The Big Book of Female Detectives

by The Big Book of Female Detectives (retail) (epub)

  Whittington seemed to remonstrate with him, but he merely laughed.

  “Why not, my friend? It is a name most respectable—most common. Did he not choose it for that reason? Ah, I should like to meet him—Mr. Brown.”

  There was a steely ring in Whittington’s voice as he replied:

  “Who knows? You may have met him already.”

  “Bah!” retorted the other. “That is children’s talk—a fable for the police. Do you know what I say to myself sometimes? That he is a fable invented by the Inner Ring, a bogy to frighten us with. It might be so.”

  “And it might not.”

  “I wonder…or is it indeed true that he is with us and amongst us, unknown to all but a chosen few? If so, he keeps his secret well. And the idea is a good one, yes. We never know. We look at each other—one of us is Mr. Brown—which? He commands—but also he serves. Among us—in the midst of us. And no one knows which he is….”

  With an effort the Russian shook off the vagary of his fancy. He looked at his watch.

  “Yes,” said Whittington. “We might as well go.”

  He called the waitress and asked for his bill. Tommy did likewise, and a few moments later was following the two men down the stairs.

  Outside, Whittington hailed a taxi, and directed the driver to go to Waterloo.

  Taxis were plentiful here, and before Whittington’s had driven off another was drawing up to the curb in obedience to Tommy’s peremptory hand.

  “Follow that other taxi,” directed the young man. “Don’t lose it.”

  The elderly chauffeur showed no interest. He merely grunted and jerked down his flag. The drive was uneventful. Tommy’s taxi came to rest at the departure platform just after Whittington’s. Tommy was behind him at the booking-office. He took a first-class single ticket to Bournemouth, Tommy did the same. As he emerged, Boris remarked, glancing up at the clock: “You are early. You have nearly half an hour.”

  Boris’s words had aroused a new train of thought in Tommy’s mind. Clearly Whittington was making the journey alone, while the other remained in London. Therefore he was left with a choice as to which he would follow. Obviously, he could not follow both of them unless—— Like Boris, he glanced up at the clock, and then to the announcement board of the trains. The Bournemouth train left at 3:30. It was now ten past. Whittington and Boris were walking up and down by the bookstall. He gave one doubtful look at them, then hurried into an adjacent telephone box. He dared not waste time in trying to get hold of Tuppence. In all probability she was still in the neighbourhood of South Audley Mansions. But there remained another ally. He rang up the Ritz and asked for Julius Hersheimmer. There was a click and a buzz. Oh, if only the young American was in his room! There was another click, and then “Hello” in unmistakable accents came over the wire.

  “That you, Hersheimmer? Beresford speaking. I’m at Waterloo. I’ve followed Whittington and another man here. No time to explain. Whittington’s off to Bournemouth by the 3:30. Can you get there by then?”

  The reply was reassuring.

  “Sure. I’ll hustle.”

  The telephone rang off. Tommy put back the receiver with a sigh of relief. His opinion of Julius’s power of hustling was high. He felt instinctively that the American would arrive in time.

  Whittington and Boris were still where he had left them. If Boris remained to see his friend off, all was well. Then Tommy fingered his pocket thoughtfully. In spite of the carte blanche assured to him, he had not yet acquired the habit of going about with any considerable sum of money on him. The taking of the first-class ticket to Bournemouth had left him with only a few shillings in his pocket. It was to be hoped that Julius would arrive better provided.

  In the meantime, the minutes were creeping by: 3:15, 3:20, 3:25, 3:27. Supposing Julius did not get there in time. 3:29….Doors were banging. Tommy felt cold waves of despair pass over him. Then a hand fell on his shoulder.

  “Here I am, son. Your British traffic beats description! Put me wise to the crooks right away.”

  “That’s Whittington—there, getting in now, that big dark man. The other is the foreign chap he’s talking to.”

  “I’m on to them. Which of the two is my bird?”

  Tommy had thought out this question.

  “Got any money with you?”

  Julius shook his head, and Tommy’s face fell.

  “I guess I haven’t more than three or four hundred dollars with me at the moment,” explained the American.

  Tommy gave a faint whoop of relief.

  “Oh, Lord, you millionaires! You don’t talk the same language! Climb aboard the lugger. Here’s your ticket. Whittington’s your man.”

  “Me for Whittington!” said Julius darkly. The train was just starting as he swung himself aboard. “So long, Tommy.” The train slid out of the station.

  Tommy drew a deep breath. The man Boris was coming along the platform towards him. Tommy allowed him to pass and then took up the chase once more.

  From Waterloo Boris took the tube as far as Piccadilly Circus. Then he walked up Shaftesbury Avenue, finally turning off into the maze of mean streets round Soho. Tommy followed him at a judicious distance.

  They reached at length a small dilapidated square. The houses there had a sinister air in the midst of their dirt and decay. Boris looked round, and Tommy drew back into the shelter of a friendly porch. The place was almost deserted. It was a cul-de-sac, and consequently no traffic passed that way. The stealthy way the other had looked round stimulated Tommy’s imagination. From the shelter of the doorway he watched him go up the steps of a particularly evil-looking house and rap sharply, with a peculiar rhythm, on the door. It was opened promptly, he said a word or two to the doorkeeper, then passed inside. The door was shut to again.

  It was at this juncture that Tommy lost his head. What he ought to have done, what any sane man would have done, was to remain patiently where he was and wait for his man to come out again. What he did do was entirely foreign to the sober common sense which was, as a rule, his leading characteristic. Something, as he expressed it, seemed to snap in his brain. Without a moment’s pause for reflection he, too, went up the steps, and reproduced as far as he was able the peculiar knock.

  The door swung open with the same promptness as before. A villainous-faced man with close-cropped hair stood in the doorway.

  “Well?” he grunted.

  It was at that moment that the full realization of his folly began to come home to Tommy. But he dared not hesitate. He seized at the first words that came into his mind.

  “Mr. Brown?” he said.

  To his surprise the man stood aside.

  “Upstairs,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, “second door on your left.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  The Adventures of Tommy

  Taken aback though he was by the man’s words, Tommy did not hesitate. If audacity had successfully carried him so far, it was to be hoped it would carry him yet farther. He quietly passed into the house and mounted the ramshackle staircase. Everything in the house was filthy beyond words. The grimy paper, of a pattern now indistinguishable, hung in loose festoons from the wall. In every angle was a grey mass of cobweb.

  Tommy proceeded leisurely. By the time he reached the bend of the staircase, he had heard the man below disappear into a back room. Clearly no suspicion attached to him as yet. To come to the house and ask for “Mr. Brown” appeared indeed to be a reasonable and natural proceeding.

  At the top of the stairs Tommy halted to consider his next move. In front of him ran a narrow passage, with doors opening on either side of it. From the one nearest him on the left came a low murmur of voices. It was this room which he had been directed to enter. But what held his glance fascinated was a small recess immediately on his right, half concealed
by a torn velvet curtain. It was directly opposite the left-handed door and, owing to its angle, it also commanded a good view of the upper part of the staircase. As a hiding-place for one or, at a pinch, two men, it was ideal, being about two feet deep and three feet wide. It attracted Tommy mightily. He thought things over in his usual slow and steady way, deciding that the mention of “Mr. Brown” was not a request for an individual, but in all probability a password used by the gang. His lucky use of it had gained him admission. So far he had aroused no suspicion. But he must decide quickly on his next step.

  Suppose he were boldly to enter the room on the left of the passage. Would the mere fact of his having been admitted to the house be sufficient? Perhaps a further password would be required, or, at any rate, some proof of identity. The doorkeeper clearly did not know all the members of the gang by sight, but it might be different upstairs. On the whole it seemed to him that luck had served him very well so far, but that there was such a thing as trusting it too far. To enter that room was a colossal risk. He could not hope to sustain his part indefinitely; sooner or later he was almost bound to betray himself, and then he would have thrown away a vital chance in mere foolhardiness.

  A repetition of the signal knock sounded on the door below, and Tommy, his mind made up, slipped quickly into the recess, and cautiously drew the curtain farther across so that it shielded him completely from sight. There were several rents and slits in the ancient material which afforded him a good view. He would watch events, and any time he chose could, after all, join the assembly, modelling his behaviour on that of the new arrival.

  The man who came up the staircase with a furtive, soft-footed tread was quite unknown to Tommy. He was obviously of the very dregs of society. The low beetling brows, and the criminal jaw, the bestiality of the whole countenance were new to the young man, though he was a type that Scotland Yard would have recognized at a glance.

  The man passed the recess, breathing heavily as he went. He stopped at the door opposite, and gave a repetition of the signal knock. A voice inside called out something, and the man opened the door and passed in, affording Tommy a momentary glimpse of the room inside. He thought there must be about four or five people seated round a long table that took up most of the space, but his attention was caught and held by a tall man with close-cropped hair and a short, pointed, naval-looking beard, who sat at the head of the table with papers in front of him. As the new-comer entered he glanced up, and with a correct, but curiously precise enunciation, which attracted Tommy’s notice, he asked:

  “Your number, comrade?”

  “Fourteen, guv’nor,” replied the other hoarsely.

  “Correct.”

  The door shut again.

  “If that isn’t a Hun, I’m a Dutchman!” said Tommy to himself. “And running the show darned systematically too—as they always do. Lucky I didn’t roll in. I’d have given the wrong number, and there would have been the deuce to pay. No, this is the place for me. Hullo, here’s another knock.”

  This visitor proved to be of an entirely different type to the last. Tommy recognized in him an Irish Sinn Feiner. Certainly Mr. Brown’s organization was a far-reaching concern. The common criminal, the well-bred Irish gentleman, the pale Russian, and the efficient German master of the ceremonies! Truly a strange and sinister gathering! Who was this man who held in his finger these curiously variegated links of an unknown chain?

  In this case, the procedure was exactly the same. The signal knock, the demand for a number, and the reply “Correct.”

  Two knocks followed in quick succession on the door below. The first man was quite unknown to Tommy, who put him down as a city clerk. A quiet, intelligent-looking man, rather shabbily dressed. The second was of the working classes, and his face was vaguely familiar to the young man.

  Three minutes later came another, a man of commanding appearance, exquisitely dressed, and evidently well born. His face, again, was not unknown to the watcher, though he could not for the moment put a name to it.

  After his arrival there was a long wait. In fact Tommy concluded that the gathering was now complete, and was just cautiously creeping out from his hiding-place, when another knock sent him scuttling back to cover.

  This last-comer came up the stairs so quietly that he was almost abreast of Tommy before the young man had realized his presence.

  He was a small man, very pale, with a gentle almost womanish air. The angle of the cheek-bones hinted at his Slavonic ancestry, otherwise there was nothing to indicate his nationality. As he passed the recess, he turned his head slowly. The strange light eyes seemed to burn through the curtain; Tommy could hardly believe that the man did not know he was there and in spite of himself he shivered. He was no more fanciful than the majority of young Englishmen, but he could not rid himself of the impression that some unusually potent force emanated from the man. The creature reminded him of a venomous snake.

  A moment later his impression was proved correct. The new-comer knocked on the door as all had done, but his reception was very different. The bearded man rose to his feet, and all the others followed suit. The German came forward and shook hands. His heels clicked together.

  “We are honoured,” he said. “We are greatly honoured. I much feared that it would be impossible.”

  The other answered in a low voice that had a kind of hiss in it:

  “There were difficulties. It will not be possible again, I fear. But one meeting is essential—to define my policy. I can do nothing without—Mr. Brown. He is here?”

  The change in the German’s voice was audible as he replied with slight hesitation:

  “We have received a message. It is impossible for him to be present in person.” He stopped, giving a curious impression of having left the sentence unfinished.

  A very slow smile overspread the face of the other. He looked round at a circle of uneasy faces.

  “Ah! I understand. I have read of his methods. He works in the dark and trusts no one. But, all the same, it is possible that he is among us now….” He looked round him again, and again that expression of fear swept over the group. Each man seemed to be eyeing his neighbour doubtfully.

  The Russian tapped his cheek.

  “So be it. Let us proceed.”

  The German seemed to pull himself together. He indicated the place he had been occupying at the head of the table. The Russian demurred, but the other insisted.

  “It is the only possible place,” he said, “for—Number One. Perhaps Number Fourteen will shut the door?”

  In another moment Tommy was once more confronting bare wooden panels, and the voices within had sunk once more to a mere undistinguishable murmur. Tommy became restive. The conversation he had overheard had stimulated his curiosity. He felt that, by hook or by crook, he must hear more.

  There was no sound from below, and it did not seem likely that the doorkeeper would come upstairs. After listening intently for a minute or two, he put his head round the curtain. The passage was deserted. Tommy bent down and removed his shoes, then, leaving them behind the curtain, he walked gingerly out on his stockinged feet, and kneeling down by the closed door he laid his ear cautiously to the crack. To his intense annoyance he could distinguish little more; just a chance word here and there if a voice was raised, which merely served to whet his curiosity still farther.

  He eyed the handle of the door tentatively. Could he turn it by degrees so gently and imperceptibly that those in the room would notice nothing? He decided that with great care it could be done. Very slowly, a fraction of an inch at a time, he moved it round, holding his breath in his excessive care. A little more—a little more still—would it never be finished? Ah! at last it would turn no farther.

  He stayed so for a minute or two, then drew a deep breath, and pressed it ever so slightly inward. The door did not budge. Tommy was annoyed. If he had to use t
oo much force, it would almost certainly creak. He waited until the voices rose a little, then he tried again. Still nothing happened. He increased the pressure. Had the beastly thing stuck? Finally, in desperation, he pushed with all his might. But the door remained firm, and at last the truth dawned upon him. It was locked or bolted on the inside.

  For a moment or two Tommy’s indignation got the better of him.

  “Well, I’m damned!” he said. “What a dirty trick!”

  As his indignation cooled, he prepared to face the situation. Clearly the first thing to be done was to restore the handle to its original position. If he let it go suddenly, the men inside would be almost certain to notice it, so, with the same infinite pains, he reversed his former tactics. All went well, and with a sigh of relief the young man rose to his feet. There was a certain bulldog tenacity about Tommy that made him slow to admit defeat. Checkmated for the moment, he was far from abandoning the conflict. He still intended to hear what was going on in the locked room. As one plan had failed, he must hunt about for another.

  He looked round him. A little farther along the passage on the left was a second door. He slipped silently along to it. He listened for a moment or two, then tried the handle. It yielded, and he slipped inside.

  The room, which was untenanted, was furnished as a bedroom. Like everything else in the house, the furniture was falling to pieces, and the dirt was, if anything, more abundant.

  But what interested Tommy was the thing he had hoped to find, a communicating door between the two rooms, up on the left by the window. Carefully closing the door into the passage behind him, he stepped across to the other and examined it closely. The bolt was shot across it. It was very rusty, and had clearly not been used for some time. By gently wriggling it to and fro, Tommy managed to draw it back without making too much noise. Then he repeated his former manœuvres with the handle—this time with complete success. The door swung open—a crack, a mere fraction, but enough for Tommy to hear what went on. There was a velvet portière on the inside of this door which prevented him from seeing, but he was able to recognize the voices with a reasonable amount of accuracy.