The waiter made a lucky choice with the hansom, and all fear of losing the train vanished in the first five minutes of the trot; though it was plain that every cab-rider at that moment was not so fortunate, for in Cranborne Street Crook passed another hansom which had come to grief. The cabman was unbuckling the traces from his fallen horse, while his unfortunate fare was desperately collecting a number of articles which had scattered from a burst portmanteau — a portmanteau that had evidently fallen endwise from the roof. The man looked up as Crook’s cab passed a little gratified — to perceive that it was Hahn himself who was thus being delayed at the beginning of the race.
Waterloo was gained with a margin of four minutes, and all was so far satisfactory — for Crook. Not so for Hahn, however, for as the train left the platform Crook saw him once again, running his hardest, with his broken portmanteau tied round with string, while a galloping porter ran at his heels to prevent him risking his life. The porter, having nothing to carry, ran the faster, and seized Hahn by the arms from behind; and Crook’s last view of him comprised a heap, whereof the broken portmanteau formed the base, the zealous porter the apex, with the baffled Hahn sprawling between them.
Having thus scored the first trick, Harvey Crook sat back well content. Two other men were in the carriage, both younger than himself, in animated conversation. For some while Crook paid no attention to this, but turned over the evening paper he had brought with him. Presently, however, he threw this aside, and then he could no longer avoid hearing.
He had set the young men down as artists from the beginning, and now it grew plain that he had been right. One was a sculptor and the other a painter, and much of their talk had reference to another painter, familiarly referred to as “Charley.” Charley, it would seem, was something of a practical wag — a character which Crook had himself met among painters more than once.
“I’m a score behind with Charley,” said the sculptor, “and I must make it even somehow. Did you hear about the awful row at my little show?”
“Something about a drunken model, wasn’t it? Tell me.”
“Drunken model? I believe you. But it was Charley that worked the thing. Ha! Ha! But it really wasn’t so bad, while it lasted, though it gave awful jumps to some of my respected patrons. You should have been there.”
“Always keep out of show days — except my own. Can’t help being there, you know.”
“No — I sympathise; the sort of people that go round on show Sundays and such — well there, that’s enough — never mind ‘em now. I was showing that thing of mine for the new park, open space, or whatever it is — you know, the alderman in his robes; that and the bust of the Mayor of Dumbledore. Well, all the friends of the alderman and the mayor turned up, as I expected they would, and they brought their sisters and their cousins, though I should judge that the larger part of the female visitors were aunts — fat ones. I did all I could to make things comfortable — not to say splendid. Hired a carpet and two dozen chairs, and got in the necessary tuck from the pastry-cook’s. And I thought I’d have Boaler to wait, in an eighteenth century dress and wig. Know Boaler?”
“Know of him; never employed him. Big model, for muscles and all that, isn’t he?”
“That’s the fellow — an uncommon fine old chap for anything of that sort, though he is getting a trifle old and he drinks a lot. He’s been posing to me for the Prehistoric Man I’m on for the next Academy, and mighty well he does it, with a bearskin hearthrug tied round him and a cow’s jaw-bone in his hand. Well, you know, I thought he’d look rather fine in silk stockings and velvet breeches, with a gold-laced coat and a powdered wig, announcing people from the door and handing round a tray afterwards. And so he would — if he’d done it; but the old wretch didn’t.” Here the young sculptor flung himself back against the cushions with a burst of laughter.
“I got a capital suit for him,” he went on presently, “fitted excellently — borrowed it from Haslam. I impressed on him that he must be up to time — dressed and ready by half-past three. He promised he would, but he didn’t.” The sculptor laughed again.
“He didn’t,” he repeated. “I had to go out, and didn’t get back till nearly four. There was the gold-laced suit hanging up in the little room at the back, but Boaler wasn’t in it — wasn’t there at all, in fact. The result was I had to meet the people at the door myself, and skip the announcing. They came crowding in, and — well you know the sort of thing that happens on these occasions; women in fine dresses all doing the haughty and superfine, and the man the place belongs to doing the humble and complaisant. I kept looking and longing for the nefarious Boaler, but he didn’t come, and I had to go dancing about with tea and macaroons, and try to do the whole thing myself. In the middle of the agony Charley came in.
“‘It’s all right’ he whispered, ‘Boaler’s here — I met him. He’s gone in the back way and he’s getting into his uniform. I’ll go and hurry him up.’ And off he went; and he did hurry him up!”
“He did hurry him up. Lord! He did! The people had left off walking about, and all the two dozen chairs were full of supercilious old aldermanesses and mayoresses with tea-cups, when the inner door opened, and, with a shove from behind, in staggered the infamous Boaler, full as a barrel, in the uniform of prehistoric man, bear-skin rug and cow’s jawbone complete! And worse — while he waved the jawbone in one hand he carried a pewter pot in the other, and a clay pipe in his mouth, and he smiled and smiled and swayed and swayed till he came down in a heap! Heavens! The row! The mayoresses and the aldermanesses and the haughty and the superfine! It beat everything!”
“Broke up the show, of course.”
“Broke it up? Broke up’s too mild a term. I never saw anything like it; the place might have been on fire! They’re the sort of people that never see the humour of anything, and because I laughed — who wouldn’t? — I believe they thought I’d done the whole thing on purpose!”
“And it was Charley, was it?”
“Chiefly, though certainly Boaler himself gave him the idea. You see, the old ruffian had given way to his usual failing, and when he began to change, by force of habit he got into the prehistoric rig instead of the proper dress. Charley, going in to hurry him up, found him like that and rather liked the idea, so he added the pipe and pot by way of final touches and shoved him into the studio. Says he intended it as a lesson for Boaler against the sin of intemperance! Tells me I ought to be nearly as grateful as Boaler himself, because it was such a fine preliminary advertisement for the Prehistoric Man at the Academy!”
The two young men laughed loud and long, and lit their pipes; and then their talk drifted off into more immediately professional matters. And so two hours more went, and at last the train pulled up at Southampton.
It was a little late — more than a quarter of an hour late, in fact — and Crook had only a few minutes in which to reach the office of Lawson the auctioneer. He got a fly, but it crawled as that sort of fly does, and the clocks had finished striking six ere the office drew in sight. Lawson’s clerk, in fact, was in the act of locking the front door, and when he turned away he met Harvey Crook as he jumped from the fly.
“Good evening,” said Crook; “I’m afraid I’m a bit late. I want to ask about a few lots you sold last Thursday.”
The clerk looked uncomfortably up the street.
“I’ve shut the office,” he said. “Can’t you come in the morning?”
“Of course it’s past office hours,” Crook replied; “but I suppose you’re open to do work on your own account after office hours? Suppose we say at a guinea an hour?”
The clerk opened his eyes wide.
“Well, yes,” he said, “I should think so; at a guinea an hour.” But there was a deal of doubt in his voice.
“That’s what I mean,” answered Crook, “and here’s a guinea in advance for the first hour, though I shan’t keep you so long.”
And he handed over a sovereign and a shilling.
“Well,” th
e clerk answered, still rather distrustfully, “what is it you want me to do? Nothing against the office interests, mind!”
“Of course not — nothing at all. Mr. Lawson would do it himself if he were here, but he isn’t. In Thursday’s sale there were eleven magnums of Tokay wine, put in by a travelling American gentleman named Merrick. I want to know who bought them.”
“Let’s see,” said the clerk thoughtfully. “They were ‘starred’ into the catalogue, weren’t they?”
“Yes — Mr. Merrick only brought them in on the morning of sale.”
“Well, I can tell you one buyer from memory. That was Mr. Norie, the artist. He had one bottle.”
“Do you know him?”
“Oh, yes — everybody about here knows him; his father belonged to Southampton.”
“And the others?”
“That won’t be so easy. You see, they were mostly bids for money down from strangers, and the buyers took them straight away. But come into the office.”
The clerk pulled out his key again, and unlocked the door. He was a quick young man with dark little eyes, and a smiling, though not handsome, face. He carefully shut the door behind him, pushed up the lid of a desk, and brought out an inter-leaved and marked catalogue.
“Mind you,” he said, “I’m not doing any more than we’d do for almost anybody who came and asked — in office hours. I’m not doing anything that Lawson would disapprove of, and I won’t. Here you are. Lot 87 star, one magnum real old Imperial Tokay, reputed eighty years in bottle. Lot 88 star, ditto; lot 89 star, ditto; and so on to lot 97 star, ditto, the last of ‘em. There’s prices and all: 87 star, money paid down, no name; 88 star, Smith-might as well be no name at all; 89 star, Smith also — and Smith’s the name to the next two.”
Crook remembered those lots, and he knew that they were all bought by the same Smith — the wine merchant’s traveller. But he said nothing, and the clerk went on.
“Ninety-two star is Allen, eight shillings.”
Allen was a passenger on the “Rajapur,” Crook remembered, though again he said nothing. This would give him another advantage over Hahn.
“Ninety-three star, no name, money paid. By the way, you know,” the clerk pursued, “all the money was paid down for these lots, as I can tell by the ticks, but some people gave their names and some didn’t. Ninety-four star — that was Mr. Norie’s. He took it away with him under his arm.”
“An artist, you say?”
“Yes; but if you’re thinking of buying of him — was that what you wanted?”
“Well, yes; that was it.”
“Well I don’t suppose he’ll sell. He isn’t poor, although he’s an artist, and he buys things for his own fancy. He bought an old pair of candlesticks at the same sale, and took them away, too, in his pocket.”
“Very well. He lives here, of course?”
“Yes — I’ll show you the way, if you like. He has rooms in London, too, but his studio’s here. Ninety-five star is Curtice, ten shillings; and the last two have no names.”
“Very well — that’ll do. And now where is Mr. Norie’s studio?”
The clerk shut his desk and came into the street again, carefully locking the door behind him.
“Keep along past the bend in the road,” he said, “till the road forks, and then keep to the right. The road will lead you out of the town past some new villas with a row of old trees — elms — in front of them. In the middle of the villas there is a short turning — a lane — and the only house in that turning is Mr. Norie’s studio, just behind the villas.”
“Thank you,” said Harvey Crook, as he turned to go. “And now perhaps you’ll give me your private address. If I have anything else for you — on the same terms — I suppose you won’t mind my calling and saying so, eh?”
“Not a bit. My name’s Symons, and 14, Waterview Terrace is my address. Is that all?”
“I think so, at present. Will you be at home all the evening?”
“At home! Oh yes, I shall be at home if you want me. Good-night!”
Crook returned to his fly and drove to the Royal Hotel for dinner. This he took at once, and then made the best of his way to Mr. Norie’s studio.
It was still light, though the dusk of a summer’s evening was visible in the west. The next train from London had been in some little time, and it was reasonable to suppose that Hahn was now in Southampton. What would he do? The auctioneer’s office was shut; probably he would have to be content with his dinner for that evening’s work.
Harvey Crook walked smartly in the direction of the villas with the row of elms before them, and was not long in getting clear of the town. He passed a market garden or two and a small meadow, and so reached the elms and the villas they shadowed. There was no possibility of mistake in the matter of Mr. Norie’s studio — there it stood, as the auctioneer’s clerk had said, alone in the little lane that divided the villas into two rows.
It looked as though it might be a good studio. There was a long, sloping roof on the north side, with a row of skylights, and roomy-looking blocks on the opposite side that seemed to be comfortable living and sleeping rooms. There was nothing but a door in the front wall of the studio, and that wall extended left and right to make a boundary for a little garden. Harvey Crook knocked at the door.
There was no answer. He repeated the knock, louder, and after a minute or two more discovered a bell, and knocked and rang furiously. It grew plain that Mr. Norie was out.
Now it would never do to go back without another attempt. There was a chance — eleven to one against, certainly, but that is no bad chance as things go — that the Eye of Goona itself lay in that modest little brick building. Hahn was in Southampton, and by aid of judicious inquiry he might learn of the situation of this particular magnum of Tokay at any minute. He might even contrive to get hold of Norie himself in some club or billiard-room in the town. Harvey Crook resolved to watch the building all night, if necessary.
Beyond the villas the road rose on a hill, which overlooked the studio and the town beyond. Crook went on up the hill, turning an occasional glance back toward the studio as he went. Dusk was dimming the outlines of the town and the water beyond, and lights twinkled in greater numbers from moment to moment. Turning to look at the studio once again, he clearly descried some dark object moving before the white frame of the skylight. What was this? Burglary? Could it be possible that Hahn was taking this short cut to the bottle of Tokay? He hurried down the hill at top speed.
He turned the corner by the villas, and approached the studio by springing strides on tip-toe. Plainly enough in the half-light he could see not one, but two men, mounting the skylight, the hindmost man with his leg hanging over the boundary wall. This was lucky. What better introduction to the owner than to seize burglars as they were entering the place? Busy at their work, the man seized the dangling leg with both hands.
There was a hasty exclamation from above, and the owner of the leg made a quick grab at the skylight frame to save himself from falling. “Who’s that?” he cried indignantly, peering back over his shoulder. “What are you after?”
“Well, if it comes to that,” replied Crook, holding on his tightest, “who are you and what are you after?” Though, indeed, he rather fancied he recognised the voice.
The man on the wall changed hands, turned round and peered down closer. “Why, hullo!” he said. “Don’t I know you somewhere?” And Crook thought it very likely, for he recognised one of the young men who had travelled with him in the train.
“Have you come to see Charlie Norie?” continued the young man on the wall; “because he’s out.”
“Yes, I have. But you don’t expect I’m going away leaving two men breaking into his house, do you? Just because one of the burglars tells me he’s out?”
The young man burst into a grin. “I say, Jack,” he called to his companion, who seemed to be half-way in the skylight, “he thinks we’re burglars!”
There was a stifled laugh from the di
rection of the skylight, and another head came poking over the shoulder of the man whose leg Crook was grasping.
“It’s all right,” said the head; “it’s only a bit of a plant on Charley.” And by the voice Crook knew that the head belong to the young sculptor of Prehistoric Man.
“Look here,” the sculptor went on, after a moment’s pause, “you come in yourself, if you want to see it’s all right. We’re both friends of Charley’s — just as much as you are. We’re only chalking up a score on him!”
The thing was plain enough now. This Norie, who had bought the magnum of Tokay, was the Charley of the railway-carriage conversation, and the raid now in progress was by way of reprisal for the Boaler outrage. An idea struck Harvey Crook.
“All right,” he said, “I’ll come. You drop in through the skylight, or we’ll be attracting attention.” And with that he released the other’s leg.
The sculptor dropped through the skylight and struck a match within, and his companion, after giving Crook a hand up, speedily followed.
“What were you thinking of doing?” asked Crook, when they were all three safe on the studio floor.
“Well, we didn’t quite know,” replied Jack, the sculptor, looking about him after striking a light. “We rather trusted to what we might find, not having been down here for some time. By the way — I say, you know, you’re the man that came down in the same carriage!”
“Quite right — I know! And I didn’t let on. But I wasn’t to know you meant the same Charley, was I? But don’t waste time, or he’ll be back. There’s one sell I can put you up to. He’s just bought a magnum of old Imperial Tokay.”
“Imperial Tokay? Exorbitant sybarite! Come, that certainly ought not to be allowed. A whole magnum of real Tokay for Charley Norie, while far more deserving persons like ourselves have never even smelt the divine tipple! As freeborn Britons we must see into this. Come, I know where he keeps his liquor, anyhow!”
The studio was handsomely furnished, though somewhat sparsely. Jack made straight for a fine old Dutch standing cupboard close by the door, wide and high, with a pair of large painted doors. He swung the doors open and disclosed many shelves of many bottles, intermingled with glasses and soda-syphons. Conspicuous among them all, lying on its side because of its height, was the magnum of Tokay. Crook picked it up and passed it to the others.
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 210