by Sapper
“All right, Peter,” came his welcome voice, and to my amazement I realised that he was the same side as we were.
“That shot!’’ I said. “Who fired it?’’
“I can’t see through a brick wall,” he answered, “so I don’t know. But with luck we may find out soon. He was over the wall when I got here, and the ladder is the other side. Up you go, Scott, and pass it back.”
Once again we repeated the performance of crossing, but this time Hugh was off like a flash the instant he reached the ground. And it was just as we were wondering whether to follow him or not that the final shock of the evening occurred. A voice with a slight American twang came out of the darkness from close by.
“May I ask what you guys think you are doing?” it said. “Or would it be indiscreet?”
“Who are you?” I cried. “And where are you?”
“Who I am doesn’t matter at the moment,” went on the voice. “Nor where I am. But I have a gun in my hand, which I shall have no hesitation in using, if necessary.”
“A game at which two can play.”
Hugh’s voice, doubly welcome this time, showed that he had returned.
“By the sound you are both new ones to me,” said the unknown quietly. “I am thinking we’d better have a little light on the scene, or else someone will be making a bloomer.”
“Then I will supply it,” snapped Hugh.
He switched on his torch, and focussed it on the stranger. He was standing about five yards away, a thin, hatchet-faced man of about fifty. In his hand was a revolver, but it was hanging loosely by his side, and he made no move to raise it. For a while he stood there in silence: then he smiled faintly and spoke.
“I trust the inspection is satisfactory,” he remarked. “But in case you want anything more, do you recognise that?”
He opened his coat, displaying the badge of the New York police.
“I do,” said Hugh. “Was it you who fired that shot?”
“It was not,” answered the other. “And if you will deflect your torch a little lower you will see why, though you will have to come nearer.”
He was still holding his coat open, and as we got close to him we could see a bullet hole clean through it on a level with his waist.
“Touch and go, gentlemen,” he remarked. “And now, if you have satisfied yourselves that I am not the villain of the piece, I would strongly suggest that you put out that torch. There are people abroad tonight who are attracted to torches, and next time it may not be my coat.”
For a moment or two Hugh hesitated, then he switched off the light.
“May I ask what your name is?” he said.
“Certainly, though I fear it will not convey much to you. My name is Matthews – Victor Matthews. Am I right in supposing that you are the gentlemen who were wandering around Spragge’s Farm last night?”
“You can suppose any damned thing you please,” snapped Hugh. “What I want to know, Mr Matthews, is what you are doing prowling about here?”
The other laughed.
“I have always heard,” he said, “that offence is the best defence. But really, sir, don’t you think your remark is a bit cool? You may remember the badge I showed you, which, at any rate, gives me an official standing. But as far as you gentlemen are concerned, I fail to see that you have any – certainly none that permits you to break into the private grounds of a house in the dead of night. However, you need not fear: I shall say nothing about it. In fact, I am profoundly relieved to see you. I have played a lone hand long enough. And if you are prepared to assist me, no one will be more pleased than myself. Did you find anything of interest inside there tonight?”
“We found,” said Hugh quietly, “a dead dog and a dead man.”
“Dead man! ” cried the other sharply. “Who – le Rossignol?”
“The how much?” cried Hugh: prizes for French have hitherto eluded him.
“The Nightingale,” said Matthews. “The man you saw at Spragge’s Farm, making that ladder.”
“No: it wasn’t him,” said Hugh. “It was Gaspard, Granger’s servant. And he had been killed by a mysterious being in black.”
“Throttled, of course,” said the other.
“How do you know that?” asked Hugh suspiciously.
“Because,” said Matthews, “the mysterious being in black, as you call him, who very nearly finished me off, is known, amongst other things, as the Silent Strangler. So he has killed the servant, has he?”
“We came on him in the act,” said Hugh.
“Then that accounts for his rapid retreat,” remarked Matthews thoughtfully. “Well, gentlemen, do we work together, or do we not? I can only assume that you have come into this show out of idle curiosity, or for sport. Am I right?”
And now it was Hugh’s turn to laugh.
“I have heard worse guesses,” he said. “What do you think, Peter?”
“I certainly think that if Mr Matthews can explain some of these mysterious happenings we should join forces,” I said.
“I can explain almost everything,” he answered quietly. “But I do not think this is either the time or the place. So let us put things in order here, and go. It will be dawn soon.”
“But look here, chaps,” objected Freckles, “what about the bloke from Spragge’s Farm – the Sparrow or whatever he is called? He must still be lying about all over the place.”
It was perfectly true: in the general excitement the ladder maker had been forgotten.
“You saw no signs of him inside?” asked Matthews.
“Not a trace,” said Hugh. “And even if we didn’t see him, I should have expected to hear him. He is not a silent mover. Incidentally, I wonder if he came at all tonight.”
“He must have, to put the ladder there,” said John.
“Not of necessity,” answered Hugh. “Don’t forget that this man in black saw him hide it and knew where it was.”
“How do you know that?” cried Matthews.
“Because we encountered the gentleman in the wood this afternoon. Only, as he was armed and we weren’t, we left him alone.”
Matthews whistled softly.
“You can thank your stars that you did,” he remarked. “Or we should not be having this conversation now. Anyway, gentlemen, I look at it this way: If le Rossignol is inside there, let him remain: he will do no harm. He will kill Granger if he gets a chance, but, believe me, that doesn’t matter. And if he is outside, again, let him remain there.”
“That is all jolly fine and large,” cried Freckles, “but a great friend of mine – a lady – is inside there, too.”
“What’s that?” said Matthews. “A lady? How is that?”
“My fiancée is doing secretarial work for Granger,” explained Freckles.
And once again Matthews whistled softly.
“Splendid,” was his somewhat unexpected remark. “Perfectly splendid.”
“I am damned if I see anything splendid about it,” grunted Freckles.
“But I venture to think that you will,” answered the other. And then his tone changed. “Gentlemen,” he said briskly, “we cannot stand here all night. You, of course, must do exactly as you like. But may I ask what you were proposing to do if you had not run into me?”
And for a while no one answered. It was a bit of a poser: what was there to be done?
“As I thought,” continued Matthews, “you don’t know. And I don’t blame you. To be quite frank, gentlemen, you have put yourselves in a position that is a little difficult to explain. If you go to the police you have to admit that you have broken the law yourselves, and you have to tell them a story which will take a bit of swallowing. I know it is true: you know it is true, but – well, I won’t labour the point. I think you would find the atmosphere a little incredu
lous, to put it mildly. So I have a definite proposition to make to you. Do nothing at all until you have heard my story. As I told you, I can explain everything – or almost everything. Then you must do as you see fit – go to the police or not, as you like. In return, you shall tell me all you know, and between us, gentlemen” – his voice rose in his excitement – “we will beat the most dangerous criminal that lives in the world today.”
“Yes, but what about my fiancée?” cried Freckles.
“I give you my solemn word that she is in no danger,” said Matthews quietly. “But if you are under any apprehensions, get her out of the house tomorrow. Anyway, you can’t now. And, as I said before, I think you will understand, when you have heard my story, why I was pleased when I heard that one of our side was in the house. Well, gentlemen, what do you say?”
And at last Hugh spoke.
“Agreed,” he said laconically. “You had better come to my shanty.”
“Good!” cried Matthews. “Then the first thing to do is to remove that ladder and hide it in a different place. And after that we will go to your house, and I will tell you a story which, though long, I think you will find not uninteresting.”
CHAPTER 7
In which Victor Matthews begins his story
“For the purposes of this argument, Mr Matthews,” remarked Hugh, “you had better assume that we know nothing.”
We had all returned to his house, and having hunted round for bacon and eggs, had first of all had some breakfast. The ladder had been carefully hidden in the undergrowth, and we had seen no further trace of the man in black. And now, seated on the terrace, with the mist stretching like a white sea below us, we waited eagerly for him to begin.
“All right,” he answered, “I will assume that you know nothing. And, as a matter of fact, gentlemen, I am very certain that you do know nothing of what I am going to tell you. Because I am going back to the year of grace 1881. It was in that year that the inhabitants of Bordeaux had an unsuspected honour accorded them – so unsuspected, in fact, that most of them are still probably unaware of it. Under the very shadow of the Cathedral of St André‚ a male child was born into the world. The question of nomenclature was a little difficult, since the mother had no idea who was the proud father, but she compromised by calling the child Jean and giving it her own surname of Marillard.
“From the very first, I should imagine, the child was a most unprepossessing specimen. It was abnormally ugly, and that fact, coupled with the sneers of its companions over the question of its birth, combined to make its life intolerable. Anyway, it never had a fair chance, and as a result, the boy’s character grew from bad to worse. He was an incipient criminal from the start, and his surroundings nurtured the growth, until, at the age of sixteen, he was nothing more nor less than a savage young animal. And if you chose to turn up the archives of the Bordeaux police you would there find records of positively murderous assaults perpetrated by this youth, in many cases on men years older than himself. He was possessed of incredible strength, and at times he was perfectly uncontrollable. He also possessed another strange characteristic – a very soft and melodious voice.”
The speaker smiled slightly and waved his hand in the direction of Spragge’s Farm.
“Thus the propitious beginning of Jean Marillard, now, as you will see, in his forty-seventh year. However, to return to his earlier days. He was eighteen years old, as far as I remember, when he decided that he had had enough of Bordeaux and drifted to Paris, where he naturally became associated with the lowest type of Apache. And you must remember, gentlemen, that in those days the Apaches were Apaches – not harmless citizens earning an honest penny by dressing themselves up for the part for the benefit of credulous tourists, as is the case today. Like to like: it was but in the nature of things that young Marillard should consort with the most vicious of the whole tribe. And it was then that he received his nickname of ‘the Nightingale.’
“For the next year or so his history is unimportant. He remained submerged in the underworld of Paris, a skulker in dark corners. And then, with the invention of motorcars, came the great opportunity. The thing has been done, of course, ad nauseam since, but the first motor bandit gang was the one of which the Nightingale was a prominent member. It is all a question of proportion, and just as in these days a racing car, with its eighty miles an hour, has the advantage over other users of the road, so, then, did some ancient Peugeot capable of only twenty.
“And now I must leave him for a moment and introduce you to some other characters in the story. Only two are of any importance, and one of those two…”
He paused, and a strange, almost dreamy, look came into his eyes.
“One of those two is the most powerful and dangerous man in the world today. I will take the other first. His origin is completely obscure. Half an Englishman, half Heaven knows what, he was in his way as dangerous a man as the Nightingale. But it was a very different way. The Nightingale, to do him credit, feared no man. He fought in the open – fought like a beast perhaps – but face to face. Also he was loyal to his pals, which was just what the other was not. A slimy, mean, creeping little beast, who conformed to no standard at all save what suited himself best. They called him le Crapeau, which I always thought was an insult to such an intelligent beast as the toad. And unless I am very much mistaken – in fact, I know I am not mistaken – the Toad is your next-door neighbour, who now passes under the name of Granger. When I say ‘passes under,’ for all I know Granger may really be his name.”
“Do you mean to say,” shouted Freckles, “that that is the man who Pat – who Miss Verney is working for?”
“Don’t alarm yourself, Mr Scott,” said Matthews quietly. “You already have my word for it that your fiancée is perfectly safe. Moreover, I think it is more than likely that you will finally come to the conclusion that the luckiest thing she ever did in her life was to go there.”
“What on earth do you mean?” said Freckles, staring at him blankly.
“May I finish my story, and I think you will see what I mean?” said Matthews. “Where was I? Ah! yes – the Toad. There were three other members of the gang, who do not concern us at all now, since they are all dead. For the sake of clearness, however, I will give you their nicknames. One – a great hulking brute of a man – was called the Butcher. He was a slaughterer pure and simple: a man with no brain, but of great strength. The second was a deadly shot with a revolver, who was known – why I can’t tell you – as the Snipe. And the last member calls for no particular description. He had no nickname, and was called Robert.
“Now, I do not propose to weary you with a full account of their activities. Many of them were quite insignificant: many were even stupid. Remember that motorcars were a new toy then for everyone, and our friends were no exception to the rule. They behaved, in short, on frequent occasions like children who are showing off, and they were treated accordingly by the authorities. Until the day came…”
Once again he paused, that same dreamy look in his eyes.
“Gentlemen,” he went on quietly, “you may think that what I am about to tell you is an exaggeration: that I have a bee in my bonnet on this particular subject. You may think that such a being as a master criminal is merely part of the stock in trade of the sensational novelist – a fiction of the films. You are wrong. It was in 1898 that a strange sinister influence began to make itself felt throughout the underworld at Paris, and not only through the underworld, but through that section of society that reacts instantly to it – the police. At first the influence was vague – more a suggestion than a definite force. Incredible rumours flew round, and no one knew what to believe. The police, as a body, scoffed openly at the whole thing: so did some of the Apaches. For gradually these rumours crystallised into one central idea: that a power had arisen which was definitely controlling the criminal activities of Paris, and controlling them for its own ends.
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“What the power consisted of no one knew: who wielded it, no one knew. But after a year had passed the scoffing ceased: the thing was a proven fact. An intelligence was at work more powerful than the police, more cunning than the Apaches.
“How came the proof, you ask? I will tell you. Not by any single dramatic stroke, but by a series of incidents, which, though small in themselves, when taken cumulatively, afforded irrefutable evidence. Men who had received orders from an unknown source, and had disregarded them, were found dead: and no one knew the hand that had struck them down. The police, too, did not escape: gendarmes who had interfered with the unknown’s plan were killed. Some were shot: a few were knifed, but his favourite method was to strangle his victims. In fact, a reign of terror started, the more terrifying because of the air of mystery that surrounded it. Men spoke together in bated whispers, glancing fearfully over their shoulders, for no one knew who was a spy or who was not. The King of the Underworld had arrived.”
Victor Matthews paused to light a cigarette, whilst we waited eagerly for him to continue. Amazing though the story was, it was his quiet way of telling it that made it so impressive.
“It was in 1900,” he continued, “that a further development took place. He was cunning, this man – and clever. He knew to a nicety the French nationality: his psychology was perfect. Up to date, he had maintained his air of mystery: from now on he would give them something concrete to catch hold of. And so it was that there gradually came into circulation a series of exquisitely drawn little pictures. A man would find one in his pocket when he came to undress, with no idea as to how it had come there. And with each of them would be some definite order, written in block capitals. And if those orders were disobeyed, the recipient would later be found dead, with the same device pinned to his coat. Here is one that I kept for many years.”
He pulled out his pocketbook, and even as he had it in his hands, his eyes dilated and he sat motionless, staring at a tree just behind my seat.