by Sapper
It was three-quarters of an hour before the door opened again and the snuffling old German of the restaurant wagon emerged. Professor Scheidstrun was ready to discuss the atomic theory with Professor Goodman with special reference to carboniferous quartz. Outside the door a motorcar was standing with a large box on board containing his specimens; while by its side were two men who were to lift the box off the car, and in due course lift it on again. And the only other thing of interest which might be mentioned in passing is that if Frau Scheidstrun had happened to see him getting into the car wheezing peevishly in German, she would undoubtedly have wondered what on earth her husband was doing in London – so perfect was the make-up. But since that excellent woman was chasing the elusive mark in Dresden at the moment, there was but little fear of such an unfortunate contretemps.
It was at twenty past two that he arrived at Professor Goodman’s house. As he stepped out of the car a man walked quietly towards him, a man who stopped to watch the big box being carefully lowered to the ground. He stopped just long enough to say, “No one in the house except the servants,” and then he strolled on.
With great care the two men carried the box up the steps and, considering the contents were lumps of carboniferous quartz, the intense respect with which they handled it might have struck an onlooker as strange. But the parlourmaid, grown used through long experience to the sudden appearance of strange individuals at odd hours, merely led the way to the laboratory, and having remarked that the Professor might be back at three, or possibly not till six, according to whether he had remembered the appointment or not, she returned to her interrupted dinner.
“Get the box undone,” said Blackton curtly. “But don’t take anything out.”
The two men set to work, while he walked quickly round every corner of the room. Of necessity a little had had to be left to chance, and though he was perfectly capable of dealing with the unexpected when it arrived, he preferred to have things as far as possible cut and dried beforehand. And at the moment what he wanted to find was a cupboard large enough to accommodate a man. Not that it was absolutely necessary, but it would assist matters, especially in the event of the Professor bringing a friend with him. That was a possibility always present in his mind, and one which he had been unable to guard against without running the risk of raising the Professor’s suspicions.
He found what he wanted in a corner – a big recess under the working bench screened by a curtain, and used for old retorts and test-tubes. It was ideal for his purpose, and with a nod of satisfaction he went over to the door. All was well – the key was on the inside; and with one final glance round the room the exponent of the new atomic theory sat down to wait.
Before him lay the riskiest thing he had ever done in all his risky career, but had anyone felt his pulse he would have found it normal. And it wasn’t of the next hour that Mr Blackton was thinking so much, but of the future, when his coup had succeeded. That it would succeed was certain; no thought of failure was ever allowed to enter his mind.
Five minutes passed – ten – when the ringing of the front-door bell brought him back from dreams of the future. This must be Mr Lewisham, and with his arrival came the time for action. Blackton listened intently – would he be shown into the laboratory or into some other room? If the latter, it would necessitate getting him in on some pretext; but steps coming along the passage settled that point. Once more the door was flung open by the parlourmaid; once more she returned to better things in the servants’ hall.
Lewisham paused, and glanced a little doubtfully at the old German in his dirty black clothes. Some chemical friend of the Professor’s evidently; possibly it would be better to wait somewhere else. He half turned to the door as if to go out again, when suddenly he felt two hands like bars of steel around his throat. For a moment or two he struggled impotently; then he grew still. And after a while the limp body slipped to the floor and lay still.
“Underneath that bench with him,” snapped Blackton. “Quick.”
He had opened the door an inch or two and was peering out. The passage was empty, and faint sounds were coming up the stairs from the servants’ quarters.
“Stay where you are,” he said to the two men. “I shall be back in a minute.”
He walked along the passage towards the front door, which he opened. Then he deliberately rang the bell, and stood for a few seconds peering out. And it was not until he heard the footsteps of the parlourmaid that he shut the door again with a bang, and advanced towards her, gesticulating wildly.
“Where is your master?” he cried. “I must to my business get; I cannot here the whole day wait. That other gentleman – he does not wait. He go. I too – I follow him.” He glanced at the girl. “Speak, woman.” He waved his arms at her, and she retreated in alarm. “I will take my specimens, and I will go – like him.”
Still muttering horribly under his breath, he walked up and down the hall, while the parlourmaid endeavoured to soothe him.
“I expect the Professor will be back soon, sir,” she murmured.
“Soon,” he raved. “I who have come from Germany him to see, and then I wait. He write to me: I write to him – and then I come with my specimens. And you say soon. Nein – I go. I go like that other.”
It was at that moment that the front door opened and Professor Goodman entered.
“A thousand apologies, my dear Professor,” he cried, hurrying forward. “I fear I am late – very late. I hope I have not kept you waiting.”
He led the other towards the laboratory, and the parlourmaid made hurried tracks for safety.
“No wonder that there other one wouldn’t wait,” she remarked to the cook. “He’s a holy terror – that German. Dirty old beast, with egg all over his coat, waving his arms at me. Old Goodman is a pretty fair freak, but he does wash. I ’opes he enjoys himself.”
Which was a kindly thought on the part of the parlourmaid. And the fact that it was expressed at the exact moment that Professor Goodman went fully under the influence of an anaesthetic may be regarded as a strange coincidence. For there was no time wasted in the laboratory that afternoon. Much had to be done, and hardly had the door closed behind the master of the house when he found himself seized and pinioned. One feeble cry was all he gave; then a pad soaked in ether was pressed over his nose and mouth, and the subsequent proceedings ceased to interest him.
Very interesting proceedings they were too – that went on behind the locked door. Bursts of German loquacity with intervals of a voice astonishingly like Professor Goodman’s would have convinced any inquisitive person listening outside the door that the two savants were in full blast. Not that anyone was likely to listen, but Blackton was not a man who took chances. And it takes time to change completely two men’s clothes when one is dead and the other is unconscious. One hour it was, to be exact, before the body of Mr Lewisham dressed in Professor Goodman’s clothes, even down to his boots, was propped up in a chair against the bench, with various bottles and retorts in front of him. One hour and a quarter it was before a number of small packets had been taken from the big wooden case and stacked carefully on the bench so that they touched the dead man’s chest. One hour and a half it was before the still unconscious Professor Goodman was placed as comfortably as possible – Mr Blackton had no wish to run any chances with his health – in the big wooden case, and nailed up. And during the whole of that hour and a half the discussion on carboniferous quartz had continued with unabated zest.
At last, however, everything was finished, and Blackton took from his pocket a little instrument which he handled very gingerly. He first of all wound it up rather as a Bee clock is wound, and when it was ticking gently he placed it in the centre of the heap of small packets. Then he unlocked the door.
“Put the box on the car,” he ordered. “Then pick up Freyder, and go straight to the house.”
Once again the two men s
taggered down the passage with their load, while Blackton glanced at his watch. Just a quarter of an hour to put through – before things happened. He closed the door again, and once more his guttural voice was raised in wordy argument for the benefit of any possible audience. And in the intervals when he ceased only the faint ticking broke the silence. Everything had gone without a hitch, but there were still one or two small things to be done. And the first of these showed the amazing attention to detail which characterised all his actions. He took the key from the door and put it on the desk; a master-key of his own would enable him to lock the door from outside, whereas the presence of the key in the room would make it appear that it had been locked from within. And it was precisely that appearance which he wished given.
Once more he looked at his watch: ten minutes to go. Nervous work, that waiting; and even he began to feel the strain. But he daren’t go too soon; he daren’t leave too long a space of time between the moment he left the house and the moment when the ticking would cease. And he didn’t want to go too late, because the last thing he desired was to be on, or even too near, the premises when the ticking ceased. Moreover, there was always the possibility of a flaw in the mechanism. Morelli was a wonderful craftsman, and he had staked his reputation on it taking exactly a quarter of an hour. But even so – it was nervous work, waiting.
Precisely five minutes later – and they were the longest five minutes Mr Blackton had ever spent in his life – he pressed the bell. His guttural voice was raised in expostulation and argument as the parlourmaid knocked at the door. Still talking, he opened it himself, and over his shoulder the girl got a fleeting glance of Professor Goodman engaged in one of his experiments to the exclusion of all else.
“My hat, girl,” cried the German, waving his arms at her. She went to get it, and from behind her back came the noise of a key turning. “Ach! my friend – no one will disturb you,” rumbled the German. “No need to your door lock.” Mechanically he took the hat the parlourmaid was holding out, while he still continued muttering to himself. “What is the good? one mistake, and you will experiment no more. You and your house will go sky-high.”
Still waving his arms, he shambled off down the street, and the girl stood watching him. And it was just after he had turned the corner and she was expressing her opinion of his appearance to the cook, who was taking a breather in the area below, that she was hurled forward flat on her face. A terrific explosion shook the house; windows broke; plaster and pictures came crashing down. And if it was bad in the front, it was immeasurably worse at the back. A huge hole had been blown in the outside wall of what had once been the Professor’s laboratory; the three inside walls had collapsed, and the ceiling had descended, bringing with it a bed, two wardrobes, and a washing-stand complete.
In fact there was every justification for the remark of the parlourmaid as she picked herself up.
“Lumme! what’s the old fool done now? I suppose he’ll ring the bell in a minute and ask me to sweep up the mess.”
An hour later Edward Blackton was seated at his desk in the house in the quiet square. Up to date his scheme had gone even more smoothly than he had expected, though there were still one or two small points to be attended to before he could retire from observation and devote himself to the Professor. There was bound to be an inquest, for instance, and he was far too big a man not to realise that it might be fatal for him not to attend it.Moreover, there was the little matter of that extra quarter of a million from the Metropolitan Syndicate.
But just at the moment Lewisham was occupying his mind. A note in cipher on the table in front of him from Freyder informed him that Henry Lewisham was a married man, and that he lived in South Kensington. And since the appearance of the late Mr Lewisham betokened his immense respectability, there was but little doubt that Mrs Lewisham would become seriously alarmed if her spouse absented himself for the night from the conjugal roof without any word to her.
Blackton pressed a bell on his desk twice, and a moment or two later the man who had been staring into the shop-window, and to whom he had spoken as he left the Metropolitan Syndicate earlier in the day, entered.
“That man you followed this morning – Lewisham: did he go home to lunch?”
“No, Chief. He had a chop in a restaurant in the city.”
“Did he use the telephone as far as you know?”
“I know he didn’t use it. He was never out of my sight from the time he came into the street till he went into Goodman’s house.”
Blackton nodded as if satisfied.
“Go to Euston, and send a wire to this address. ‘Called North on urgent business, Henry.’ Then go to the Plough Inn in Liverpool, and wait there for further orders. Draw fifty pounds for expenses” – he scribbled his signature on a slip of paper – “and it is possible you will have to start for South America at a moment’s notice. If you do, it will be necessary for you to make yourself up to an approximate resemblance of Henry Lewisham, and your berth will be taken in his name.”
“I didn’t have a chance of studying his face very closely, Chief,” said the man doubtfully.
Blackton waved his hand in dismissal.
“Approximate resemblance, I said,” he remarked curtly. “You will receive full instructions later. Go.”
He lay back in his chair as the door closed behind the man, and pulled thoughtfully at his cigar. A merciful fact, he reflected, that it is not a police offence for a man to run away from his wife. In fact if Mrs Lewisham was anything like Mr Lewisham, it could hardly be regarded as an offence at all by any disinterested person, but rather as an example of praiseworthy discretion. A letter in due course from Liverpool stating his intention; a resemblance efficient to cope with a wireless description in case the lady should think of such a thing – and finally complete disappearance in South America. An easy place to disappear in – South America, reflected Mr Blackton; a fact he had made use of on several occasions, when the circumstances had been similar. And it was better for sorrowing relatives to picture their dear one alive and wandering through primeval forests in Brazil, or dallying with nitrates in Chile, than for them to realise that the dear one was very, very dead. It was also better for Mr Blackton.
He dismissed the unfortunate Lewisham from his mind, and produced from his pocket the papers he had taken from Professor Goodman before removing his clothes. The first thing he saw, to his intense satisfaction, was the warning typewritten letter, and holding a match under one corner of it he reduced it to ashes and finally to powder. Two or three private letters he treated similarly, and then he came to a dozen loose sheets of paper covered with incomprehensible scrawling hieroglyphics. These he carefully pinned together and put in his pocket, reflecting yet again on the extreme goodness of fate. And then for the second time he took from the drawer where he had placed it for safety the metal retort which apparently played such an important part in the process. He had found it standing on the electric furnace in the Professor’s laboratory, and now he examined it curiously. It was about double the size of an ordinary tumbler, and was made of some dull opaque substance which resembled dirty pewter. And as Blackton looked at it and realised the incredible fortune that was soon to come to him out of that uninteresting-looking pot, his hand shook uncontrollably.
He replaced it in the drawer, as someone knocked on the door. It was the man who had spoken to him outside the Professor’s house.
“They’re all humming like a hive of bees, Chief,” he remarked. “The police are in, and they’ve cleared away the debris. I managed to get in and have a look – and it’s all right.”
“You’re certain of that,” said Blackton quietly.
“There’s nothing left of him, Chief, except a boot in one corner.”
Blackton rubbed his hands together.
“Excellent – excellent! You’ve done very well: cash this downstairs.”
Again he s
cribbled his initials on a slip of paper, and pushing it across the table dismissed the man. Assuredly luck was in, though as a general rule Blackton refused to allow the existence of such a thing. The big man, according to him, made allowance for every possible contingency; only the fool ever trusted to luck if anything of importance was at stake. And in this case he only regarded his luck as being in because he would be able, as far as he could see, to carry on with the simplest of the three schemes which he had worked out to meet different emergencies should they arise. And though he had employed enough explosive to shatter ten men, no man knew better than he did how capricious it was in its action.
Now he was only waiting for one thing more – a telephone call from Freyder. He glanced at his watch: hardly time as yet, perhaps, for him to have reached his destination and to get through to London. In fact it was twenty minutes before the bell rang at his side.