Judgment, whoever he is, is some relation to the dead man."
He spoke slowly and emphatically and the colonel did not raise his eyes
from the desk.
"It is not my business to make life any easier for you," the
commissioner was saying, "or to assist you in any way. But as the Jack
o' Judgment seems to me to be engaged in a wholly illegal practice, and
as I, in my capacity, must suppress illegal practices, I make you a
present of this suggestion."
"That the Jack o' Judgment is related to 'Snow' Gregory?" asked the
colonel huskily.
"That is my suggestion," said the commissioner.
"And you think----"
The commissioner raised his shoulders.
"I think he is your greatest danger, colonel," he said, "far greater
than the police, far greater than the clever minds which are planning to
bring you to the dock and possibly," he added, "to the gallows."
Ordinarily the colonel would have protested at the suggestion in the
speech, protested laughingly or with dignity, but now he was stricken
dumb, both by the seriousness of the commissioner's voice and by the
consciousness of a new and a more terrible danger than any that had
confronted him. He rose, realising that the interview was ended.
"I am greatly obliged to you, Sir Stanley," he said clearing his throat.
"It is good of you to warn me, but I'd not like you to think that I am
engaged in any dishonest----"
"We'll let that matter stand over for discussion until another time,"
said the commissioner dryly, as Stafford King came into the room. "You
might show the colonel the way to the street. Otherwise he will be
getting himself entangled in some of our detention rooms. Good morning,
Colonel Boundary. Don't forget."
"I'm not likely to," said the colonel.
He recovered his poise quickly enough and by the time he was in the
street he was back in his old mood. But he had had a shock. That sunny
afternoon was filled with shadows. The booming bells of Big Ben tolled
"Jack o' Judgment," the very wheels of the taxi droned the words. And
Colonel Boundary came back to Albemarle Place for the first time in his
life with his confidence in Colonel Boundary shaken.
There was nobody in save the one manservant he kept by the day, and he
passed into the dining-room overlooking the street. He had work to do
and it had to be done quickly. In one of the walls was set a stout safe,
and this he opened, taking from it a steel box which he carried to the
table. There was a fire laid on the hearth and to this he put a match
though the day was warm enough. Then he proceeded to unlock the box.
Apparently it was empty, but, taking out his scarf-pin, he inserted the
point in a tiny hole, which would have escaped casual observation, and
pressed.
Half the steel bottom of the box leapt up, disclosing a shallow cavity
beneath. The colonel stared. There had been two letters put in there,
letters which he had put away against the moment when it might be
necessary to bring a recalcitrant agent to heel. They had gone. He slid
his fingers beneath the half of the bottom which had not opened and felt
a card. He drew this out and looked at it, licking his lips the while.
For the space of a minute he stared and stared at the Knave of Clubs he
held in his hand. A Knave of Clubs signed with a flourish across its
face: "Jack o' Judgment." Then he flung the card into the fire and,
walking to the sideboard, splashed whisky into a tumbler with a hand
that shook.
CHAPTER XII
BUYING A NURSING HOME
The building in which Colonel Boundary had his beautiful home was of a
type not uncommonly met with in the West End of London. The street floor
was taken up entirely with shops, the first floor with offices and the
remainder of the building was practically given over to the colonel. One
by one he had ousted every tenant from the building, and practically the
whole of the fourteen sets of apartments which constituted the
residential portion of the building was held by him in one name or
another. Some he had obtained by the payment of heavy premiums, some he
had secured when the lease of the former tenant had lapsed, some he had
gathered in by sub-hiring. He had tried to buy the building, since it
served his purpose well, but came against a deed of trust and the Court
of Chancery, and had wisely refrained from going any further into a
matter which must bring him vis-à-vis with a Master in Chancery, with
all the publicity which such a transaction entailed.
Nor had he been successful in acquiring any of the premises on the first
floor. They were held by three very old established businesses--an
estate agent, a firm of land surveyors and the offices of a valuer. He
missed his opportunity, at any rate, of securing the business of Lee and
Hol, the surveyors, and did not know it was in the market until after it
had been transferred to a new owner. But they were quiet, sober tenants,
who closed their offices between five and six every night and did not
open them until between nine or ten on the following morning, and their
very respectability gave him a certain privacy.
The new proprietor of Lee and Hol was a short-sighted, elderly man of no
great conversational power, and apparently of no fixed purpose in life
except to say "no" to the very handsome offers which the colonel's
agents made when they discovered there was a chance of re-purchasing the
business. Boundary had personally inspected all the offices. He had
found an excuse to visit them several times, duly noted the arrangement
of the furniture, the sizes of the staffs and the general character of
the business which was being carried on. This was a necessary precaution
because these offices were immediately under his own flat. But just now
they had a special value, because it was a practice during the daytime
for the three firms to employ a commissionaire, who occupied a little
glass-partitioned office on the landing and attended impartially to the
needs of all three tenants to the best of his ability.
Boundary descended the stairs and found the elderly man in his office,
leisurely and laboriously affixing stamps to a pile of letters. He
called him from his task.
"Judson," he said, "have you seen anybody go up to my rooms this
afternoon?"
The man thought.
"No, sir, I haven't," he replied.
"Have you been here all the time?"
"Yes, since one o'clock I have been in my office," said the
commissionaire. "None of our young gentlemen wanted anything."
"You didn't go out to go to the post?"
"No, sir," said the man. "I've not stirred from this office except for
one minute when I went into Mr. Lee's office to get these letters."
"And you've seen nobody go upstairs?"
"Not since Mr. Silva came down, sir. He came down after you, if you
remember."
"Nobody's been up?" insisted the other.
"Not a soul. Your servant came down before you, sir."
"That's true," said the colonel remembering that he had sent the man on
a special journey to Huddersfield with a letter to the bigamous Mr.
Crotin. "You haven't seen a lady go up at all?" he asked suddenly.
"Nobody has gone up them stairs," said the commissionaire emphatically.
"I hope you haven't lost anything, sir?"
The colonel shook his head.
"No, I haven't lost anything. Rather, I've found something," he said
grimly.
He slipped half-a crown into the man's hand.
"You needn't mention the fact that I've been making inquiries," he said
and went slowly up the stairs again.
The card had been put there that day. He would swear it. The ink on the
card had not had time to darken and when he made a further search of his
room, this view was confirmed by the appearance of his blotting-pad. The
card had been dried there, and the pen, which had been left on the
table, was still damp.
The colonel passed into his bedroom and took off his coat and vest. He
searched his drawer and found what looked to be like a pair of braces
made of light fabric. These he slipped over his shoulder, adjusting them
so that beneath his left arm hung a canvas holster. From another drawer
he took an automatic pistol, pulled the magazine from the butt and
examined it before he returned it, and forced a cartridge into the
breach by drawing back the cover. This he carefully oiled, and then,
pressing up the safety catch, he slipped the pistol into the holster and
resumed his coat and vest.
It was a long time since the colonel had carried a gun under his arm,
but his old efficiency was unimpaired. He practised before a mirror and
was satisfied with his celerity. He loaded a spare magazine, and dropped
it into the capacious pocket of his waistcoat. Then, putting the
remainder of the cartridges away tidily, he closed the box, shut the
drawer and went back to his room. If all the commissioner had hinted
were true, if this mysterious visitor was laying for him because of the
'Snow' Gregory affair, he should have what was coming to him.
The colonel was no coward and if this eerie experience had got a little
on his nerves, it was not to be wondered at. He drew up a chair to the
table, sitting in such a position that he could see the door, took a
pencil and a sheet of paper and began to write rapidly.
The man's knowledge was encyclopædic. Not once did he pause or refer to
a catalogue, and he was still writing when Crewe came in. The colonel
looked up.
"You're the man I want," he said.
He handed the other three sheets of paper, closely covered with writing.
"What's this?" asked Crewe and read:
"Twenty-three iron bedsteads, twenty-three mattresses, twenty-three----"
"Why, what's all this, colonel?"
"You can go down to Tottenham Court Road and you can order all that
furniture to be taken into No. 3, Washburn Avenue."
"Are you furnishing a children's orphanage or something?" asked the
other in surprise.
"I am furnishing a nursing home, to be exact," said the colonel slowly.
"I bought it this morning, and I'm going to furnish it to-morrow. Send
Lollie Marsh to me. Tell her I want her to get three women of the right
sort to take charge of a mental case which is coming to my nursing home.
By the way, you had better telegraph to old Boyton, or better still, go
in a cab and get him. He'll probably be drunk but he's still on the
medical register and he's the man I want. Take him straight away to
Washburn Avenue, and don't forget that it's his nursing home and not
mine. My name doesn't occur in this matter and you'd better get a dummy
to do the buying for you from the furniture people."
"Who is the mental case?" asked the other.
"Maisie White," snapped the colonel, and Crewe stared.
"Mad?" he said incredulously. "Is Maisie mad?"
"She may not be at present," said Boundary, "but----"
He did not finish his sentence, and Crewe, who was once a gentleman and
was now a thief, swallowed something--but he had swallowed too much to
choke at the threat to a girl in whom he had not the slightest interest.
CHAPTER XIII
THE LOVE OF STAFFORD KING
Maisie White had no illusions. When the report came to her that the
detective she had employed had passed his services over to the man he
was engaged to watch, she knew that the full force of the Boundary Gang
would be employed to her extinction. Strangely enough, she did not
appear to be disturbed, as she confessed to Stafford King. They were
lunching together at the Hotel Palatine and the detective was unusually
thoughtful.
"Why don't you go out of London?" he asked.
"I must go on with my work," she said.
"What is your work?" he asked.
"I have told you once," she replied. "I am trying to disentangle my
father from disgrace. I am working to put him apart when the day of
reckoning comes."
"You've not heard from him?" he asked.
She shook her head, and her eyes filled with tears.
"He has been a good father to me," she said, "the kindest and best of
daddies. It is dreadful to think----" her lips quivered and she could go
no further.
Nor could Stafford King make matters any easier for her. He knew better
than she the depth of Solomon White's commitments. If the gang ever
smashed, and if by good fortune the law ever took its course, there was
no hope for Solomon White's escape from his share of the responsibility.
"Why do you think your father went away?" he asked, to turn the subject
to a new aspect.
She did not reply instantly.
"I think he was scared," she said after a while. "I was shocked when I
discovered how much in awe of the colonel he stood. He was just
terrified at the threat, and yet I know he would have given his life to
protect me from harm. I think it was just I that spurred him on to make
the plans he did."
Stafford King agreed with a gesture.
"Now what are we going to do about you?" he asked, half-humorously,
half-seriously. "I cannot let you go wandering loose about London--I'm
scared to death as it is."
She smiled at him.
"You had better lock me up," she said flippantly and he nodded in the
same spirit.
"I know a little house in St. John's Wood that would serve us
beautifully as a prison," he said. "It has ten rooms and two admirable
bathrooms. There is central heating and a large shady garden, and if you
will only let me take you before a Justice of the Peace, or even a
commonplace clergyman----"
She shook her head.
"That isn't prison," she said quietly and put her hand over the table.
He caught it in his and held it tight.
"Maisie," he said, "you know I love you. I love you more dearly than
anything in the world."
She did not speak.
"As my wife," he went on, "you would be safe and I should be happy. I
just want you all the time."
Gently she disengaged her hand, shaking her head with a little smile.
"What would that mean, Stafford?" she said. "You know you are deceiving
me when you agree that my father----" again her voice shook--"no, no,"
she said, "it would ruin your career to have the daughter of a convict
for your wife. I realise very well what it will mean, for I know--I
know--I know!"
"What do you know?" he asked in a low voice.
"I know that all my work will be in vain. But I must go on with it. I
must, or I shall go mad. I know nothing on earth can clear my father,
but I'm not going to tell you that again. I just want to think there is
a possibility that some miracle will happen, that all the evidence
which even I have against him will be explained away."
He took her unresisting hand in his, and under the cover of the
tablecloth held it tight.
"That is why I wanted to leave the service," he said, and she looked at
him quickly.
"Because you thought that it would mean ruin?"
He smiled.
"No, not that. It would hurt you, that is all. Of course, if such a
thing happened I would be obliged to resign."
"And you'd never forgive yourself."
"I wanted to anticipate such a happening, and, darling, you've got to
face the future without any other illusions."
She winced at the word "other" but he went on, unnoticing:
"Boundary is a tiger. If he thinks there is reason to fear you, he will
never let up on you till he has you in his grip. I tell you this," he
said earnestly, "that for all the power of the police, for all their
organisation and the backing which the law gives them, they may be
helpless against this man if he has marked you down for punishment."
"I'm not afraid," she said quietly.
"But I am," said he. "I'm so afraid, that I'm sick with apprehension
sometimes."
"Poor Stafford!" she said softly, and there was a look in her eyes which
compensated him for much. "But you mustn't worry, dear. Truly, truly,
you mustn't worry. I'm quite capable of looking after myself."
"And that's the greatest of all your illusions," he said,
half-laughingly and half-irritably. "You're just the meekest little
mouse that ever came under the paw of a cat."
She shook her head smilingly.
"But I tell you I'm speaking seriously," he went on. "I'll do my best to
look after you. I'll have a man watching you day and night."
"But you mustn't," she protested. "There's no immediate cause for
worry."
He saw her to the door of the restaurant and showed her into the
taxi-cab which came at his whistle, and she leant out of the window and
waved her hand in farewell as she drove off.
Two men stood on the opposite side of the road and watched her depart.
"That's the girl," said Crewe.
CHAPTER XIV
THE TAKING OF MAISIE WHITE
A week passed without anything exceptional happening, and Maisie White
had ceased even to harbour doubts as to her own safety--doubts which had
been present, in spite of the courageous showing she had made before
Stafford King. Undeterred by her previous experience, she had made
arrangements with another and a more responsible detective agency and
had chosen a new watcher, though she had small hopes of obtaining
results. She knew his task was one of almost insuperable difficulty, and
she was frank in exposing to him what those difficulties were. Still,
there was a faint chance that he might discover something, and moreover
she had another purpose to serve.
She had seen Pinto Silva once. He had called, and she had noticed with
surprise that the debonair, self-confident man she had known, whose air
of conscious superiority had been so annoying to her, had undergone a
considerable change. He was ill-at-ease, almost incoherent at moments,
and it was a long time before she could discover his business.
This time she received him in her tiny sitting-room, for Pinto was
somehow less alarming to her than he had been. Perhaps she was conscious
that at the corner of the street stood a quietly dressed man doing
nothing particular, who was relieved at the eighth hour by an even less
obtrusive-looking gentleman from Scotland Yard.
She waited for Pinto to disclose his business, and the Portuguese was
apparently in no hurry to do so. Presently he blurted it out.
"Look here, Maisie," he said, "you've got things all wrong. Things are
going to be very rotten for you unless--unless----" he floundered.
"Unless what?" she asked.
"Unless you make up with me," he said in a low voice. "I'm not so bad,
Maisie, and I'll treat you fair. I've always been in love with you----"
"Stop," she said quietly. "I dare say it is a great honour for a girl
that any man should be in love with her, but it takes away a little of
the compliment when the man is already married."
"That's nothing," he said eagerly. "I can divorce her by the laws of my
country. Maisie, she hates me and I hate her."
"In those circumstances," she smiled, "I wonder you wait until you fall
in love again before you get divorced. No, Mr. Silva, that story doesn't
convince me. If you were single or divorced, or if you were ever so
eligible, I would not marry you."
"Why not?" he demanded truculently. "I've got money."
"So have I," she said, "of a sort."
"My money's as clean as yours, if it is Solomon White's money."
She nodded.
"I'm well aware of that, too," she said. "It is Gang money, isn't
it--loot money. I don't see what good I shall get out of exchanging mine
for yours, anyway. It is just as dirty. The money doesn't come into it
at all, Mr. Silva, it is just liking people well enough--for marriage.
And I don't like you that way."
"You don't like me at all," he growled.
"You're very nearly right," she smiled.
"You're a fool, you're a fool!" he stormed, "you don't know what's
coming to you. You don't know."
"Perhaps I do," she said. "Perhaps I can guess. But whatever is coming
to me, as you put it, I prefer that to marrying you."
He started back as though she had struck him across the face, and he
turned livid.
"You won't say that when----"
He checked himself and without another word left the room, and she
heard his heavy feet blundering down the stairs.
And then she met him again. It was two nights after. She met him in a
horrible dream. She dreamt he was flying after her, that they were both
birds, she a pigeon and he a hawk; and as she made her last desperate
struggle to escape, she heard his hateful voice in her ear:
"Maisie, Maisie, it is your last chance, your last chance!"
She had gone to bed at ten o'clock that night, and it seemed that she
had hardly fallen asleep before the vision came. She struggled to sit up
in bed, she tried to speak, but a big hand was over her mouth.
Then it was true, it was no dream. He was in the room, his hand upon her
mouth, his voice in her ear. The room was in darkness. There was no
sound save the sound of his heavy breathing and his voice.
"They'll be up here in five minutes," he whispered. "I can save you from
hell! I can save you, Maisie! Will you have me?"
She summoned all the strength at her command to shake her head.
"Then keep quiet!"
There was a note of savagery in his voice which made her turn sick.
For a second she filled her lungs to scream, but at that instant a mass
of cotton-wool was thrust over her face, and she began to breathe in a
sickly sweet vapour. Somebody else was in the room now. They were
holding her feet. The voice in her ear said:
"Breathe. Take a deep breath!"
She sobbed and writhed in an agony of mind, but all the time she was
breathing, she was drawing into her lungs the chloroform with which the
wool was saturated.
At two o'clock in the morning a uniformed constable, patrolling his
beat, saw an ambulance drawn up outside a house in Doughty Street. He
crossed the road to make inquiries.
"A case of scarlet fever," said the driver.
"You don't say," said the sympathetic constable.
The door opened and two men walked out, carrying a figure in a blanket.
The policeman stood by and saw the "patient" laid upon a stretcher and
the back of the ambulance closed. Then he continued his walk to the
corner of the street, where he found, huddled up in a doorway, the
unconscious figure of a Scotland Yard detective, whose observation had
been interrupted by a well-directed blow from a life preserver.
CHAPTER XV
THE COMMISSIONER HAS A THEORY
"To all stations. Stop Ambulance Motor No. LKO 9943. Arrest and detain
driver and any person found therein. Warn all garages and
report.--COMMISSIONER."
This order flashed from station to station throughout the night, and
before the dawn, nine thousand policemen were on the look-out for the
motor ambulance.
"There's a chance, of course," said Stafford, "but it is a poor chance."
He was looking white and heavy-eyed.
"I don't know, sir," said Southwick, his subordinate. "There's always a
chance that a crook will do the obviously wrong thing. I suppose you've
no theory as to where they have gone?"
"Not out of town--of that I'm certain," said King, "that is why the
quest is so hopeless. Why, they'll have got to their destination hours
before the message went out!"
They were standing in the girl's bedroom, which still reeked with
chloroform, and all the clues were piled together on the table. There
were not many. There was a pad of cotton-wool, a half-empty bottle of
chloroform, bearing the label of a well-known wholesaler, and one of a
pair of old wash-leather gloves, which had evidently been worn by
somebody in his desire to avoid leaving finger-prints.
"We've not much to go on there," said Stafford disconsolately; "the
chloroform may have been sold years ago. Any chemist would have supplied
the cotton-wool, and as for the glove"--he picked it up and looked at it
carefully, then he carried it to the light.
Old as it was, it was of good shape and quality, and when new had
probably been supplied to order by a first-class glove-maker.
"There's nothing here," said Stafford again, and threw the glove back on
the table.
A policeman came into the room and saluted.
"I've cycled over from the Yard, sir. We have had a message asking you
to go at once to Sir Stanley Belcom's private house."
"How did Sir Stanley know about this affair?" asked Stafford listlessly.
"He telephoned through, sir, about five o'clock this morning. He often
makes an early inquiry."
Stafford looked round. There was nothing more that he could do. He
passed down the stairs into the street and jumped on to the motor-cycle
which had brought him to the scene.
Sir Stanley Belcom lived in Cavendish Place, and Stafford had been a
frequent visitor to the house. Sir Stanley was a childless widower, who
was wont to complain that he kept up his huge establishment in order to
justify the employment of his huge staff of servants. Stafford suspected
him of being something of a sybarite. His dinners were famous, his
cellar was one of the best in London and because of his acquaintances
and friendships in the artistic sets, he was something of a dabbler in
the arts he patronised.
The door was opened and an uncomfortable-looking butler was waiting on
the step to receive Stafford.
"You'll find Sir Stanley in the library, sir," he said.
Despite his sorrow, Stafford could not help smiling at this attempt on
the part of an English servant to offer the conventional greeting in
spite of the hour.
"I'm afraid we've got you up early, Perkins," he said.
"Not at all, sir."
The man's stout face creased in a smile.
"Sir Stanley's a rare gentleman for getting up in the middle of the
night and ordering a meal."
Stafford found his grey-haired chief, arrayed in a flowered silk
dressing-gown, balancing bread on an electric toaster.
"Bad news, eh, Stafford?" he said. "Sit down and have some coffee. The
girl is gone?"
Stafford nodded.
"And our unfortunate detective-constable, who was sent to watch, is
half-way to the mortuary, I presume?"
"Not so bad as that, sir," said Stafford, "but he's got a pretty bad
crack. He's recovered consciousness but remembers nothing that
happened."
Sir Stanley nodded.
"Very scientifically done," he said admiringly. "This, of course, is the
work of the Boundary Gang."
"I wish----" began Stafford between his teeth.
"Save your breath, my friend," smiled Sir Stanley; "wishing will do
nothing. You could arrest every known member of the gang, and they'd
have twenty alibis ready, and jolly good alibis too. It is years since
the colonel staged an outrage of this kind and his right hand has not
lost its cunning. Look at the organisation of it! The men get into the
house without attracting the attention of your watcher. Then, at the
exact second that the ambulance is due, along comes their 'cosher,'
knocks down the policeman on duty. I don't suppose the thing took more
than ten minutes. Everything was timed. They must have known the hour
the policeman on the beat passed along the street."
Sir Stanley poured out the coffee with his own hands, and relapsed back
into his armchair.
"Why do you think they did it?"
"They were afraid of her, sir," said Stafford.
Sir Stanley laughed softly.
"I can't imagine Boundary being afraid of a girl."
"She was Solly White's daughter," said Stafford.
"Even then I can't understand it," replied the chief, "unless--by jove!
Of course."
He hit his knee a smack and Stafford waited.
"Probably they've got some other game on, but I'll tell you one of the
ideas of taking that girl--it is to bring back Solomon White. He
disappeared, didn't he?"
Stafford nodded.
"That's the game--to bring back Solomon White. And whatever the danger
to himself, he'll be in London to-morrow as soon as this news is known."
Sir Stanley sat thinking, with his chin in his hand, his forehead
wrinkled.
"There's some other reason, too. Now, what is it?"
Stafford guessed, but did not say.
"That girl will take some recovering before harm comes to her," said Sir
Stanley softly, "your only hope is that friend Jack comes to your
rescue."
"Jack o' Judgment?"
Sir Stanley nodded and the other smiled sadly.
"That's unlikely," he said; "indeed, it is impossible. I think I might
as well tell you my own theory as to why she was taken and why Boundary
took so much trouble to capture her."
"What is your theory?" asked Sir Stanley curiously.
"My theory, sir, is that she is Jack o' Judgment," said Stafford King.
"She--Jack o' Judgment?"
Sir Stanley was on his feet staring at him.
"Impossible! It is a man----"
"You seem to forget, sir," said Stafford, "that Miss White is a
wonderful mimic."
"But why?"
"She wants to clear her father. She told me that only a week ago. And
then I've been making inquiries on my own. I found that she was seen
coming out of the Albemarle mansion, the night that Jack made his last
visit to Boundary's flat."
Sir Stanley rose.
"Wait," he said and left the room.
Presently he came back with something in his hand.
"If Miss White is Jack o' Judgment, and if she were captured to-night,
how do you account for this? it was under my pillow when I woke up."
He laid on the table the familiar Jack of Clubs.
CHAPTER XVI
IN THE TURKISH BATHS
Colonel Boundary had a breakfast party of three. Though he had been up
the whole of the night, he showed no signs of weariness. Not so Pinto or
Crewe, who looked fagged out and all the more tired because they were
both conspicuously unshaven.
"Half the game's won," said the colonel. "We'll get rid of this girl and
Solly White by the same stroke. I'm afraid of Solly, he knows too much.
By the way, Raoul is coming over."
"Raoul!" said Crewe, sitting up suddenly, "why, colonel, you're mad!
Didn't the Scotland Yard man tell you----"
"That he suspected a French hand in the case of 'Snow' Gregory? All the
more reason why Raoul should come," said the colonel calmly; "he ought
to report this morning."
"You're taking a risk," growled Pinto.
"Nothing unusual," replied the colonel, shelling a plover's egg. "It is
the last thing in the world they would suspect at Scotland Yard after
their warning, that I should bring Raoul over again. Besides, they don't
know him anyway. He's just a harmless young French cabinet-maker. He
doesn't talk and I will get him out of the silly habit of leaving his
visiting-card."
There was a silence, which Crewe broke.
"You want him for----"
He did not finish the sentence.
"For work," replied the colonel. "It is a thousand pities, but it would
be a thousand times more so if you and I were jugged, and waiting in the
condemned cell for the arrival of Mr. Ellis, the eminent hangman.
Raoul's a workman. We can trust him. He doesn't try any funny business.
He lives out of this country and I can cover his tracks. Besides," the
colonel went on, "I shall give him enough to live in comfort for the
next two years. Raoul is a grateful little beast, and thank God! he can
neither read nor write."
"I don't like it," said Crewe. "I hate that kind of thing. Why not give
Solly a chance? Why not get up a fight--a duel, anything but
cold-blooded murder?"
The colonel turned his cold eyes upon the other, and his lips parted in
a mirthless smile.
"You're speaking up to your character now, aren't you, Crewe?" he said
unpleasantly. "You're 'Gentleman Crewe' once again, eh? Want to do
everything in the public school fashion? Well, you can cut out all that
stuff and feed it to the pigs. I'm Dan Boundary, looking forward to a
pleasant old age. There's nothing of the Knights of the Round Table
about me."
Crewe flushed.
"All right," he said, "have it your own way."
"You bet your life I'm going to have it my own way," said the colonel.
"Have you seen the girl this morning, Pinto?"
Pinto shook his head.
"You'll keep away from there for a couple of days. I've got Boyton on
the spot and he'll be feeding her with bromide till she won't care
whether she's in hell or Wigan. Besides, we'll all be shadowed for the
next day or two, make no mistake about that. Stafford King won't let the
grass grow under his feet. And now, you chaps, go home and try to look
as though you've had a night's rest."
After their departure the colonel made his own preparations. There were
Turkish baths in Westminster and it was to the Turkish baths he went.
Clad in a towel, he passed from hot room to hot room, and finally came
to the big, vaulted saloon, tiled from floor to roof, where in
canvas-backed chairs the bathers doze and read. The colonel lay back in
his chair, his eyes closed, apparently oblivious to his surroundings.
Nor was it to be observed that he saw the thin little man who came and
sat beside him. The new-comer was sallow-skinned and lantern-jawed, and
his long arms were tattooed from shoulder to wrist.
"Here!" said a soft voice in French.
The colonel did not open his eyes. He merely dropped the palm fan which
he was idly waving to and fro so that it hid his mouth.
"Do you remember a Monsieur White?" he said in the same tone.
"Perfectly," replied the other. "He was the man who would not have your
little 'coco' friend--disposed of."
"That is the man," said the other. "You have a good memory, Raoul."
"Monsieur, my memory is wonderful, but alas! one cannot live on memory,"
he added sententiously.
"Then remember this: there is a place near London called Putney Heath."
"Putney Heath," repeated the other.
"There is a house called Bishopsholme."
"Bishopsholme," repeated the other.
"It is empty--to let, _à louer_, you understand. It is in a sad state of
desolation. The garden, the house--you know the kind of place?"
"Perfectly, monsieur."
"At nine o'clock to-night and at nine o'clock to-morrow night you will
be near the door. There is a large clump of bushes, behind which you
will stand. You will stay there until ten. Between those hours M. White
will approach and go into the house. You understand?"
"Perfectly, monsieur," said the voice again.
"You will shoot him so that he dies immediately."
"He is a dead man," said the other.
There was a long pause.
"I will pay you sixty thousand francs, and I will have a motor-car to
take you direct to Dover. You will catch the night boat for Ostend. Your
passport will be in order, and you can make your way to Paris at your
leisure. The payment you will receive in Paris. Is that satisfactory?"
"Eminently so, monsieur," said the other. "I need a little for expenses
for the moment. Also I wish information as to where the motor-car will
meet me."
"It will be waiting for you at the corner of the first road past the
house, on the way from London. You will not speak to the chauffeur and
he will not speak to you. In the car you will find sufficient money for
your immediate needs. Is there any necessity to explain further?"
"None whatever, monsieur," said the soft voice, and Raoul dropped his
head on one side as though he were sleeping.
As for the colonel, he did not simulate slumber, but passed into
dreamland, sleeping quietly and calmly, with a look of benevolence upon
his big face.
The only other occupant of the cooling room, a big-framed man who was
reading a newspaper, closed his eyes too--but he did not sleep.
CHAPTER XVII
SOLOMON COMES BACK
At nine o'clock that night the colonel, in immaculate evening-dress, sat
playing double-dummy bridge with his two companions. In the light of the
big shaded lamp overhead there was something particularly peaceful and
innocent in their occupation. No word was spoken save of the game.
It was a quarter to nine, noted the colonel, looking at the little
French clock on the mantelpiece. He rose, walked to the window and
looked out. It was a stormy night and the wind was howling down the
street, sending the rain in noisy splashes against the window panes. He
grumbled his satisfaction and returned to the table.
"Did you see the paper?" asked Pinto presently.
"I saw the paper," said the colonel, not looking up from his hand. "I
make a point of reading the newspapers."
"You see they've made a feature of----"
"Mention no names," said the colonel. "I know they've made a feature
about it. So much the better. Everything depends----"
It was as he spoke that Solomon White came into the room. Boundary knew
it was he before the door handle turned, before the hum of voices in the
hall outside had ceased, but it was with a great pretence of surprise
that he looked up.
"Why, if it isn't Solomon White!" he said.
The man was haggard and sick-looking. He had evidently dressed in a
hurry, for his cravat was ill-tied and the collar gaped. He strode
slowly up to the table and Boundary's manservant, with a little grin,
closed the door.
"Where have you been all this time, Solomon?" asked Boundary genially.
"Sit you down and play a hand."
"You know why I've come," breathed Solomon White.
"Surely I know why you've come. You've come to explain where you've
been, old boy. Sit down," said Boundary.
"Where is my daughter?" asked White.
"Where is your daughter?" repeated the colonel. "Well, that's a queer
question to ask us. _We've_ been saying where is Solomon White all this
time."
"I've been to Brighton," said the man, "but that's nothing to do with
it."
"Been at Brighton? A very pleasant place, too," said Boundary. "And what
were you doing at Brighton?"
"Keeping out of your way, damn you!" said White fiercely. "Trying to
cure the fear of you which has made a rank coward of me. If you wanted
to find a method for curing me, colonel, you've found it. I've come back
for my daughter--where is she?"
The colonel pushed his chair back from the table and looked up with a
quizzical smile.
"Now you're not going to take it hard, Solomon," he said. "We had to
have you back and that was the only scheme we could think of. You see,
there are lots of little bits of business that have to be cleared up,
bits of business in which you had a hand the same as my other business
associates."
"Where is the girl?" asked the man steadily.
"Well, I'm going to admit to you," said the colonel, with a fine show of
frankness, "that I've put her away--no harm has come to her, you
understand. She's at a little place at Putney Heath, a house I took
specially for her, surrounded by loving guardians----"
"Like Pinto?" asked the man, looking down at the silent Silva.
"Like Lollie. Now you can't deny that Lollie's a very nice girl," said
the colonel. "Sit down, Solomon, and talk things over."
"When I've got my girl I'll talk things over with you. Where is this
place?"
"It is on Putney Heath," said the colonel. "Now aren't I being
straightforward with you? If I had any bad designs against the girl,
should I tell you where she is? If you go there, Solomon, take some of
your copper friends."
"I have no copper friends," said the man angrily. "You know that well
enough. What am I that I should go to the police? Can I go to them with
clean hands?"
"Well, that's a question I've often asked myself," said the colonel.
"I've often said----"
"What is the name of the house?" interrupted White. "I want to see
whether you're playing square with me, Boundary, and if you're not,
by----"
"Don't threaten me, don't threaten me, Solomon," said the colonel with a
good-humoured gesture. "I'm a nervous man and I suffer from heart
disease. You ought to know better than that. Bishopsholme is the place.
It is the fourth big house after passing Tredennis Road--a fine villa
standing in its own grounds. It looks a bit deserted because it was
empty until a few days ago, when I put a scrap or two of furniture into
it. Why not wait----"
"First I'll find out whether you're speaking the truth, and if you're
not----"
"Gently, gently," growled Crewe. "What's the good of kicking up a row,
White? The colonel's dealing straighter with you than you're dealing
with us."
He was not in the colonel's secrets, and he himself was deceived,
thinking that the girl had been removed to the house which he now heard
about for the first time, and that the sole object of the abduction was
to bring White back.
"Stay a while," said Boundary. "It is only just nine----"
But White was gone.
He pushed past the servant, one of the readiest and most dangerous of
the colonel's instruments, and into the half-dark corridor. There was a
light on the landing below, and as he ran down the stairs he thought he
saw somebody standing there. It looked like a woman till the figure
turned, and then Solomon White stood stock still. It was the first time
he had seen Jack o' Judgment. The shimmer of the black silk coat, the
curious suggestion of pallor which the white mask conveyed, the slouch
hat, throwing a black bar of shadow diagonally across the face, lent the
figure a peculiarly sinister aspect.
"Stand!"
The voice was commanding, the glittering revolver in the figure's hand
more so.
"Who are you?" gasped Solomon White.
"Jack o' Judgment! Have you ever heard of little Jack?" chuckled the
figure. "Oh, here's a new one--Solomon White, too, and never heard of
Jack o' Judgment! Didn't you see me when they took me out of 'Snow'
Gregory's pocket? Little Jack o' Judgment!"
Solomon White stepped back, his face twitching.
"I had nothing to do with that," he said hoarsely, "nothing to do with
that, do you hear?"
"Where are you going? Won't you tell Jack something, give him a bit of
news? Poor old Jack hears nothing these days," sighed the figure,
laughter bubbling between the words.
"I'm going on private business. Get out of my way," said the other,
remembering the urgency of his mission.
"But you'll tell Jack o' Judgment?" wheedled the figure, "you'll tell
poor old Jack where you are going to find your beautiful daughter?"
"You know!" said the man.
He took a step forward, but the revolver waved him back.
"You'll speak, or you don't pass," said Jack o' Judgment. "You don't
pass until you speak; do you hear, Solomon White?"
The man thought.
"It is a place called Bishopsholme," he said gruffly, "on Putney Heath.
Now let me pass."
"Wait, wait!" said the figure eagerly, "wait for me--only five minutes!
I won't keep you! But don't go, there's death there, Solomon White! It
is waiting for you--don't you feel it in your bones?"
The voice sank to a whisper, and in spite of himself, a cold shiver
passed down White's spine. He half-turned to go back.
"Wait!" said the figure again eagerly, fiercely. "I shall not keep you a
minute--a second!"
Solomon White stood irresolutely, and the mask seemed to melt into the
darkness. White strained his ears to catch the soft patter of its shoes
as it mounted the stairs, but no sound came. Then with a start he seemed
to awake as if from a bad dream, and without another word strode down
the remaining stairs into the night.
On the landing above, the strange being who called himself "Jack o'
Judgment" stood outside the door of Boundary's flat. He had taken a key
from his pocket and had it poised, when he heard the clatter of the
other's feet. He stood undecidedly, but only for a second, then the key
slipped into the lock and the door opened. The butler from his little
pantry saw the figure and slammed his own door, bolting it with
trembling fingers.
In a second Jack o' Judgment was in the room facing the paralysed trio.
He spoke no word, but suddenly his right arm was raised, some shining
object flew from his hand, and there was a crash of glass and instantly
a vile odour. On the opposite wall where the bottle had broken appeared
a dark and irregular stain.
Then, without so much as a laugh, he stepped back through the door and
raced down the stairs in pursuit of White. It was too late; the man had
disappeared. Jack o' Judgment stood for a moment listening, then he
slipped off the black coat and ripped off the mask. The coat was of the
finest silk, for he rolled it into the space of a pocket-handkerchief
and slipped it in his pocket. The handkerchief went the same way. If
there had been observers, they would have caught a glimpse of a man in
evening dress as he went swiftly down the half-lighted stairway.
He turned and walked in the shadow of the building and passed down a
side street, where a big limousine was awaiting him. He gave a murmured
direction to the driver, and the car sped on its way.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE JUDGMENT OF DEATH
Solomon White had a taxi waiting, and gave his directions. He was
sufficiently loyal to the band to avoid calling especial attention to
the house where the girl was imprisoned, and he told his cab to wait at
the end of Putney Heath. The night was wild and boisterous and very
dark, but he carried an electric torch, and presently he came to
weather-stained gates bearing in letters which had half-faded the name
he sought. He pushed open the gate with some trouble. There was a
curving carriage-drive which led to the front door, which stood at the
head of a flight of steps under a square and ugly portico.
He looked up at the building, but it was in darkness. Apparently it was
empty, but he knew enough of the colonel's methods to know that Boundary
would not advertise the presence of the girl to the outside world.
He stood hesitating, wondering. The whole thing might be a trap, but
Solomon White was not easily scared. He took a revolver from his pocket,
drew back the hammer and walked forward cautiously. There was no sign of
life. The rustling of shrubs and trees was the only mournful sound which
varied the roar of the storm.
He was opposite the door, and one foot was raised to surmount the first
step, when there came a sound like the sharp tap of a drum.
"Rap-rap!"
Solomon White stood for fully a second before he crumbled and fell, and
he was dead before he reached the ground.
Still there was no sign or sound of life. A church clock boomed out the
quarter to ten. A motor-car went past, and then the laurel bushes by the
side of the steps moved, and a man in a black mackintosh stepped out. He
bent over the dead man, picked up the fallen torch and flashed the light
on the dead man's face, then, with a grunt of satisfaction, Raoul
Pontarlier unscrewed his Soubet silencer and slipped his automatic into
the wet pocket of his mackintosh.
Feeling in an inside pocket for a cigarette, he found one and lit it
from the smouldering end of a tinder-lighter. Then, carefully concealing
the lighted cigarette in the palm of his hand, he walked softly and
noiselessly down the drive, keeping to the shadow of the bushes and
watching to left and right for signs of approaching pedestrians. At two
points he could see the heath road, and nobody was in sight. There was
plenty of time, and men had been ruined by haste. He reached the gate
and carefully looked over. The road was deserted. His hand was on the
gate, when something cold and hard was pushed against his ear and he
turned round.
"Put up your hands!" said a mocking voice. "Put them up!"
The Frenchman's hands rose slowly.
"Now turn round and face the house. Quick!" said the voice. "_Marchez!_
Halt!"
Raoul stopped. If he could only get his hands down and duck, one
lightning dive....
His captor evidently read his thoughts, for he felt a hand slip into his
mackintosh pocket, and he was relieved of the weight of his automatic.
"Go forward, up the steps. Stop!"
The stranger had seen the huddled figure of White, and stooped over him.
He made no comment. He knew the man was dead before his hands had
touched him.
"Mount the steps, _canaille!_" said the voice, and Raoul walked slowly
up the steps of the house and halted with his face against the door.
A hand came up under his uplifted arm and sought the keyhole. A few
minutes' fumbling until the prongs of the skeleton key had found its
corresponding wards, and then the door swung open, emitting a scent of
mustiness and decay.
"_Marchez!_" said the stranger, and Raoul walked forward and heard the
door slam behind him.
The house was not empty, in the sense that it was unfurnished. The
unknown was using an electric torch of extraordinary brilliancy, and
revealed a dilapidated hall-stand and a musty chair. He took a brief
survey and then:
"Down those stairs!" he said, and the murderer obeyed.
They were in the kitchen now, and again the bright light gleamed about.
The windows were heavily shuttered, the grate was rusty, and a few odd
pieces of china on the sideboard were dirty. There was a gas bracket in
the centre over a large deal table, and this the stranger turned on. He
heard the hiss of escaping gas, struck a match and lit it, and then for
the first time Raoul gazed in fear and astonishment upon the man who
held him.
"Monsieur," he stammered, "who are you?"
The masked figure slipped his hand into his pocket and flicked a card
upon the table, and Raoul, looking down, saw the Jack of Clubs, and knew
that his end was near.
* * * * *
For three hours the Frenchman had lain on the floor, tied hand and foot,
a gag in his mouth, and the clocks were striking two when Jack o'
Judgment came back. This time he wore neither mask nor coat but over his
arm he carried a coil of fine rope. Raoul watched him, fascinated, as he
walked about the kitchen, whistling softly to himself, and now and again
breaking into scraps of song.
"Monsieur, monsieur," blubbered the terrified man, "I would make a
confession. I will make a statement before the judge----"
Jack o' Judgment smiled.
"You shall make a statement before your judge, for I am he," he said,
"and I think this is the place."
He glanced up at the high roof of the kitchen, for there was a stout
hook, where in old times heavy sides of bacon hung. He drew the table
under the place and put a chair on top. Then he mounted, and with a
skillful cast of his rope caught the hook and drew the rope slowly
through. He did not move the table or take any notice of the man on the
floor, but stood as a workman might stand who was calculating distances,
and all the time he whistled softly.
"Monsieur, monsieur, for God's sake spare me! I will make reparation!"
"You speak truly," said the other without taking his eyes from the rope,
"for it is reparation you make this night for two dead men, and God
knows how many besides."
"Two?"
The murderer twisted his head.
"For a man called Gregory particularly," said Jack o' Judgment, "shot
down like a mad dog."
"I was paid to do it. I knew nothing against him, I had no malice in my
heart," said the man eagerly.
"Nor have I," said Jack o' Judgment, "for behold! I shall kill you
without passion, as a warning to all villains of all nationalities."
"This is against the law," whined the man, beads of sweat standing on
his forehead. "Give me a knife and let me fight you. You coward!"
"Give Solomon White a pistol, and let him fight you," said the other.
"It is against the law--well, I know it. But it is much more speedy than
the law, my little cabbage!"
He was busy making a slip-knot at one end of the rope, and presently he
had finished it to his satisfaction.
"Raoul Pontarlier," he said, "this is a moment for which I have waited."
The man screamed and twisted his head, but the noose was about his neck
and tightening. Then with a wrench Jack o' Judgment jerked him to his
feet.
"On to the table," he said sternly. "Mount! It is quicker so!"
"I will not, I will not!" yelled the Frenchman. His voice rose to a
shrill scream. "I--help!... help!..."
Half an hour later Jack o' Judgment came down the dark path, stopping
only for a second to look upon the figure of Solomon White.
"God have mercy on you all!" he said soberly, and passed into the night.
CHAPTER XIX
THE COLONEL IS SHOCKED
"The Putney mystery," said the _Daily Megaphone_, "surpasses any of
recent years in its sensational character. There is a touch of the
bizarre in this grim spectacle of the dead man at the door of the empty
house, and the swaying figure of his murderer hanging in the kitchen,
with no other mark of identification than a playing card pinned to his
breast.
"The tragedy can be reconstructed up to a point. Mr. White was evidently
killed in the garden by the Frenchman who was found hanging. The
automatic pistol in his pocket, which had recently been discharged,
might support this theory even if the police had not found tracks of his
feet in the laurels. But who hanged the man Raoul with a hangman's rope?
That is the supreme mystery of all. The Putney police can offer no
information on the subject, and Scotland Yard is as reticent. The
circumstances of the discovery are as follows. At three o'clock on the
morning of the 4th, Police-Constable Robinson, who was patrolling his
beat, entered the garden, as is customary when houses are empty, to see
if any doors had been forced. There had been an epidemic of burglaries
in the region of Putney Heath during the past two or three months, and
the police are exercising unusual vigilance in relation to these houses.
The constable might not have made his inspection that night but for the
fact that the garden gate had been left wide open...."
Here followed an account of how the body was found and how further
investigation led the constable to the kitchen to make his second
gruesome discovery.
Colonel Boundary folded up the paper slowly and put it down. He had
bought a copy of an early edition of the evening newspaper as he was
stepping into his car, and now he was driving slowly through the park.
He lit a cigar and gazed stolidly from the window. But his face showed
no sign of mental perturbation.
The car had made the circuit of the Park twice when, turning again by
Marble Arch, he saw Crewe standing on the sidewalk. A word to his
chauffeur, and the machine drew up.
"Come in," he said curtly, and the other obeyed.
The hand that he lifted to take his cigarette from his lips trembled,
and the colonel eyed him with quiet amusement.
"They've got you rattled too, have they?" he said.
"My God! It's awful!" said Crewe. "Awful!"
"What's awful about it?" asked the colonel. "White's dead, ain't he? And
Raoul's dead, ain't he? Two men who might talk and give a lot of
trouble."
"What did he say before he died? That's what I've been thinking. What
did he say?"
"Who? Raoul?" demanded the colonel. He had asked himself the same
question before. "What could he say? Anyway, if he had a statement to
make, and his statement was worth taking, why, he'd be alive to-day!
Raoul was the one witness that they wanted, if they only knew it.
They've bungled pretty badly, whoever they are."
"This Jack o' Judgment," quavered Crewe, his mouth working. "Who is he?
What is he?"
"How do I know?" snarled the colonel. "You ask me these fool
questions--do you expect a reply? They're dead, and that's done with.
I'd sooner he killed Raoul than made a mess of my room, anyway!"
"Why did he do it?" asked Crewe.
The colonel growled something about fools and their questions, but
offered no explanation.
"It may have been a monkey trick to make us change our quarters--the
stuff was sulphuretted hydrogen and asafoetida. It may have been just
bravado, but if he thinks he can scare me----"
He sucked viciously at his cigar end.
"I've got workmen in to strip the walls and re-paper the bit that's
soiled," he said. "I'll be back there to-night."
The colonel threw the end of his cigar from the window and relapsed into
moody reverie. When he spoke it was in a more cheerful tone.
"Crewe," he said, "that guy at Scotland Yard has given me an idea."
"Which guy?" asked Crewe, steadying his voice.
"The First Commissioner," said the colonel, lighting another cigar. "He
particularly wanted to know if 'Snow' had any relations. Curse 'Snow'!"
he said between his teeth, and dropping his mask of urbanity. "I wish
he'd--well, it doesn't matter; he's dead, anyway--he's dead."
"Relations?" said Crewe. "Did you tell him anything?"
"I told him all I knew, and that was very little," said the colonel,
"but it struck me that Sir Stanley knows much more about this fellow
'Snow' than we do. At any rate, somebody's been making inquiries, and I
guess that somebody is the fellow who settled Raoul."
"Jack o' Judgment?"
"Jack o' Judgment," repeated the colonel grimly. "You showed 'Snow'
Gregory into the gang--what do you know about him?"
Crewe shook his head.
"Very little," he said. "I met him in Monte Carlo. He was down and out.
He seemed a likely fellow--educated, a gentleman and all that sort of
thing--and when I found that he'd hit the dope, I thought he'd be the
kind of man you might want."
The colonel nodded.
"He never talked about his relations. The only thing I know was that he
had a father or an uncle, who was in India, and I gathered that he had
forged his name to a bill. When I arrived in Monte Carlo he was
spending the money as fast as he could. I guess that was why he called
himself Gregory, for I'm sure it wasn't his name."
"You're sure he never spoke of a brother?"
"Never," said Crewe; "he never talked about himself at all. He was
generally under the influence of dope or was recovering from it."
The colonel pushed back his hat and rubbed his forehead.
"There must be some way of identifying him," he said. "He came from
Oxford, you say?"
"Yes, I know that," said Crewe; "he spoke of it once."
"What house in Oxford? There are several colleges, aren't there?"
"From Balliol," said Crewe. "I distinctly remember him talking about
Balliol."
"What year would that be?"
Crewe reflected.
"He left college two years before I met him at Monte Carlo," he said;
"that would be----" He gave the year.
"Well, it is pretty simple," said the colonel. "Send a man to Oxford and
get the names of all the men that left Balliol in that year. Find out
how many you can trace, and I dare say that will narrow the search down
to two or three men. Now get after this at once, Crewe. Spare no
expense. If it costs half a million I'm going to discover who Mr. Jack
o' Judgment is when he's at home."
He dismissed Crewe and gave fresh instructions to his driver, and ten
minutes later he was stepping out of his limousine at the entrance to
Scotland Yard.
Stafford King was not in, or at any rate was not available. Greatly
daring, the colonel sent his card to the First Commissioner. Sir Stanley
Belcom read the name and raised his eyebrows.
"Show him in," he said, and for the second time the colonel was ushered
into the presence of the chief.
"Well, colonel," said Sir Stanley, "this is rather a dreadful
business."
"Terrible, terrible!" said the colonel, shaking his head. "Solomon White
was one of my best friends. I've been searching for him for weeks."
"So I've heard," said Sir Stanley dryly. "Have you any theory?"
"None whatever."
"What about this man called Raoul? Is he unknown to you?" asked Sir
Stanley.
"That's what I've come to see you about, sir," said the colonel in a
confidential tone. "You remember the last time I was here, you suggested
that possibly the murderer of poor Gregory might be a Frenchman. _You_
remember how you told me that these French assassins have a trick of
leaving some fantastic card or sign of their handiwork?"
Sir Stanley nodded.
"Well, here you have the same thing repeated," said the colonel
triumphantly, "and the identical card. Do you think, sir, that the
murderer of my poor friend Gregory and my poor friend White was the same
man?"
"In fact, Raoul?" asked Sir Stanley.
The colonel nodded, and for a few moments Sir Stanley communed with his
well-kept finger-nails.
"I don't think it will do any harm if I tell you that that is my theory
also, Colonel Boundary," he said, "and, giving confidence for
confidence, would you have any objection to telling me whether Raoul is
one of your--er--business associates?"
There was just the slightest shade of irony in the last two words, but
the colonel preferred to ignore it.
"I'm very glad you asked me that question, sir," he said with a sigh, so
palpably a sigh of relief that the recording angel might be excused if
he were deceived. "I have never seen Raoul before. In fact, my knowledge
of Frenchmen is a very small one. I do very little business in France,
and I certainly do no business at all with men of that class."
"What class?" asked the other quickly.
The colonel shrugged his big shoulders.
"I am only going on what the newspapers say," he said. "They suggest
that this man is an apache."
"You do not know him?" asked Sir Stanley after a pause.
"I have never seen him in my life," said the colonel.
Again Sir Stanley examined his finger-nails as though searching for some
flaw.
"Then you will be surprised to learn," he drawled at last, "that you sat
next to him in the cooling-room of the Yildiz Turkish Baths."
The colonel's heart missed a beat, but he did not flinch.
"You surprise me," he said. "I have only been to the Turkish baths once
during the past three months, and that was yesterday."
Sir Stanley nodded.
"According to my information, which was supplied to me by my very able
assistant, Mr. Stafford King, that was also the morning when Raoul was
seen to enter that building."
"And he sat next to me?" said the colonel incredulously.
"He sat next to you," said Sir Stanley, with evidence of enjoyment.
"Well, that is the most amazing coincidence," exclaimed the colonel, "I
have ever met with in my life! To imagine that that scoundrel sat
shoulder to shoulder with me--good heavens! It makes me hot to think
about it."
"I was afraid it would," said the First Commissioner.
He pressed the bell and his secretary came in.
"See if Mr. Stafford King is in the building, and tell him to come to
me, please," he said. "You see, colonel, we were hoping you would supply
us with a great deal of very useful information. We naturally thought it
was something more than a coincidence that this man and you should
foregather at a Turkish bath--a most admirable rendezvous, by the way."
"You may accept my word of honour," said Colonel Boundary impressively,
"that I had no more idea of that man's presence, or of his identity, or
of his very existence, than you had."
Stafford King came in at that moment, and the colonel, noting the
haggard face and the look of care in the dark-lined eyes, felt a certain
amount of satisfaction.
"I've just been telling the colonel about his meeting in the Turkish
baths," said Sir Stanley. "I suppose there is no doubt at all as to that
happening?"
"None whatever, sir," said Stafford shortly. "Both the colonel and this
man were seen by Sergeant Livingstone."
"The colonel suggests that it was a coincidence, and that he has never
spoken to the man," said Sir Stanley. "What do you say to that, King?"
Stafford King's lips curled.
"If the colonel says so, of course, it must be true."
"Sarcasm never worries me," said the colonel. "I'm always getting into
trouble, and I'm always getting out again. Give a dog a bad name
and----"
He stopped. There arose in his mind a mental picture of a man swinging
in an underground kitchen, and in spite of his self-control he
shuddered.
"And hang him, eh?" said Sir Stanley. "Now, I'm going to put matters to
you very plainly, colonel. There have been three or four very unpleasant
happenings. There has been the death of the chief witness for the Crown
against you; there has been the death of this unhappy man White, who was
closely associated with you in your business deals, and who had recently
broken away from you, unless our information is inaccurate; there is the
death of Raoul, who was seen seated next to you and apparently carrying
on a conversation behind a fan."
"He never spoke a word to me," protested the colonel.
"And we have the disappearance of Miss White, which is one of the most
important of the happenings, because we have reason to believe that Miss
White, at any rate, is still alive," said Sir Stanley, taking no notice
of the interruption. "Now, colonel, you may or may not have the key to
all these mysteries. You may or may not know who your mysterious friend,
the Jack o' Judgment----"
"He's no friend of mine, by heaven!" said the colonel, and neither man
doubted that he spoke the truth.
"As I say, you may know all these things. But principally at this moment
we are anxious to secure authentic news concerning Miss White. Both I
and Mr. Stafford King have particular reasons for desiring information
on that subject. Can you help us?"
The colonel shook his head.
"If by spending a hundred thousand pounds I could help you, I would do
it," he said fervently, "but as to Miss White and where she is, I am as
much at sea as you. Do you believe that, sir?"
"No," said Sir Stanley truthfully; "I don't."
CHAPTER XX
"SWELL" CREWE BACKS OUT
The colonel left Scotland Yard with a sense that he had spent the
morning not unprofitably. It was his way to beard the lion in his den,
and after all, the police department was no more formidable than any
other public department. He spent the morning quietly in Pinto's flat,
making certain preparations. The workmen were making a thorough job of
his damaged wall, as he found when he looked in, and the horrible odour
had almost disappeared. It was to be a much longer job than he thought.
It had been necessary to cut away and replace the plaster under the
paper for the infernal mixture had soaked deep. Still the colonel had
plenty to occupy his mind. What he called his legitimate business had
been sadly neglected of late. Reports had come in from all sorts of
agencies, reports which might by careful study be turned to the greatest
advantage. There was the affair of Lady Glenmerrin. He had been months
accumulating evidence of that lady's marital delinquencies, and now the
iron was ready to strike--and he simply had no interest in a deal which
might very easily transfer the famous Glenmerrin Farms to his charge at
a nominal figure.
And there were other prospects as alluring. But for the moment the
colonel was mainly interested in the stock value of Colonel Dan Boundary
and the possibility of violent fluctuations. He was losing grip. The
story of Jack o' Judgment had circulated with amazing rapidity, by all
manner of underground channels, to people vitally concerned. Crewe, who
had been a stand-by in almost every big coup he had pulled off, was as
stable as pulp. White his right-hand man, was dead. Pinto--well, Pinto
would go his own way just when it suited him. He had no doubt whatever
as to Pinto's loyalty. Silva had big estates in Portugal, to which he
would retire just when things were getting warm and interesting.
Moreover, the British Government could not extradite Pinto from his
native land.
The colonel found himself regretting that he had missed the opportunity
of taking up American citizenship during the seven years he had spent in
San Francisco. And what of Crewe? Crewe was to reveal himself most
unmistakably. He came in in the late afternoon and found the colonel
working through the litter on his desk.
"Have you started your search at Oxford?" asked the colonel.
"I've sent two men down there--the best men in London," replied Crewe.
He drew up a chair to the desk and flung his hat on a near-by couch.
"I want to have a little talk with you, colonel."
Boundary looked up sharply.
"That sounds bad," he said. "What do you want to talk about? The
weather?"
"Hardly," said Crewe. A little pause, and then: "Colonel, I'm going to
quit."
The colonel made no reply. He went on writing his letter, and not until
he reached the end of the page and carefully blotted the epistle did he
meet Crewe's eyes.
"So you're going to quit, are you?" said Boundary. "Cold feet?"
"Something like that," said Crewe. "Of course, I'm not going to leave
you in the lurch."
"Oh, no," said the colonel with elaborate politeness, "nobody's going to
leave me in the lurch. You're just going to quit, that's all, and I've
got to face the music."
"Why don't you quit too, colonel?"
"Quit what?" asked Boundary. "And how? You might as well ask a tree to
quit the earth, to uproot itself and go on living. What happens when I
walk out of this office and take a first-class state-room to New York?
You think the Boundary Gang collapses, fades away, just dies off, eh?
The moment I leave there's a squeal, and that squeal will be loud enough
to reach me in whatever part of the world I may be. There are a dozen
handy little combinations which will think that I am double-crossing
them, and they'll be falling over one another to get in with the first
tale."
Crewe licked his dry lips.
"Well that certainly may be in your case, colonel, but it doesn't happen
to be in mine. I've covered all my tracks so that there's no evidence
against me."
"That's true," said the colonel. "You've just managed to keep out of
taking an important part. I congratulate you."
"There's no sense in getting riled about it," said Crewe; "it has just
been my luck, that's all. Well, I want to take advantage of this luck."
"In what way?"
"I'm out of any bad trouble. The police, if they search for a million
years, couldn't get a scrap of evidence to convict me," he said, "even
if they'd had you when Hanson betrayed you, they couldn't have convicted
me."
"That's true," said the colonel again. He shook his head impatiently.
"Well, what does all this lead to, Crewe? Do you want to be
demobilised?" he asked humorously.
"That's about the size of it," said Crewe. "I don't want to be in
anything fresh, and I certainly don't want to be in this----"
"What?"
"In this Maisie White business," said Crewe doggedly. "Let Pinto do his
own dirty work."
"My dirty work too," said the colonel. "But I reckon you've overlooked
one important fact."
"What's that?" demanded Crewe suspiciously.
"You've overlooked a young gentleman called Jack o' Judgment," said the
colonel, and enjoyed the look of consternation which came to the other's
face. "There's a fellow that doesn't want any evidence. He hanged Raoul
all right."
"Do you think he did it?" said Crewe in a hushed voice.
"Do I think he did it?" The colonel smiled. "Why, who else? And when he
comes to judge you, I guess he's not going to worry very much about
affidavits and sworn statements, and he's not going to take you before a
magistrate before he hands you over to the coroner."
Crewe jumped to his feet.
"What have I done?" he asked harshly.
"What have you done? Well, you know that best," said the colonel with a
wave of his hand. "You say the police haven't got you and haven't a case
against you. Maybe you're right. That Greek was saying the same sort of
thing to me. He was here this afternoon squealing about taking the girl
to the Argentine, and wanted us to send the doctor, and he'll be waiting
to meet us when we land. There's no evidence against him either. Maybe
there's more evidence than you imagine. I wouldn't bank too much upon
the police passing you by, if I were you, Crewe. There's something about
Mr. Stafford King that I don't like. He's got more brains in his little
finger than that dude commissioner has in the whole of his body. He
doesn't say much, but I guess he thinks a lot, and I'd give something to
know what he's thinking about me just now."
CHAPTER XXI
THE BRIDE OF DEATH
Time had long ceased to have any significance for Maisie White. There
was daylight and nightlight. She seemed to remember that she had made a
great fight on the day she arrived at this strange house when the
hard-faced nurses had strapped her to the bed, and an old man, with
trembling fingers, had pushed a needle into her arm. She remembered it
hurt, and then she remembered very little else. She viewed life with a
dull apathy and without much understanding. She ceased to resent the
presence of the women who came and went, and even the uncleanly old
doctor no longer filled her with a sense of revulsion. She just wanted
to be left alone to sleep, to dream the strangest dreams that any girl
had ever had. She did not know that this was the action of bromide of
potassium, consistently administered in every drink she took, in every
morsel of food she ate. Bromide in bread, in coffee, in mashed potatoes,
in rice, in all the vehicles by which the drug could be administered.
Sometimes by reason of her sheer vitality she flung off the effects of
the dope, and was keenly conscious of her surroundings. There was one
girl who came and went, a pretty girl with fluffy golden hair, who
looked at her dispassionately and made no reply to the questions with
which Maisie plied her. And once she had seen Pinto and would have
screamed, but they stopped her in time. One night the old doctor had
come into the room very drunk. He was crying and moaning in a maudlin
fashion about some mysterious position which he had lost, and he had sat
on the bed and, cursed his passion for strong drink with such vehemence
that she, in her half-dazed state of mind, had found herself interested
against her will.
In one of her lucid intervals she had realised a vital fact, that she
was under the influence of a drug, and instinctively knew that she was
becoming more and more immune to its action. She formed a vague plan,
which she had almost forgotten the next morning. She must always be
sleepy, almost dazed; she must never show signs of returning
consciousness. She had been a week in the "nursing home" before she made
this plan. She could lie now with her eyes shut, picking up the threads.
She heard somebody talk of a ship and of a passport, and learned that
she was to be removed in another week. She could not find where, but it
was somewhere on a ship. She tried once, when the nurses were out of the
room, to get out of bed and walk to the window. Her legs gave way
beneath her, and it was with the greatest difficulty that she managed to
crawl back to bed.
There was no escape that way. There was no help either from the nurses
who were not nurses at all, nor from the maudlin little doctor, nor from
the pretty girl who came sometimes and looked down on her with
undisguised contempt--or was it pity? Then one night she woke in a
fright. Two people were talking. She half turned her head and saw that
Pinto was in the room, and his face was a flaming fury. She had seen
that look before, but now his rage was directed at somebody else, and
with a start she recognised the pretty girl that the nurses called
Lollie.
"You're not in this, Lollie," said the man, and she laughed.
"That's just where you're wrong, Silva," she replied. "I'm very much in
it. What happens to this girl when she leaves here heaven only knows--I
guess it's up to the colonel. But while she's here I'm looking after
her."
"You are, are you?" he said between his teeth. "Well, now you can go and
take a walk."
"I can also take a seat too," she said.
He walked over to her and glowered down at the girl, and she puffed a
cloud of cigarette smoke in his face.
"I'm a crook because it pays me to be a crook," said the girl calmly.
"If it's jollying along one of the colonel's blue-eyed innocents, or
keeping a watchful eye upon Mr. King, or acting trustful maiden to some
poor fool from the country--why, I'm ready and willing, because that's
my job. But this is a different matter altogether. If the colonel says
she's got to go abroad, why, I suppose she's got to go. But she's not
going to be on my conscience, that's all," said Lollie.
They passed through the door into a smaller room where the night
watchers sat. She made as though to sit at the table when he gripped her
arm and swung her round. She put up her hands to defend herself, but was
thrown against the wall, and his grip was on her throat.
"Do you know what I'll do for you?" he hissed.
"I don't care what you do," she said. She was on the verge of tears.
"You're not going into that room--you're _not_ going!"
She sprang at him, but with a snarl like a wild beast, he turned and
struck her, and she fell against the wall.
"Now get out"--he pointed to the door--"get out and don't show your face
here again. And if you've got any information, you can report it to the
colonel and see what he's got to say to you!"
She slunk from the room. Pinto went back to the room where the girl lay.
"Cover your head with a blanket, my pretty?" he said. "Pinto must not
see that pretty face, eh?"
He laid hold of the blanket's edge and pulled it gently down. But the
blanket would not come away. It was being clutched tightly. With a jerk
he wrenched it down, then stumbled backwards to the floor, a grotesque
and ludicrous figure, for the white silk mask of Jack o' Judgment
confronted him and the hateful voice of his enemy shrilled:
"I'm Death! Jack o' Judgment! Poor old Jack! Jack, the hangman! You'll
meet him one day, Pinto--meet him now!"
Pinto collapsed--he had fainted.
CHAPTER XXII
MAISIE TELLS HER STORY
"There is one fact which I would impress upon you," said Sir Stanley
Belcom, addressing the heads of his departments at the early morning
conference at Scotland Yard, "and it is this, that the criminal has nine
chances against the one which the law possesses. He has the initiative
in the first place, and if he fails to evade detection, the law gives
him certain opportunities of defence and imposes certain restrictions
which prevent one taking a line which would bring the truth of his
assertions or denials to light. It protects him; it will not admit
evidence against him; it will not allow the jury to be influenced by the
record of his previous crimes until they have delivered their verdict
upon the one on which he stands charged; in fact, gentlemen, the
criminal, if he were intelligent, would score all the time."
"That's true enough, sir," said Cole, of the Record Office. "I've never
yet met a criminal who wasn't a fool."
"And you never will till you meet Colonel Boundary," said Sir Stanley
with a good-natured smile, "and the reason you do not meet him is
because he is not a fool. But, gentlemen, every criminal has one weak
spot, and sooner or later he exposes the chink in his armour to the
sword of justice--if you do not mind so theatrical an illustration.
Here, again, I do not think that Boundary will make any such exposure.
One of you gentlemen has again brought up the question as to the
prosecution of the Boundary Gang, and particularly the colonel himself.
Well, I am all in favour of it, though I doubt whether the Home
Secretary or the Public Prosecutor would agree with my point of view. We
have a great deal of evidence, but not sufficient evidence to convict.
We know this man is a blackmailer and that he engages in terrorising his
unfortunate victims, but the mere fact that we know is not sufficient.
We need the evidence, and that evidence we have not got. And that is
where our mysterious Jack o' Judgment is going to score. He knows, and
it is sufficient for him that he _does_ know. He calls for no
corroborative evidence, but convicts and executes his judgment without
recourse to the law books. I do not think that the official police will
ever capture Boundary, and if it is left to them, he will die sanctified
by old age and ten years of comfortable repentance. He will probably end
his life in a cathedral town, and may indeed become a member of the town
council--hullo, King, what is the matter?"
Stafford King had rushed in. He was dusty and hot of face, and there was
a light of excitement in his eyes.
"She's found, sir, she's found!"
"She's found?" Sir Stanley frowned. "To whom are you referring? Miss
White?"
Stafford could only nod.
With a gesture the commissioner dismissed the conference. Then:
"Where was she found?" he asked.
"In her own flat, sir. That is the amazing thing about it."
"What! Did she come back herself?"
Stafford shook his head.
"It is an astonishing story, sir. She was, of course, detained and held
prisoner somewhere, and last night--she will not give me any
details--she was carried from the house where she had been kept
prisoner. She had an awful experience, at which she only hints, poor
girl! Apparently she fainted, and when she came to she was in a
motor-car being carried along rapidly. And that is about all she'll tell
me."
"But who brought her away?" asked the commissioner.
Again Stafford shook his head.
"For some reason or other she is reticent and will give no information
at all. It is evident she has been drugged, for she looks wretchedly
ill--of course, I haven't pressed her for particulars."
"It is a strange story," said the commissioner.
"I have a feeling," Stafford went on, "that she has given a promise to
her unknown rescuer that she will not tell more than is necessary."
"But it is necessary to tell the police," said the commissioner, "and
even more important for the young lady to tell her--fiancé, I hope,
King?"
The young man reddened and smiled.
"I agree with you that this is not the moment when you can cross-examine
the girl, but I want you to see her as soon as you possibly can and try
to induce her to tell you all she knows."
* * * * *
Maisie White lay on the sofa in her own room. She was still weak, but
oh! the relief of being back again and of ending that terrible nightmare
which had oppressed her for--how long? Even the depressing effect of the
drug could not quench the exaltation of finding herself free. She went
over the details of the night one by one. She must do it, she thought.
She must never lose grip of what happened or forget her promise.
First she recalled seeing the weird figure of Jack o' Judgment. He had
lifted her from the bed and had laid her on the floor. She remembered
seeing him slip beneath the blankets, and then Pinto had come. She
recalled the cracked voice of her rescuer, his fantastic language.
She had awakened to consciousness to find herself in a big car which was
passing quickly through the dark and deserted streets. She had no
recollection of being carried from the room or of being handed to the
thick-set man who stood on a l
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