So that presently, as the triumphant Smith saw McNab disappear in the entrance of another hotel, he was touched on the shoulder, and turned to confront Symons.
“Good morning, Mr. Smith,” said Symons.
“My name’s Symons. You don’t know me, but I think we can do a stroke of business together. Shall we go back to Nottidge’s?”
So the nobby little traveller and the auctioneer’s clerk went back to Nottidge’s.
II.
MCNAB, with the parcel of precious magnums hugged under his arm, found Hahn, with a fluttering telegram in his hand, busy at the hotel office. Turning away hastily, he almost knocked McNab and his weighty burden over.
“Ay, Mr. Hahn,” said McNab, “ye see I’m no so long awa’. You hae luck, Mr. Hahn — I’ve three magnums o’ the Tokay here!”
Hahn was curiously preoccupied and excited, but he controlled himself by an effort.
“No!” he said. “You don’t say so, Mr. McNab! Three magnums?”
“Oh, ay, sir, three hail magnums o’ the lot that was roupit at Lawson’s. Ye shall hae ‘em as reasonable as pawsible, Mr. Hahn — though I paid cruel dear for ‘em mysel’!”
Hahn looked at his watch. “And how much shall we say, then, Mr. McNab,” he said, “for the three magnums?”
“I’ll juist tak’ aff the wrappers,” said McNab, fencing the question for the moment.
“I’ll juist tak’ aff, and ye shall see the bottles yersel’ — fine an’ great bottles as they are; fine great bottles.”
“Never mind that,” Hahn answered, impatiently. “Don’t bother about unpacking them. How much for the lot?”
McNab drew a long breath and looked hard in his customer’s eye.
“Feefty pun’,” he said.
“Right!” Hahn answered, hurriedly. “That’ll do. I must run out to the bank and get the money. Sit down here in the hall, Mr. McNab, and wait. I may be gone a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes — perhaps a little more. But you’ll be sure to wait, Mr. McNab, won’t you?”
“Oh, ay, I’ll wait,” answered McNab, readily enough, and he found a seat while Hahn hurried out at the door.
It was a noble profit, but he was angry with himself nevertheless. He never expected Hahn to jump so willingly at such a demand, and now he was consumed with vexation not to have asked more. He might as well have said a hundred — at worst Hahn could only have offered less. But how could any one have guessed that Hahn would pay such a sum? And at any rate fifty pounds for the three was the equivalent of the rate Merrick had paid for the whole case on the ship. But the consolation to be drawn from this fact was marred by the reflection that he, McNab, had sold this same Merrick a bottle for five pounds.
It was a wicked thing, thought McNab, for a rich man to take advantage of him like that.
Hahn was a long time gone to the bank, but a prospective profit of four hundred per cent, made McNab patient. And he had the satisfaction of scoring over Smith, too. For the steward had not long occupied his seat when Smith came puffing and hurrying in.
“Ah, here you are!” cried the nobby little man. “I thought this was where you came. I’ve come to do a deal. I’ll give you a profit on your bargain over them magnums.”
“Verra kind of ye, Mr. Smith,” replied McNab, sweetly. “What amount of profit would ye be disposed to offer?”
“I’ll give,” said Smith, “four quid a bottle.”
McNab shook his head with quiet enjoyment.
“Na, na, Mr. Smith,” he answered. “It’s no go, in your ain worrds. Twenty pun’ a bottle might do it, now.”
“Twenty? Pooh, nonsense! Look here, here you are, twelve sovereigns — no, I’ll make it thirteen. Here you are, thirteen quid for the three!” and he shook the money in his hand.
But McNab only shook his head again, and enjoyed the action. Clearly Smith had come to some sort of knowledge of the real value of this wonderful, this marvellous wine in the last half-hour. Perhaps — who could tell? — he had met Hahn outside, and Hahn had sent him to try to get the bottles cheaper. But that game wouldn’t do with McNab. Hahn would have to come himself and pay the full fifty. No, no!
“Won’t take it?” queried Smith, shortly.
“I sha’n’t offer a cent more — I can’t; wouldn’t get anything out of it for myself if I did. You’ll make more out of it than I shall, at that price. For the last time then, will you take the thirteen?”
“For the last time, Mr. Smith,” answered McNab, with a smile of amused superiority, “I will not!”
“All right — keep ‘em. No harm done!” And Smith slapped the money back into his pocket and strutted out.
Really, Hahn was a long time at the bank — a very long time. McNab waited and waited. He had been there more than an hour now, and the hotel servants were beginning to take an inquisitive interest in him. Presently one of the porters, after taking instructions at the office, came across and said, respectfully:
“Was you a-waiting for anybody, sir?”
“Ay,” answered McNab. “For Mr. Hahn.”
“But Mr. Hahn’s been gone an hour and more.”
“Oh, ay, I ken that verra weel. I’m just waiting till he comes back.”
The man looked surprised. “But he’s gone away, sir,” he said. “Gone by train. He sent his luggage before you came.”
“Eh? What? Gone by train? No, he’s no gone by train. He tell’t me he’d be back.”
The man looked a little doubtful at this.
“I’ll send and ask the boots, sir,” he said.
“He took the luggage to the station.”
The boots came, and testified not only that he had carried Hahn’s bag to the station, but that he had waited there and seen him go off by the 12.10 train for London. There was no doubt whatever about that, the man said with decision.
“He got a telegram,” explained the porter, “and ordered his bag down at once, sir. The boots went off with the bag just afore you came in, and left Mr. Hahn payin’ his bill. I see him a-talkin’ to you and a-lookin’ at his watch, an’ then he ran out an’ caught the train. Leastways, Boots ‘ere says he caught it.”
“Yes,” corroborated Boots, with all the affirmation he could muster, “he caught the train — I see him catch it. I see him catch it, certain I did, with my own eyes, myself!”
There was no getting beyond this, and the speculative McNab began to experience an awful sinking in the stomach. The telegram — he remembered seeing the telegram in Hahn’s hand. And now he remembered that Hahn had been rather oddly preoccupied, and, certainly, he had been in a great hurry to get away — to the bank, as McNab had fondly supposed. The two hotel servants stood stolidly looking into the steward’s pallid face, till presently McNab gasped:
“The bank — which is Mr. Hahn’s bank in the town?” The porter looked at the boots, and the boots looked at the porter. Then they shook their heads together.
“No bank, sir; not here, I should say. You see, he don’t live ‘ere. He’s only been ‘ere once before — a little while back. But I’ll ask at the office, if you like.”
The man went over to the office and left McNab a few quiet moments wherein to absorb the appalling conviction that in some mysterious, wholly unaccountable fashion he had been — done — done. Then the porter came back, shaking his head once more.
“He always pays his bills in cash, sir,” he said, “and did to-day, with a note from a roll of ‘em. They don’t think, in the office, as he has any bank ‘ere.”
“Notes?” gasped poor McNab. “A roll of notes? Was’t a big roll of notes?”
“Can’t say that, sir,” the man answered.
“They might know over at the office.”
Over to the office McNab went, with the porter close by his elbow, and asked his question about the roll of notes, explaining that Hahn owed him money. The young lady in the office said that the roll of notes seemed a pretty large one — a hundred pounds or more, she felt certain. And at that information �
� that proof that Hahn could have paid on the nail if he had wished to do so — the heart of McNab sank into his very boots. He suffered himself, unresisting, to be gently shepherded into the street, and there he walked up and down, hugging his hateful parcel in a daze of anger and despair.
No wonder Hahn had been so ready to agree to a price he never meant to pay. But then — why come after the wine in the first place? What did it all mean? And surely the whole thing could not be delusion? It was not only Hahn who wanted the wine — there was quite a crowd after it, all willing to pay well. And at that thought McNab’s wits came back. There was Smith — he had offered thirteen pounds to buy the bottles back. Come, there would be some profit in this thing, anyhow.
III.
THAT morning, in London, after the return from the scene of the tragedy in Redway Street, Harvey Crook found this telegram awaiting him:
“THREE MAGNUMS TOKAY HERE, BUT MAY HAVE TO PAY LONG PRICE. HOW HIGH MAY I GO? HAHN HERE. — SYMONS.”
The Tokay interested Harvey Crook no more. The great green diamond had left its lurking-place in the bottle bought by poor old Mr. Clifton, and was now in the hands of Mehta Singh, leaving a track of murder behind it. Of that Crook was certain enough; the tale he had heard of Pritchard’s behaviour upon his receipt of the mysterious object-letter, of his shutting himself up in his room, obviously frightened, but clinging to the stolen jewel still, his previous visits to Isaacs’s office, and the rest of the whole matter — these things left no doubt in Crook’s mind.
So that he resolved to instruct Symons to trouble no more about the wine. But the tail of the message was significant. Hahn was in Southampton — apparently, since Symons mentioned the fact, still trying to buy the wine. Indeed, there seemed no reason for Symons’s mentioning his name in connection with the possibility that a high price might have to be paid for the Tokay, except to suggest that Hahn’s competition might raise the price. This would seem to indicate that Hahn was not in league with Mehta Singh, knew nothing of the actual situation of the Green Eye, nothing of the murder in Redway Street.
The reflection gave Crook an odd sense of relief for which he would have found it difficult to give a reason. The man was a scoundrel, and Crook had no reason to love him; yet it was in some way a comfort to believe that he was not an accomplice in murder. So Crook replied to Symons thus:
“BUY NO MORE TOKAY OF THAT LOT. I WILL COME DOWN AND EXPLAIN. — CROOK.”
Crook felt that some compensation was due to Symons for this sudden rescission of his orders, and for the trouble to which he had been put. So he decided to run down to Southampton and settle, while he had a few unoccupied hours. It was because of Symons’s receipt of this telegram from Crook that further tribulation fell on the head of McNab. When that Napoleon of commerce at last abandoned his forlorn perambulations before the door of the hotel which Hahn had abandoned, he made his best pace for Nottidge’s. Smith was there, smoking a cigar half a foot too long for a man of his size, and writing a letter in the commercial room.
“Mr. Smith,” cried McNab, “I’ve changed my mind, I’ll tak’ your thirteen pun’.”
Mr. Smith turned round in his chair and looked up at McNab, with the cigar cocked up as though it were a pea-shooter directed at the steward’s head. So he surveyed McNab for a moment, and then shook his head, solemnly.
“It’s no go — in my own words, as you said. No go, my cute friend!”
“No go! But surely ye stand by your offer, man?”
“I made my offer once, and you wouldn’t have it. ‘He that will not when he may’ — you know that pretty little verse, don’t you?”
“The twal’ pun’ then — surely ye’ll gie twal’ pun’?”
Smith’s round, sleek head began shaking steadily again.
“I’m quite sure I won’t give you twelve pennies,” he answered, deliberately. “When I made you that offer, it wasn’t for the sake of the wine, you may be sure, else I shouldn’t ha’ sold it you for what I did. I made that offer because I had a better one, and I could ha’ made a quid or two out of it — and so could you. But that better offer’s withdrawn now — it’s off. Consequence, I don’t want the wine, and I’m perfectly satisfied with the transaction as it stands. I’ve done all right out of it!”
McNab was plumbing the very deeps of despair.
“But ye’ll no leave ‘em on my hands like this, Mr. Smith,” he pleaded. “Ye’ll relieve me of some pairt of the loss, conseederin’ the circumstances?”
“Considerin’ the circumstances I’ll see you blowed first. Why should I take any of your loss? You’d ha’ made a gain if you’d taken my offer — and you grinned in my face when I made it! No, my boy. I’ll tell you who it was made me the higher offer, if you like — the offer that’s withdrawn. You can try him; go and give him a turn before I begin to get tired of you!”
“What’s his address, Mr. Smith?”
“Symons, the clerk at Lawson’s, auctioneer’s — up by the Memorial Hall. Where the stuff came from first.”
McNab waited no more, but tore away to Symons with the fateful parcel in his arms. Symons was as tough as Smith. He had had an order for the wine, and now the order was countermanded; that was all. He wouldn’t buy the three magnums, nor two, nor even one, at any price whatever. And he was most exasperatingly cheerful over the whole transaction; so that now at last, driven to utter madness, the unhappy McNab ranted and swore and danced on the office door-step, and proclaimed his wrongs aloud to all the world.
“It’s a conspeeracy!” he cried. “A rank, creeminal conspeeracy among the hail gang o’ ye, sendin’ me frae one to t’ither! A wicked conspeeracy to rob me o’ my money! I’m robbit — robbit o’ ten pun’ by a hail gang o’ thieving conspeerators!”
So that in the end, for the credit of the office, it grew necessary to call a policeman to propel the vociferous victim on his way. And so at last he went, and Symons saw him no more. But McNab’s talk of conspirators sending him from one to another, and the other glimpses of the day’s doings which had been vouchsafed Symons, sufficiently aroused his curiosity to induce him to spend an hour in tracing the steward’s adventures from Nottidge’s to the other hotel and back again. So that when Crook arrived in Southampton that evening Symons was able not only to explain how Mr. Clifton came by his second magnum, but also to give him a pretty clear idea of the course of events during the day.
“Hahn came into the office twice — I don’t know why,” said Symons. “Once yesterday and once early this morning. He made casual inquiries about that Tokay each time, but didn’t seem to care what I told him, or whether I told him or not. Not a bit so keen on it as he was before. But he seemed very anxious to bring himself to my recollection, and asked me each time if I remembered him. And he was particular, also, to tell me each time where he was staying, and that he’d been there since yesterday morning — the eighteenth, as he was careful to say. I don’t know why he thought I wanted to know about his movements!”
Crook also could not account for it till an idea struck him. And then the idea was that perhaps Hahn was not innocent of complicity in the murder of Pritchard after all. For what could it mean, this anxiety to impress on a stranger his identity, the date, and the time of his stay in Southampton? What but a careful preparation for a later proof, if it were necessary, of his absence from London on the night of the eighteenth? In short, an alibi?
THE GREEN EYE
I.
HARVEY CROOK returned to London by the early morning train, busy with many thoughts. From what he had learned at Southampton it seemed probable — indeed, it grew clear — that beyond himself there was only one party of searchers after the great green diamond, and that Mehta Singh and Hahn were acting in alliance. Before the night when it had been planned that the wretched criminal Pritchard should be murdered for the sake of the jewel he carried, Hahn had been careful to travel to a place eighty miles distant from the scene of the tragedy, to remain there over the fatal night at an hotel where he
was known, and to bring himself to the notice of anybody who could identify him. The object — to make ready for an alibi, should it be necessary — was apparent. Then on the following day, on receipt of a telegram, he had returned to London by the next available train. He had been waiting for that telegram, it seemed, from the first thing in the morning, and had inquired for it several times. So much Crook learned by boldly inquiring for him at the hotel, and then, on being told that he had gone to London, asking if he had received a telegram.
Now, what could have been the purport of that telegram, and from whom could it have come? From whom but Mehta Singh, advising him of the successful accomplishment of the crime? Everything pointed in the same direction. Hahn had called at the auctioneer’s office with inquiries as to the bottles of wine, in one of which the jewel had formerly been concealed; but, as Symons, the clerk, had said, it was plainly more with the object of making his presence in Southampton known than in any eagerness after the Tokay, about which, in fact, he seemed strangely indifferent by contrast with his earlier anxiety. So that, on the whole, the thing was plain enough. The murder was Mehta Singh’s, with the aid of the docile Jatterji, and, once it was well over, and his own absence from the scene established in case of future trouble, Hahn had hastened off to share in its profits.
The police must know this, Crook reflected, as soon as he could convey the information to Inspector Wickes. And with that reflection came another — that he must give up the notion of himself recovering and restoring the Green Eye to its lawful owner, the rajah. For, if the criminals escaped, the diamond would go with them; and, if they were taken, the police would seize the jewel. And clearly Crook’s energies, if they were to be exerted in the matter, must be exerted on the side of the law. On the whole, Crook was not altogether disappointed; for, if he recovered the stone himself, and opened negotiations from England for its return, he would be in the not wholly worthy position of an unlawful possessor demanding something like blackmail; and, if he carried it into India, he would at best be dependent on the rajah’s whim for his profit, and probably for his life, if he ventured into the snug little native state of Goona with that stone in his possession and no particular proof — what proof could there be? — that he had not himself been implicated in the original theft.
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 221