The Rogues' Syndicate

by Frank Froest

  ‘Hope we’re not keeping you up, Mr Pickens,’ said Menzies, pleasantly. ‘Been good of you to put up with our crowd. Still I suppose it’s been good for trade. Can’t grumble, eh?’

  He passed over his cigar case.

  The publican grunted, inspected the cigars with deliberation, and finally selected one which met with his approval. ‘Don’t do the neighbourhood no good this kind of thing,’ he growled, as he clipped off the end. He spoke as though the reputation of a high-class residential district had been ruined.

  Menzies leaned an elbow on the bar, and crossed his legs. ‘A pity, a pity,’ he said indolently. ‘Still we have to take it as it comes. Wonder what made those rotters pitch on this street?’ he pursued speculatively.

  Mr Pickens grunted incoherently, and taking his cigar from his mouth held it lengthways beneath his nose, and smelt it with suspicion.

  ‘I expect you get some queer birds in here sometimes,’ said Menzies.

  Pickens placed both hands flat on the counter, and twisted the cigar into the corner of his mouth.

  ‘It ain’t fair, Mr Menzies,’ he complained querulously. ‘It ain’t fair. This is a well conducted house, and there ain’t bin a black mark against me for seven years. I’ve always kept in by you people, but it ain’t playing the gime to fair ruin my trade like this. It ain’t my business to enquire into the moril cherecter of any bloke what comes here for a pint or a glass of Scotch, is it, nab?’ He went on quickly, words tumbling out of his mouth. ‘You gents, ain’t got wot I calls consideration. Yere you’ve bin all night long, and I’ve done what I could for you. Course I ’ave. Nah, ’eres w’ere it comes ’ard. It’ll be all in the pipers tomerrer that the pleece used this pub durin’ their operations, an’ oo d’yer think’ll trust me nah? The boys’ll think I stood in with you. It’s a shime I calls it.’

  ‘You’re right,’ agreed the chief-inspector. ‘We ought to have been more careful about your reputation with the heads. You’ll have to explain to them that you couldn’t help yourself.’

  ‘Tain’t on’y that,’ grumbled Pickens. ‘Wot price gettin’ my ’ead laid open with a belt buckle when I’m aht sometimes? They’ll take me for a nark, an’ it ain’t fair. A man’s got to git a livin’. You say I ’ave queer cherecters in ’ere, Mr Menzies. Course I do. Where’d I git my trade if I didn’t ’ave queer cherecters? Live an’ let live is my motto. T’aint fair.’

  Menzies felt the conversation was running a little off the rails. He looked as sympathetic as he could. ‘Tough luck,’ he said. ‘I wish you’d spoken before.’ He smoked silently for a few moments. ‘Talking about queer characters, Mr Pickens, do you ever get any Chinese in here?’

  Pickens expectorated disgustedly. ‘Not one in a blue moon.’

  ‘Ah. I was wondering if this dope shop hit you hard?’

  ‘What dope shop? Y’mean opium, don’t you? No, that couldn’t touch me.’

  ‘None of your regulars hit the pipe then? There used to be a lot of it around here ten years ago.’ Menzies neither knew nor cared whether he was within the boundaries of fact. Pickens had said he had only been in the house seven years.

  ‘That so? Well there may be now for all I know. The only bloke I know that touches it is old Chawley Bates, an’ e’ don’t stand for this booze. But ’e’ll drink cawfee—comes ’ome this way early of a mornin’ sometimes and regular swills it. ’E reckons it pulls ’m together.’

  Menzies sized up his man. He wished now he had made a few enquiries about Pickens off the local men. The ‘Three Kings’ was, on his own showing, a resort of folk who had no love for the police. Still, the keeper of a public house may have the shadiest customers, and yet be an entirely straight man. The detective determined to chance it. He took some gold out of his pocket, and slowly and absently dropped ten sovereigns from one hand to the other. Then he fixed his eyes on the other man.

  ‘It’s worth just ten quid to me,’ he said distinctly, ‘to find out where this opium shop is. No one will ever know who told us.’ He held the closed fist containing the gold out at arm’s length.

  Pickens’ eyes glistened, and he straightened himself out to full length. ‘I’m on,’ he said. ‘You’d better leave it to me. If old Chawley’s at ’ome I’ll git it out of ’im.’ He was putting on his jacket as he spoke.

  He refused the detective’s company, and went out. Menzies did not rejoin Hallett and Royal, but reclining with one elbow on the counter, smoked stolidly and thoughtfully till his return. Pickens was back within half an hour. He took a dirty scrap of paper from his waistcoat pocket, and passed it to the detective.

  ‘There ’y are,’ he said. ‘I wrote it dahn to make sure. It’s a little general shop kept by a chink—Sing Loo. All you’ve got to do is to knock at the side door, and ask if they can oblige you with a bottle of lime juice and a screw of shag. That’s the password. Where’s that tenner?’

  Menzies put the money into his hand, and moved swiftly to where Hallett and Royal awaited him. In a little they were out in the by now almost deserted street. The chief-inspector set the pace, and they moved at a swift walk. No one spoke for a while. Once Menzies stopped a policeman with an enquiry as to direction, and five minutes later they entered a short street bounded on one side by a high blank factory wall, and on the other by a few small shuttered shops.

  ‘That’s the joint,’ said Menzies, in a low voice, keeping his head straight in front of him. ‘Mark it as you go by. That one with Sing Loo on the fascia.’

  They swung at a smart pace, and took the first turning to the right. Not until they had walked for ten minutes did Menzies speak again. ‘Either of you chaps got a gun?’

  Royal thrust a bull-dog revolver into his hands.

  ‘Not for me,’ said Menzies. ‘You got one, Hallett?’

  ‘Not here,’ said Jimmie.

  ‘You take this, then; I wouldn’t know how to hit anything with it, anyhow.’ He halted and shook a warning finger. ‘Don’t get using it unless you’ve got to. I want Ling alive. Now, Royal, you’ll have to hang about, and use your discretion once we’re in—hello! What the blazes is a taxi doing in this quarter at this time of night?’

  A taxi-cab had whizzed by them in the direction from which they had come. It is not a mode of conveyance largely favoured by the inhabitants of the back streets of Shadwell, even in the daytime. In the small hours of the morning it is probably as rare as an aeroplane.

  As though the same thought had simultaneously occurred to each of them, the three raced after the retreating vehicle. It was, of course, a hopeless chase, but there are moments when men do not stop to reason. Menzies was the first to pull up.

  ‘Take it steady, boys,’ he said. ‘We’re only wasting breath. The thing’s a mile away by now.’

  ‘Likely enough, it’s nothing to do with us,’ said Royal, optimistically.

  ‘I’ve got a sort of feeling that it had all the same. Well, I’ll be petrified! Here it comes again. Stop it.’

  They spread across the road, Royal flashing an electric torch as he moved. The three bawled fiercely to the driver. For a moment he slackened speed, as though about to stop. Then, as if he had changed his mind, the vehicle leapt swiftly forward.

  Jimmie had a scant five seconds of time in which to make up his mind. His hand closed on the revolver, and it occurred to him that there was only one thing to do. The bonnet of the car was within a yard of him when he leapt aside, and pulled the trigger. With a shivering rattle the vehicle stopped. Menzies was at the driver’s side in an instant.

  ‘Why didn’t you stop when you were ordered?’ he demanded in a blaze of wrath. ‘What’s your number?’

  ‘Why should I stop? Who are you? What business is it of yours, anyway? If you’ve smashed my radiator—’ The man’s voice was less certain than his words.

  ‘We’re police-officers,’ said Menzies, curtly. ‘Why—what’s the matter Royal?’

  Royal had opened the door, and his cry now interrupted his chief. Menzies dropped b
ack to him, and followed the segment of light directed from the sergeant’s pocket lamp to the interior of the cab. It fell full on the white lifeless face of a woman leaning huddled up in one of the corners. He gave an ejaculation of surprise. The driver had descended from his seat, and was peering over the shoulders of the three.

  ‘Good Gawd!’ he exclaimed. ‘She’s fainted.’

  ‘She’s dead,’ said Menzies.

  He wheeled, and his strong fingers hit deep into the driver’s shoulders. ‘Where did you pick her up?’ he demanded. ‘Speak the truth, or I’ll shake it out of you.’

  The man gazed helplessly up at him. ‘Strike me lucky, guvnor, I don’t know nothing about it,’ he declared. ‘She was alive two minutes ago. There was a bloke with her. Where’s he gone?’

  Jimmie felt an eerie sensation along his scalp. He had gazed at the dead face, ghastly in the rays of the pocket torch, which picked it out against the darkness of the upholstering, and, like the others, he had recognised at once the features of Gwennie Lyne.

  He had expected, he knew not what, when he peered into the cab—perhaps Ling himself. Certainly not that grim face with the staring eyes. He shuddered.

  ‘Tell us all about it—quick!’ ordered Menzies. ‘We’ve no time to waste. Come on, out with it.’ He shook the man fiercely. ‘Everything, mind you, and get to the point.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about it,’ repeated the man again. ‘I was called by telephone from the cab rank in Aldgate—told how to get here and everything.’

  ‘Get where?’ The question was snapped out like a pistol shot.

  ‘Why, to that Chinaman’s place—’

  ‘Sing Loo?’

  ‘Yes. That’s the name. There was a couple of fares there they said wanted to get to Shepherd’s Bush. So I come along here. Seems like they were waiting for me, because directly I touched the bell the door opened, and there was a tall bloke and her.’ He jerked his head towards the cab. ‘The bloke had his arm round her, and she walked with him to the cab. He helped her in, and then came round to me. “The lady isn’t very well, driver,” he says. “I’m a doctor, and I’m going with her to a specialist at Shepherd’s Bush. Drive easy, because I don’t want her jolted more than can be helped.” With that he gets into the cab—at least the door slams just as if he had, and I drive off. That’s all I know about it, guvnor, so ’elp me.’

  ‘You didn’t know she’d been stabbed?’

  He shook his head dumbly. Menzies released his grip. ‘Royal, you’ll have to handle this for the time. Go to the nearest doctor first, and have her examined. Come along, Hallett.’

  He caught hold of Jimmie’s elbow, and without another look at the cab and its grim burden started eagerly forward. ‘It looks to me,’ he said, in a low voice, as though he was talking to himself, ‘That we’re only just in time. Ling has struck a snag somehow. He must have intended to lie up just as I said, and Gwennie and he have quarrelled somehow. If he’d meant to lay her out he’d have done it when it was less awkward for himself. As it is, he was pushed to get the body away, or he wouldn’t have sent for a taxi, and left a trail right back to this joint. He means to vacate quick, and that cab would have gone, in the ordinary way, to the other end of London before we were on to it.’

  ‘You think we’ll get him this time?’

  ‘It’s he or I for it now,’ said Menzies, grimly. ‘Here we are.’

  He pressed the little electric button at the side door.

  CHAPTER XXXI

  THE door was flung candidly open, and a young Chinese, clad in jersey, trousers supported by a belt, and his feet in carpet slippers, faced the pair. He gave not the slightest sign of astonishment or even of enquiry. His narrow eyes blinked once or twice as he stood, one hand on the door-knob, waiting for them to announce their busines.

  Menzies swayed a little, and there was a touch of indecision in his voice. ‘I want a drink,’ he announced. ‘Adrinka lime juice. Me an’ my frien’ both want a drink of lime juice an’—an’ a screw of shag.’

  ‘Come light in,’ said the Chinese, and stood aside. ‘You want Sing Loo. I go fetch him.’

  A second door barred the passage a few feet farther along, and he glided noiselessly towards it. Menzies reached out to restrain him, and then thought better of it. The young man—evidently a sort of hall-keeper—scratched lightly with his nail on a panel, and someone opened a tiny trap door, and a face peered through. Jimmie realised that they were standing under the full glare of a gas jet, and subject to the full scrutiny of the man behind the wicket.

  There was rapid interchange of words in some incomprehensible language, and then the click of a latch. An elderly Chinese with long grey moustache and wrinkled yellow skin came towards them, and the door closed again. He spread out his hands in a sort of low obeisance.

  ‘Solly, gentlemen,’ he murmured softly. ‘You want pipe?’ He regarded them sideways out of his slits of eyes, with an expression of indeniable artfulness. ‘Solly.’

  ‘Wot in ’ell you palavering about?’ demanded Menzies, thickly. ‘Wot are you sorry for? Me an’ my mate wants a smoke. Just off the “Themistocles”, y’ know. We can pay.’

  The old Chinaman spread out his hands, and lowered his head, humbly. ‘Solly,’ he repeated. ‘You’ve made a mistake. My fliend six doors up you get it. Not here.’

  ‘Wy you rotten slant eyed old ’eathen,’ said Menzies, irascibly. ‘Wot ya giving us? You’re Sing Loo, ain’t you? We was sent to you.’

  Sing Loo made a gesture of acquiescence. ‘I’ve retired,’ he said, meekly. ‘My fliend up the stleet give you plenty opium.’

  It was evident that his suspicions had been aroused in some manner, and that he was fully determined they should not set foot within the interior room. Meanwhile time was flying. Menzies took a sudden step, and whirling the Chinaman round got his left arm in a strangle-hold round his throat.

  ‘Make a sound, and I’ll throttle you,’ he whispered tensely. ‘We want to have a look round this joint—savvy? Get that gun out, Hallet. Show it to him. Put the muzzle right between his eyes so that he can see it. That’s right. Now shoot the blighter if he makes an ugly move.’ He released his arm. ‘Now, my lad, get going. Where is the man and the woman who were here just now?’

  Sing Loo’s face was blank. If he was frightened he did not show it save by an almost imperceptible whitening of the yellow skin. ‘No woman has been here,’ he stammered.

  ‘Don’t lie,’ said Menzies, fiercely. ‘What do you call that?’ He stooped and picked a hairpin from the floor, and shook it between his finger and thumb in the Chinaman’s face. ‘I wonder if you’re deeper in this than I thought at first?’

  His eyes narrowed, and he surveyed the yellow face with fresh suspicion.

  Sing Loo gave back a step as it were involuntarily, and Jimmie followed him up with a revolver. He waved a long slender hand in front of his face as though to keep out the view of the menacing blue muzzle. ‘There has been a woman,’ he admitted. ‘She came to see a fliend, and she went away in a cab.’

  ‘So. We’re beginning to get at things at last. How did she come to be here? And keep your voice down. There’s no need to shout.’

  ‘She came to see a fliend, Mr Ling. He saw her here in this passage. They were angly—very angly. Then she fainted, and he asked me to send a boy to get a taxi to fetch her away.’

  ‘Sounds as if you might be speaking the truth for once,’ said Menzies. ‘Now, listen to me, Sing Loo. Is that man here still?’

  ‘Yes, in the back loom. He’s going soon after he’s had one more pipe.’

  ‘Ah. He’s got the craving in his blood has he? Very well. We’re new customers of yours, see? You’ll lead us in to where he is, and if you get gay remember my friend’s gun is liable to go off, and I’m a bad tempered man myself.’

  ‘I undelstand,’ murmured Sing Loo. ‘Come this way.’

  Jimmie slipped the weapon into his overcoat pocket and kept his hand on it ready for instant
action. Menzies edged up close to Sing Loo, and twisted his hand into the other’s sleeve. The inner door opened in response to the Chinaman’s summons, and they found themselves in a passage lighted very dimly in comparison to that outside.

  Jimmie’s heart was pounding with excitement at the thought that the maelstrom of crime and intrigue in which he had become involved was at last reaching its denouement. He was glad that the chief-inspector had permitted him to carry the revolver. He had acquired a certain amount of respect for Menzies, but he also had views about Ling, and he was resolved at the first hint of trouble to shoot first and to shoot fast. The legal question of his justification could be settled afterwards.

  Menzies, if his face was any index to his feelings, was as unmoved and impassive as though he was about to take a seat in a theatre. Ling was to him merely a piece in the game that was so nearly played out—a piece he intended to remove from the board, and then to forget, except as something that played a prominent part in a well-fought game.

  They descended a couple of steps into a gloomy room lit by two or three tiny gas jets and a glowing fire. As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness Jimmie saw vague forms about the room, the majority lying on the series of platforms with tiny glass lamps by their sides. They were mostly smoking, one or two cigarettes, and others opium. A few were asleep.

  The atmosphere was no new one to Jimmie. He recognised the usual paraphernalia of the inyun fun. Each smoker had a tray with his apparatus, from the pipe itself to the yen hock used for smoking the opium over the flame of the lamp.

  Most of the customers were quite apathetic to the entrance of the new arrivals. Menzies in one rapid glance gleaned the fact that there was no window, and that the only other egress from the room except that in which they stood was at the opposite side of the room. In the dim light it was at first impossible to make out the identity of any of the smokers.