Now it is just possible that the risk of this adventure might have attracted Crook six months ago. But something had occurred meantime which had caused Harvey Crook to look on many things with changed eyes. Possibly the reader may not have noticed it. Small blame be his if he has not. Even Mr. Merrick had not noticed it, in fact; but — and this was all that really mattered — Mr. Merrick’s daughter had. More, her own view had undergone just so much modification that, whatever view she took of anything, Mr. Harvey Crook occupied the central and most important space in that view. So that, while for Harvey Crook a journey East, of doubtful profit, every mile of which would carry him farther from Daisy Merrick, presented a singularly unattractive aspect, that young lady’s own private inclinations, had any supernatural means of penetrating them been available, might have been found ready to offer obstacles of their own.
So Crook, well reconciled to the prospect of losing a profit on the straying diamond, came to London with none the less desire to see it recovered from Hahn’s clutches. For Hahn, it was plain, must have been the moving spirit in the theft from the beginning. He it was who had tricked Crook into accepting the risk of its transport to Europe, and there could be no doubt that it was he also who had devised the plan for its abstraction from the Goona treasures in the Durbar camp, and had supplied Mehta Singh with the false crystal found in the hand of their accomplice-victim, the professional thief, after Mehta Singh had cut him down.
Arrived in London while the morning was still young, Crook called a cab, with the idea of an instant visit to Sergeant Wickes at Scotland Yard. All down Whitehall his cab followed another, which turned into the yard first, and, as Crook alighted, he was surprised to perceive Mr. Merrick paying the driver of this first cab.
“I’ve come to worry Sergeant Wickes,” explained Merrick. “I’ve got tangled up in this adventure so far, and I want to see it right through. I haven’t seen Sergeant Wickes since we left him at Redway Street yesterday, and I want news, if there is any. He won’t mind, will he?”
“Probably not,” Crook answered, “especially as I have brought some information for him.”
Wickes, by chance, was on the premises — in the act of leaving, in fact. He heard all Crook had to tell him with great interest. Yesterday’s inquiries after the Hindoos, he admitted, had led to nothing as yet, and he saw readily enough that Hahn might well supply another clue leading in this direction, if his movements after leaving Southampton could but be traced.
“We know the train he came by,” Wickes said, thoughtfully, “and, if he took a cab at Waterloo, we can find that, too. I am immensely obliged to you, Mr. Crook. Meantime, gentlemen, I think, in confidence, I may show you this. It arrived by post, as you see, just now. Rather odd, I think.”
He pushed an envelope across the table, addressed simply, “Police, New Scotland Yard, S. W.” The address itself was laconic enough, but that was not what startled Merrick and Crook together, but the fact that the address was built up with capital letters, cut from newspaper headings, and pasted on the envelope — just as had been done with the envelopes found in Pritchard’s room. Crook took the envelope and opened it. Within was a sheet of paper inscribed in precisely the same way, in capital letters, cut from a newspaper, thus:
“REDWAY STREET MURDERERS, TWO INDIANS HIDING. IN OLD HOUSE, CORNER OF LARTER STREET AND. ROOK STREET, LAMBETH. CAPTURE QUICKLY.”
“That is where I am going at once,” Wickes said, rising. “If you gentlemen are interested, there’s nothing to prevent you coming, too — independently, of course. You have seen the men, and may be able to identify them, if they are there. I have just been making arrangements in the matter, or you would have missed me.”
Wickes and a brother officer went in a hansom, and Crook and Merrick followed in another, perplexed and expectant. What was the meaning of this odd communication to the police, and who could have sent it? Was it a mere blind? That would soon be proved one way or the other. And yet it seemed wholly unlikely. If the guilty persons were using such a communication to put the police off the scent they would scarcely give away the important fact that they were Indians; that, at any rate, would be anything but a safeguard. And, in any case, who could have sent the note?
The curious manner in which it was built up in printed letters of course suggested the Babu Jatterji — it was precisely the expedient he had adopted a day or two ago to prevent the identification of his handwriting. But, although it was possible — even likely — that he might denounce Mehta Singh to save himself, would he denounce himself at the same time? There was no distinction made — the note spoke of two murderers.
Further, if Mehta Singh and Jatterji were together, how could the Babu have found an opportunity to paste up this elaborate note unobserved? This consideration led to another conjecture. Could it be possible that there were three Indians altogether, two beside Jatterji, concerned in the crime? The postmark gave no help at all; that was merely “London, W.C.”
The ride was a short one. Once over Westminster Bridge, the cab ahead traversed the main road for a little more than a quarter of a mile, then turned once to the left and again to the right, and then pulled up. Wickes paid the cabman and walked back to Crook.
“This will be near enough,” he said.
“You can follow on foot. Of course, the place is watched from outside already — I saw to that at once.”
Wickes and his companion walked smartly off, and Crook and Merrick followed. The district was one which seemed to be in course of changing its character. Large manufacturing buildings were taking the place of small cottage-dwellings; such as remained being now squalid enough, though plainly at one time semi-rural, clean, and even sometimes picturesque. Here and there among the cottages a larger detached house stood, now either devoted to some sort of manufacturing purpose or standing blank and derelict. Through two or three such streets as these Wickes led the way, and stopped at the farther end of the last, where a stout hoarding enclosed a small piece of ground, vacant, except for a house at the extreme corner.
Much demolition was going on hereabout, and the street was almost bare of passengers. Wickes stepped back into the road, and his companion turned the corner; and at once, as in response to a signal, two or three men — unmistakably police in plain clothes — appeared from adjoining corners and collected at the door of the hoarding.
The door was fastened with a padlock. One of the men lifted this padlock, peeped into it, and then looked inquiringly at Wickes, who nodded. This done, the man gave a gentle rap at the door and straightway produced something from his pocket, applied it to the lock and opened it instantly.
“Not strictly regular, perhaps,” Wickes remarked to Crook, who was now close behind him; “but we mustn’t be overceremonious in a case like this.”
The ground was waste, and choked with bricks and rubbish. The house was fairly sound, though plainly it had not been inhabited for many years. The ground next the side street was bounded, not by a hoarding, but by a fairly high wall, and a short covered way led from the rear part of the house to this wall — evidently to a door which Wickes’s companion had gone to guard.
Wickes ascended the half-dozen steps and rapped smartly at the front door of the house.
There was no response. Wickes beckoned and pointed, and the man who had opened the padlock now came forward and broke a pane in the window of a small room close by the door, inserted his arm, unfastened the catch, and, with a good deal of trouble, for it was long since the window had been opened, succeeded at last in forcing up the sash. This done, he climbed in, and presently, with a deal of creaking and wrenching and pulling, and much shuddering opposition from the old woodwork, the door stood open.
“Look out there!” Wickes said, quietly, with a glance at his assistants waiting in the open.
And at once, followed by Crook and Merrick, he entered the house. In the hall they paused a moment to listen. There was not a sound of any sort. They went a few steps farther, and listened again. Still not
a sound. Wickes started up the stairs, followed by the others.
“If they’ve common sense,” he observed, “they’ll be up-stairs in the daytime for the sake of the lookout — if they’re here at all, of course.”
It grew plain either that the quarry had no common sense or were not in the house; for room after room was entered, and room after room had nothing for the eye but dust and grime; nothing for the ear but the sound of the searchers’ own footsteps.
“Somebody has been here,” observed Wickes— “and lately. You notice that feet have disturbed the dust a little in every room. But I fancy we’re too late. If they were below, they must have made a bolt before this, and my fellows would have had them. But we’ll see.”
Down-stairs they went, to the kitchen floor; and here it grew plain that the house had been tenanted recently. For crumbs littered the floor, and sheets of newspaper were spread, one at each end of the room, and on one of these lay a broken part of a loaf, still quite fresh.
“See there,” observed Wickes, “somebody has been sitting on each of these sheets of newspaper with his heels drawn up in front of him — see the marks? And the sheets are at opposite ends of the room, too! Now, Mr. Crook, you know about Indian manners and customs. What does that suggest to you?”
“Mehta Singh and Jatterji!” replied Crook promptly. “Mehta Singh would never sit to eat with Jatterji; even when they were not eating, he would make Jatterji keep the lower end of the room. These fellows might show themselves very civil to each other before Europeans; but leave them alone, even in such an awkward situation as this, and the pride of race asserts itself at once.”
But it was plain, whatever might have been, that neither Mehta Singh nor Jatterji were now on the premises, nor anybody else beyond the searchers. The front door had not been opened lately — that was plain enough — and the grimy windows were fast in their frames, even as the one had been through which Wickes’s man had entered.
There remained the back door into Rook Street, and an examination showed that that had been used, apparently, for both entrance and exit. The thick dust in the passage in the short covered way was trodden with footmarks in both directions, and the lock of the door into the street had lately been oiled.
“We’ve drawn blank,” said Wickes at last, “but they’ve been here, for certain. They’ve eaten nothing but bread — an Englishman would have brought in more than that, to say nothing of beer. Tramps wouldn’t have troubled to put down newspaper to sit on, and Englishmen wouldn’t have sat at opposite ends of the room. They’ve gone now, anyhow; and the next thing is to find how they got here. They’ve come with a key. We must find out how they got it.”
They turned back once more, and took a final look at the kitchen, Wickes and Crook narrowly examining every corner in search of further traces. In the drawer of the dresser they found another loaf, cut in two for convenience of stowage, but otherwise untouched, and wrapped in a piece of clean white muslin cloth; and by its side lay a bottle, less than half full of water. Clearly the fugitives had been making no luxurious picnic.
As they turned to leave the kitchen again, Crook perceived, in a dark angle behind the door, what at first he took to be a scrap of white paper. He reached and turned it over, and so found it to be only a similar piece of similar muslin cloth to that in which the bread was wrapped. Something seemed to be in it, and, as he pulled it toward him by a corner of the muslin that something rolled out.
And it was a green stone — a brilliant green stone, an oval-cut stone an inch and a half long!
“Look! look at that!” cried Crook, springing to his feet with the jewel extended in his hand. “Look! In this muslin! On the floor!”
“Gee-willikins!” cried Mr. Merrick, mouth and eyes at their widest. “The Green Eye of Goona!”
All three men stood aghast, and even the stolid lock-breaking policeman was startled out of his habitual serenity, and exhibited signs of lively interest in the discovery.
“I think I must take charge of that,” Wickes said, presently. “It must go to the Yard as soon as possible.”
“Why on earth should they leave it behind them?” asked Merrick.
Wickes shook his head.
“Impossible to guess,” he said. “No matter how much of a sudden bolt they may have made, this would be easy enough to carry. And more than that, I should have expected one of them to keep it somewhere securely about him, not to leave it lying anywhere loose on the floor like this. But that we shall find out — perhaps. This is satisfactory enough as far as it goes, but what we want is to put our hands on the men. This is merely lost property — immensely valuable, no doubt, but not what we started after.”
The discovery was so wholly unaccountable that Wickes at once began another complete search through the house, including cellars, cupboards, outhouses, and every possible place wherein a man might hide. It seemed incredible that the stone should have been left thus. But their second search ended even as the first. Not a living thing beside themselves was in that house or about it.
And so they left the derelict house, perplexed and bewildered. The place was made fast again, and the men were put unobtrusively on the watch once more; for, since the jewel had been left behind, it seemed all the more likely that the fugitives would return to the place to recover it.
A few inquiries in the neighbourhood revealed the fact that the site had been bought by the local authority for a block of new offices, and an inquiry at the present offices of that body led to the further information that a local house-breaker had contracted to erect the hoarding and leave the site clear in a month.
It was not far from midday when at length the house-breaker was found — a large, smudgy, and now rather anxious and apologetic person. He hoped there wouldn’t be any trouble over it, he protested anxiously. He had the place in hand for the next month, and, as long as he got cleared in time, he didn’t think there’d be any harm in making an extra few pounds out of the loan of the key to a gentleman — leastways, he seemed a gentleman, quite a gentleman. Reassured as to his own immunity from serious tribulation in the matter, the house-breaker was communicative enough.
A gentleman had come to him a few days ago, just as he was going off after finishing the hoarding. The gentleman was well-dressed and civil, and said he was the agent of a firm of hide merchants who were changing their warehouse, and wanted a place for a fortnight or so in which to stow a few bales till the new premises were ready.
He was ready to pay five pounds down, if he could be given the key for the two weeks, and the house-breaker had seen no harm in closing with the bargain. There would be plenty of time to do his wrecking after the bales had been taken away, and five pounds made a handsome addition to his profit. The gentleman had not had the key of the hoarding, but the key of the door in the side wall; and that was all that the housebreaking contractor could say.
In reply to other questions it appeared that the gentleman had called himself Mr. Turner, though, as nearly as the man could describe him, he would seem to have borne an uncommon resemblance to Hahn. And so at last the house-breaker was let go about his business, to his great relief. Wickes went off to make fresh mysterious arrangements of his own, and Crook and Merrick went off, too — to lunch.
II.
TWO days passed, and until the afternoon of the second day nothing more was heard from Wickes. Crook had business of his own to attend to, but found time to call once or twice at Scotland Yard — without finding Wickes in. As for Lyman W. Merrick, he passed those two days in hurrying about in hansoms, with a wild notion of helping, or at any rate, of seeing something of the progress of the adventure, by pure dint of rushing over as much of London as possible between meals. Each evening Crook dined with him and Daisy; and all three were equally puzzled to account for the doings at the old house at Lambeth; more especially, on the second evening, for something which Crook had learned from Wickes that afternoon.
The detective called at Crook’s hotel soon after four, and wis
hed to know, first, if he had heard or seen anything of any of the three men they were after, since the visit to Lambeth. Crook had seen none of them, of course, nor heard news; in his turn he asked if Wickes or his men had been more fortunate.
“Well, no,” the detective replied; “I can’t claim that we have had any very great luck. By the way, you’re on the telephone here, aren’t you, Mr. Crook?”
“Yes, of course — in the office downstairs.”
“Very well. I’ll take the number as I leave. Perhaps you’ll be good enough to leave a message in the office when you go out, so that we can get in communication with you without any undue waste of time. It’s identification I’m thinking about, you know. We’re watching the docks and certain other places, and I quite expect one of my fellows will be arresting the wrong Hindoos sooner or later. Of course, we’ve got the landlady of the house in Redway Street; but she only knows Jatterji, and we haven’t anybody at all who knows the others except you.”
“Very well. I’ll do anything you like, of course.”
“Thank you, Mr. Crook. And now see here. Here’s the stone you found at the old house.”
He took the muslin packet from his pocket, unfolded it, and displayed the great green gem. “Here it is. Looks brilliant, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, of course it does!”
“Precisely. So it did when we first saw it in that dirty old kitchen. So it did when I had another look at it myself after I left you. So it did all along, in fact, till this afternoon, when I put it beside a real one!”
“A real one?”
“Yes, a real one — at Wetherby’s, in Bond Street. This is a coloured crystal, and nothing else!”
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 222