by Sax Rohmer
As Bampton spoke the words he glanced at us with twinkling eyes, but although for my own part I was merely amused, Harley’s expression had grown very stern.
“Of course, I laughed,” continued Bampton, “but when the man drew out a fat wallet and counted ten five-pound notes on the table I began to think seriously about his proposal. Even supposing he was cracked, it was absolutely money for nothing.
“‘Of course,’ he said, ‘you’ll lose your job and you may be arrested, but you’ll say that you had been out with a few friends and were a little excited, also that you never could stand white hats. Stick to that story and the balance of a hundred pounds will reach you on the following morning.’
“I asked him for further particulars, and I asked him why he had picked me for the job. He replied that he had been looking for some time for the right man; a man who was strong enough physically to accomplish the thing, and someone” — Bampton’s eyes twinkled again— “with a dash of the devil in him, but at the same time a man who could be relied upon to stick to his guns and not to give the game away.
“You asked me to be brief, and I’ll try to be. The man in the white hat was described to me, and the exact time and place of the meeting. I just had to grab his white hat, smash it, and face the music. I agreed. I don’t deny that I had a couple of stiff drinks before I set out, but the memory of that fifty pounds locked up here in my room and the further hundred promised, bucked me up wonderfully. It was impossible to mistake my man; I could see him coming toward me as I waited just outside a sort of little restaurant called the Cafe Dame. As arranged, I bumped into him, grabbed his hat and jumped on it.”
He paused, raising his hand to his head reminiscently.
“My man was a bit of a scrapper,” he continued, “and he played hell. I’ve never heard such language in my life, and the way he laid about me with his cane is something I am not likely to forget in a hurry. A crowd gathered, naturally, and (also naturally) I was ‘pinched.’ That didn’t matter much. I got off lightly; and although I’ve been dismissed by Peters and Peters, twenty crisp fivers are locked in my trunk there, with the ten which I received in the City.”
Harley checked him, and:
“May I see the envelope in which they arrived?” he asked.
“Sorry,” replied Bampton, “but I burned it. I thought it was playing the game to do so. It wouldn’t have helped you much, though,” he added; “It was an ordinary common envelope, posted in the City, address typewritten, and not a line enclosed.”
“Registered?”
“No.”
Bampton stood looking at us with a curious expression on his face, and suddenly:
“There’s one point,” he said, “on which my conscience isn’t easy. You know about that poor devil who fell out of a window? Well, it would never have happened if I hadn’t kicked up a row in the street. There’s no doubt he was leaning out to see what the disturbance was about when the accident occurred.”
“Did you actually see him fall?” asked Harley.
“No. He fell from a window several yards behind me in the side street, but I heard him cry out, and as I was lugged off by the police I heard the bell of the ambulance which came to fetch him.”
He paused again and stood rubbing his head ruefully.
“H’m,” said Harley; “was there anything particularly remarkable about this man in the Lyons’ cafe?”
Bampton reflected silently for some moments, and then:
“Nothing much,” he confessed. “He was evidently a gentleman, wore a blue top-coat, a dark tweed suit, and what looked like a regimental tie, but I didn’t see much of the colours. He was very tanned, as I have said, even to the backs of his hands — and oh, yes! there was one point: He had a gold-covered tooth.”
“Which tooth?”
“I can’t remember, except that it was on the left side, and I always noticed it when he smiled.”
“Did he wear any ring or pin which you would recognize?”
“No.”
“Had he any oddity of speech or voice?”
“No. Just a heavy, drawling manner. He spoke like thousands of other cultured Englishmen. But wait a minute — yes! There was one other point. Now I come to think of it, his eyes very slightly slanted upward.”
Harley stared.
“Like a Chinaman’s?”
“Oh, nothing so marked as that. But the same sort of formation.”
Harley nodded briskly and buttoned up his overcoat.
“Thanks, Mr. Bampton,” he said; “we will detain you no longer!”
As we descended the stairs, where the smell of frying sausages had given place to that of something burning — probably the sausages:
“I was half inclined to think that Major Ragstaff’s ideas were traceable to a former touch of the sun,” said Harley. “I begin to believe that he has put us on the track of a highly unusual crime. I am sorry to delay dinner, Knox, but I propose to call at the Cafe Dame.”
III
A CRIMINAL GENIUS
On entering the doorway of the Cafe Dame we found ourselves in a narrow passage. In front of us was a carpeted stair, and to the right a glass-panelled door communicating with a discreetly lighted little dining room which seemed to be well patronized. Opening the door Harley beckoned to a waiter, and:
“I wish to see the proprietor,” he said.
“Mr. Meyer is engaged at the moment, sir,” was the reply.
“Where is he?”
“In his office upstairs, sir. He will be down in a moment.”
The waiter hurried away, and Harley stood glancing up the stairs as if in doubt what to do.
“I cannot imagine how such a place can pay,” he muttered. “The rent must be enormous in this district.”
But even before he ceased speaking I became aware of an excited conversation which was taking place in some apartment above.
“It’s scandalous!” I heard, in a woman’s shrill voice. “You have no right to keep it! It’s not your property, and I’m here to demand that you give it up.”
A man’s voice replied in voluble broken English, but I could only distinguish a word here and there. I saw that Harley was interested, for catching my questioning glance, he raised his finger to his lips enjoining me to be silent.
“Oh, that’s the game, is it?” continued the female voice. “Of course you know it’s blackmail?”
A flow of unintelligible words answered this speech, then:
“I shall come back with someone,” cried the invisible woman, “who will make you give it up!”
“Knox,” whispered Harley in my ear, “when that woman comes down, follow her! I’m afraid you will bungle the business, and I would not ask you to attempt it if big things were not at stake. Return here; I shall wait.”
As a matter of fact, his sudden request had positively astounded me, but ere I had time for any reply a door suddenly banged open above and a respectable-looking woman, who might have been some kind of upper servant, came quickly down the stairs. An expression of intense indignation rested upon her face, and without seeming to notice our presence she brushed past us and went out into the street.
“Off you go, Knox!” said Harley.
Seeing myself committed to an unpleasant business, I slipped out of the doorway and detected the woman five or six yards away hurrying in the direction of Piccadilly. I had no difficulty in following her, for she was evidently unsuspicious of my presence, and when presently she mounted a westward-bound ‘bus I did likewise, but while she got inside I went on top, and occupied a seat on the near side whence I could observe anyone leaving the vehicle.
If I had not known Paul Harley so well I should have counted the whole business a ridiculous farce, but recognizing that something underlay these seemingly trivial and disconnected episodes, I lighted a cigarette and resigned myself to circumstance.
At Hyde Park Corner I saw the woman descending, and when presently she walked up Hamilton Place I was not far behind her. At
the door of an imposing mansion she stopped, and in response to a ring of the bell the door was opened by a footman, and the woman hurried in. Evidently she was an inmate of the establishment; and conceiving that my duty was done when I had noted the number of the house, I retraced my steps to the corner; and, hailing a taxicab, returned to the Cafe Dame.
On inquiring of the same waiter whom Harley had accosted whether my friend was there:
“I think a gentleman is upstairs with Mr. Meyer,” said the man.
“In his office?”
“Yes, sir.”
Thereupon I mounted the stairs and before a half-open door paused. Harley’s voice was audible within, and therefore I knocked and entered.
I discovered Harley standing by an American desk. Beside him in a revolving chair which, with the desk, constituted the principal furniture of a tiny office, sat a man in a dress-suit which had palpably not been made for him. He had a sullen and suspiciously Teutonic cast of countenance, and he was engaged in a voluble but hardly intelligible speech as I entered.
“Ha, Knox!” said Harley, glancing over his shoulder, “did you manage?”
“Yes,” I replied.
Harley nodded shortly and turned again to the man in the chair.
“I am sorry to give you so much trouble, Mr. Meyer,” he said, “but I should like my friend here to see the room above.”
At this moment my attention was attracted by a singular object which lay upon the desk amongst a litter of bills and accounts. This was a piece of rusty iron bar somewhat less than three feet in length, and which once had been painted green.
“You are looking at this tragic fragment, Knox,” said Harley, taking up the bar. “Of course” — he shrugged his shoulders— “it explains the whole unfortunate occurrence. You see there was a flaw in the metal at this end, here” — he indicated the spot— “and the other end had evidently worn loose in its socket.”
“But I don’t understand.”
“It will all be made clear at the inquest, no doubt. A most unfortunate thing for you, Mr. Meyer.”
“Most unfortunate,” declared the proprietor of the restaurant, extending his thick hands pathetically. “Most ruinous to my business.”
“We will go upstairs now,” said Harley. “You will kindly lead the way, Mr. Meyer, and the whole thing will be quite clear to you, Knox.”
As the proprietor walked out of the office and upstairs to the second floor Harley whispered in my ear:
“Where did she go?”
“No. —— Hamilton Place,” I replied in an undertone.
“Good God!” muttered my friend, and clutched my arm so tightly that I winced. “Good God! The master touch, Knox! This crime was the work of a genius — of a genius with slightly, very slightly, oblique eyes.”
Opening a door on the second landing, Mr. Meyer admitted us to a small supper-room. Its furniture consisted of a round dining table, several chairs, a couch, and very little else. I observed, however, that the furniture, carpet, and a few other appointments were of a character much more elegant than those of the public room below. A window which overlooked the street was open, so that the plush curtains which had been drawn aside moved slightly to and fro in the draught.
“The window of the tragedy, Knox,” explained Harley.
He crossed the room.
“If you will stand here beside me you will see the gap in the railing caused by the breaking away of the fragment which now lies on Mr. Meyer’s desk. Some few yards to the left in the street below is where the assault took place, of which we have heard, and the unfortunate Mr. De Lana, who was dining here alone — an eccentric custom of his — naturally ran to the window upon hearing the disturbance and leaned out, supporting his weight upon the railing. The rail collapsed, and — we know the rest.”
“It will ruin me,” groaned Meyer; “it will give bad repute to my establishment.”
“I fear it will,” agreed Harley sympathetically, “unless we can manage to clear up one or two little difficulties which I have observed. For instance” — he tapped the proprietor on the shoulder confidentially— “have you any idea, any hazy idea, of the identity of the woman who was dining here with Mr. De Lana on Wednesday night?”
The effect of this simple inquiry upon the proprietor was phenomenal. His fat yellow face assumed a sort of leaden hue, and his already prominent eyes protruded abnormally. He licked his lips.
“I tell you — already I tell you,” he muttered, “that Mr. De Lana he engage this room every Wednesday and sometimes also Friday, and dine here by himself.”
“And I tell you,” said Harley sweetly, “that you are an inspired liar. You smuggled her out by the side entrance after the accident.”
“The side entrance?” muttered Meyer. “The side entrance?”
“Exactly; the side entrance. There is something else which I must ask you to tell me. Who had engaged this room on Tuesday night, the night before the accident?”
The proprietor’s expression remained uncomprehending, and:
“A gentleman,” he said. “I never see him before.”
“Another solitary diner?” suggested Harley.
“Yes, he is alone all the evening waiting for a friend who does not arrive.”
“Ah,” mused Harley— “alone all the evening, was he? And his friend disappointed him. May I suggest that he was a dark man? Gray at the temples, having a dark beard and moustache, and a very tanned face? His eyes slanted slightly upward?”
“Yes! yes!” cried Meyer, and his astonishment was patently unfeigned. “It is a friend of yours?”
“A friend of mine, yes,” said Harley absently, but his expression was very grim. “What time did he finally leave?”
“He waited until after eleven o’clock. The dinner is spoilt. He pays, but does not complain.”
“No,” said Harley musingly, “he had nothing to complain about. One more question, my friend. When the lady escaped hurriedly on Wednesday night, what was it that she left behind and what price are you trying to extort from her for returning it?”
At that the man collapsed entirely.
“Ah, Gott!” he cried, and raised his hand to his clammy forehead. “You will ruin me. I am a ruined man. I don’t try to extort anything. I run an honest business —— —”
“And one of the most profitable in the world,” added Harley, “since the days of Thais to our own. Even at Bond Street rentals I assume that a house of assignation is a golden enterprise.”
“Ah!” groaned Meyer, “I am ruined, so what does it matter? I tell you everything. I know Mr. De Lana who engages my room regularly, but I don’t know who the lady is who meets him here. No! I swear it! But always it is the same lady. When he falls I am downstairs in my office, and I hear him cry out. The lady comes running from the room and begs of me to get her away without being seen and to keep all mention of her out of the matter.”
“What did she pay you?” asked Harley.
“Pay me?” muttered Meyer, pulled up thus shortly in the midst of his statement.
“Pay you. Exactly. Don’t argue; answer.”
The man delivered himself of a guttural, choking sound, and finally:
“She promised one hundred pounds,” he confessed hoarsely.
“But you surely did not accept a mere promise? Out with it. What did she give you?”
“A ring,” came the confession at last.
“A ring. I see. I will take it with me if you don’t mind. And now, finally, what was it that she left behind?”
“Ah, Gott!” moaned the man, dropping into a chair and resting his arms upon the table. “It is all a great panic, you see. I hurry her out by the back stair from this landing and she forgets her bag.”
“Her bag? Good.”
“Then I clear away the remains of dinner so I can say Mr. De Lana is dining alone. It is as much my interest as the lady’s.”
“Of course! I quite understand. I will trouble you no more, Mr. Meyer, except to step i
nto your office and to relieve you of that incriminating evidence, the lady’s bag and her ring.”
IV
THE SLANTING EYES
“Do you understand, Knox?” said Harley as the cab bore us toward Hamilton Place. “Do you grasp the details of this cunning scheme?”
“On the contrary,” I replied, “I am hopelessly at sea.”
Nevertheless, I had forgotten that I was hungry in the excitement which now claimed me. For although the thread upon which these seemingly disconnected things hung was invisible to me, I recognized that Bampton, the city clerk, the bearded stranger who had made so singular a proposition to him, the white-hatted major, the dead stockbroker, and the mysterious woman whose presence in the case the clear sight of Harley had promptly detected, all were linked together by some subtle chain. I was convinced, too, that my friend held at least one end of that chain in his grip.
“In order to prepare your mind for the interview which I hope to obtain this evening,” continued Harley, “let me enlighten you upon one or two points which may seem obscure. In the first place you recognize that anyone leaning out of the window on the second floor would almost automatically rest his weight upon the iron bar which was placed there for that very purpose, since the ledge is unusually low?”
“Quite,” I replied, “and it also follows that if the bar gave way anyone thus leaning on it would be pitched into the street.”
“Your reasoning is correct.”
“But, my dear fellow,” said I, “how could such an accident have been foreseen?”
“You speak of an accident. This was no accident! One end of the bar had been filed completely through, although the file marks had been carefully concealed with rust and dirt; and the other end had been wrenched out from its socket and then replaced in such a way that anyone leaning upon the bar could not fail to be precipitated into the street!”