The Best Martin Hewitt Detective Stories

by Arthur Morrison

  “Is it likely,” said Luker, “that we should give the ’ole thing away to anybody who might easily go with his £50 and clear out the bloomin’ show? Not much. We’ve told you what the game is, and if you’d like to take a flutter with your £50, all right, you’ll do as well as anybody, and we’ll treat you square. If you don’t—well, don’t, that’s all. We’ll get the oof from somewhere—there’s blokes as ’ud jump at the chance, I can tell you—only they’re inconvenient blokes to deal with, as I’ll explain if you come in with us. Anyway we ain’t goin’ to give the show away before you’ve done somethin’ to prove you’re on the job, straight. Put your money in and you shall know as much as we do.”

  Then there were more drinks, and more discussion. Hoker was still reluctant, though tempted by the prospect, and growing more venturesome with each drink.

  “Don’t you see,” said Birks, “that if we was a-tryin’ to ’ave you we should out with a tale as long as yer arm, all complete, with the address of the ’ouse and all. Then I s’pose you’d lug out the pieces on the nail, without askin’ a bloomin’ question. More fool you, that’s all. As it is, the thing’s so perfectly genuine that we’d rather lose the chance and wait for some other bloke to find the money than run a chance of givin’ the thing away. It ain’t you wot’ll be doin’ a favour, mind. If it’s anybody it’s us. Not that we want to talk of favours at all, if you come to that. It’s a matter o’ business, simple and plain, that’s all it is. If you’re willin’ to come in with the money that we can’t do without—very well. If you ain’t, very well too, only we ain’t goin’ to give the thing away to an outsider. It’s a question of either us trustin’ you with a chance of collarin’ £20,000, or you trustin’ us with a paltry £50. We don’t lay out no ’igh moral sentiments, we only say the weight o’ money is all on one side. Take it or leave it, that’s all. ’Ave another Scotch.”

  The talk went on and the drinks went on, and it all ended at “chucking-out time” in Reuben B. Hoker handing over five ten-pound notes, with smiling, though slightly incoherent, assurances of his eternal friendship for Luker and Birks.

  In the morning he awoke to the realisation of a bad head, a bad tongue, and a bad opinion of his proceedings of the previous night. In his sober senses it seemed plain that he had been swindled. He had heard of the confidence trick, to which many Americans had unaccountably fallen victims (for to him the trick had always seemed very thin), and he had sworn that something better than the confidence trick would be required to get over him. But now there seemed no doubt that this was no more than the confidence trick over again, in a new and more impudent form. All day he cursed his fuddled foolishness, and at night he made for the bar that had been the scene of the transaction, with little hope of seeing either Luker or Birks, who had agreed to be there to meet him. There they were, however, and rather to his surprise, they made no demand for more money. They asked him if he understood music, and showed him the worn old piece of paper containing the manuscript “Flitterbat Lancers.” The exact spot, they said, where the jewels were hidden was supposed to be indicated somehow and somewhere on that piece of paper. Hoker did not understand music, and could find nothing on the paper that looked in the least like a direction to a hiding-place for jewels or anything else.

  Luker and Birks then went into full particulars of their project. First, as to its history. The jewels were the famous Wedlake jewels, which had been taken from Sir Francis Wedlake’s house in 1866 and never heard of again. A certain Jerry Shiels had been arrested in connection with the robbery, had been given a long sentence of penal servitude, and had died in gaol. This Jerry Shiels was an extraordinarily clever criminal, and travelled about the country as a street musician. Although an expert burglar, he very rarely perpetrated robberies himself, but acted as a sort of travelling fence, receiving stolen property and transmitting it to London or out of the country. He also acted as the agent of a man named Legg, who had money, and who financed any likely-looking project of a criminal nature that Shiels might arrange or recommend. Luker and Birks explained that there were many men of this class, and that it was to them that they had referred on the previous evening, when they said that there were “blokes that would jump at the chance” of financing the present venture.

  Jerry Shiels travelled with a “pardner”—a man who played the harp and acted as his assistant and messenger in affairs wherein Jerry was reluctant to appear personally. When Shiels was arrested he had in his possession a quantity of printed and manuscript music, and after his first remand his “pardner,” Jemmy Snape, applied for the music to be given up to him in order, as he explained, that he might earn his living. No objection was raised to this, and Shiels was quite willing that Snape should have it, and so it was handed over. Now among this music was a small slip, headed “Flitterbat Lancers,” which Shiels had shown to Snape before the arrest. In case of Shiels being taken Snape was to take this particular slip to Legg as fast as he could. The slip indeed carried about it, in some unexplained way which Legg understood, an indication of the place in which Shiels had concealed the bulk of the Wedlake jewels, and the whole proceeding was an ingenious trick invented by Shiels (and used before, it was supposed) to communicate with Legg while under arrest.

  Snape got the music, but, as chance would have it, on that very day Legg himself was arrested, and soon after was sentenced also to a term of years. Snape hung about in London for a little while and then emigrated. Before leaving, however, he gave the slip of music to Luker’s father, a rag-shop keeper, who was a friend of his, and to whom he owed money. He explained its history, and hoped that Luker senior would be able to recoup himself for the debt, and a good deal over. Then he went. Luker senior had made all sorts of fruitless efforts to get at the information concealed in the paper. He had held it to the fire to bring up concealed writing, had washed it, had held it to the light till his eyes ached, had gone over it with a magnifying glass—all in vain. He had got musicians to strum out the notes on all sorts of instruments, backwards, forwards, alternately, and in every other way he could think of. If at any time he fancied a resemblance in the resulting sound to some familiar song-tune, he got that song and studied all its words with loving care, upside-down, right-side up—every way. He took the words “Flitterbat Lancers” and transposed the letters in all directions, and did everything else he could think of. In the end he gave it up and died. Now lately, Luker junior had been impelled with a desire to see into the matter. He had repeated all the parental experiments, and more, with chemicals, and with the same lack of success. He had taken his “pal” Birks into his confidence, and together they had tried other experiments still—usually very clumsy ones indeed—till at last they began to believe that the message had probably been written in some sort of invisible ink which the subsequent washings and experiments had erased altogether. But he had done one other thing: he had found the house which Shiels rented at the time of his arrest, and in which a good quantity of stolen property—not connected with the Wedlake case—was discovered. Here, he argued, if anywhere, Jerry Shiels had hidden the jewels. There was no other place where he could be found to have lived, or over which he had sufficient control to warrant his hiding valuables therein. Perhaps, once the house could be properly examined, something about it might give a clue as to what the message of the “Flitterbat Lancers” meant. At any rate, message or none, anybody in possession of the house, with a certain amount of patience, secrecy, and thoroughness, could in time make himself master of every possible hiding-place, and could completely excavate the back yard. The trouble was that the house was occupied, and that money was wanted to get possession. It was with the view of providing this that they had decided to broach the subject to Hoker.

  Hoker of course was anxious to know where the house in question stood, but this Luker and Birks would on no account inform him. “You’ve done your part,” they said, “and now you leave us to do ours. There’s a bit of a job about gettin’ the tenants out. They won’t go, and it�
��ll take a bit of time before the landlord can make them. So you just hold your jaw and wait. When we’re safe in the ’ouse, and there’s no chance of anybody else pokin’ into the business, then you can come and help find the stuff if you like. But you ain’t goin’ to ’ave a chance of puttin’ in first for yourself this journey, you bet.”

  Hoker went home that night sober, but in much perplexity. The thing might be genuine after all; indeed there were many little things that made him think it was. But then if it were, what guarantee had he that he would get his share, supposing the search turned out successful? None at all. But then it struck him for the first time that these jewels, though they may have lain untouched so long, were stolen property after all. The moral aspect of the affair began to trouble him a little, but the legal aspect troubled him more. That consideration, however, he decided to leave over, for the present at any rate. He had no more than the word of Luker and Birks that the jewels (if they existed) were those of Lady Wedlake, and Luker and Birks themselves only professed to know from hearsay. At any rate his £50 was gone where he felt pretty sure he would have a difficulty in getting it back from, and he determined to wait events. But at least he made up his mind to have some little guarantee for his money. In accordance with this resolve he suggested, when he met the two men the next day, that he should take charge of the slip of music and make an independent study of it. This proposal, however, met with an instant veto. The whole thing was now in their hands, Luker and Birks laid it down, and they didn’t intend letting any of it out. If Hoker wanted to study the “Flitterbat Lancers” he could do it in their presence, and if he were dissatisfied he could go to the next shop. Altogether it became clear to the unhappy Hoker that now that he had parted with his money he was altogether at the mercy of these fellows, if he wished to get any share of the plunder, or even to see his money back again. And if he made any complaint, or if the matter became at all known, the affair would be “blown upon,” as they expressed it, and his money would be gone. Mostly, though, he resented their bullying talk, and he determined to get even in the matter of the music. He resolved to make up a piece of paper, folded as like the slip as possible, and substitute one for the other at their next meeting. Then he would put the “Flitterbat Lancers” in some safe place and face his fellow-conspirators with a hand of cards equal to their own. He carried out his plan the next evening with perfect success, thanks to a trick of “passing” cards which he had learned in his youth, and thanks also to the contemptuous indifference with which Luker and Birks had begun to regard him. He got the slip in his pocket and left the bar. He had not gone far, however, before Luker discovered the trick, and soon he became conscious of being followed. He looked for a cab, but he was in a dark street, and no cab was near. Luker and Birks turned the corner and began to run. He saw they must catch him, and felt no doubt that if they did he would lose the slip of paper, the £50, and everything. They were big active fellows, and could probably do as they liked with him—especially since he could not call for help without risking an exposure of their joint enterprise. Everything depended now on his putting the “Flitterbat Lancers” out of their reach, but where he could himself recover it. Then it would form a sort of security for his share of the venture. He ran till he saw a narrow passage-way on his right, and into this he darted. It led into a yard where stones were lying about, and in a large building before him he saw the window of a lighted room a couple of floors up. It was a desperate expedient, but there was no time for consideration. He wrapped a stone in the paper and flung it with all his force through the lighted window. Even as he did it he heard the feet of Luker and Birks as they hurried down the street. The rest of the adventure in the court I myself saw.

  Luker and Birks kept Hoker in their lodgings all that night. They searched him unsuccessfully for the paper, they bullied, they swore, they cajoled, they entreated, they begged him to play the game square with his pals. Hoker merely replied that he had put the “Flitterbat Lancers” where they couldn’t easily find it, and that he intended playing the game square so long as they did the same. In the end they released him, apparently with more respect for his cuteness than they had before entertained, advising him at any rate, to get the paper into his possession as soon as he could. With this view he repaired again to the scene of his window-smashing exploit, and having ascertained the exact position of the window in the building, began his morning’s attack on my outer door.

  “And now,” said Mr. Hoker, in conclusion of his narrative, “perhaps you’ll give me a bit of Christian advice. You’re up to as many moves as most people over here. Am I playin’ a fool-game running after these toughs, or ain’t I? I wouldn’t have told you what I have, of course, if it wasn’t clear that you’d got hold of the hang of the scheme somehow. Say, now, is it all a swindle?”

  Hewitt shrugged his shoulders. “It all depends,” he said, “on your friends Luker and Birks, as you may easily see for yourself. They may want to swindle you of your money and of the proceeds of the speculation, as you call it, or they may not. I’m afraid they’d like to, at any rate. But perhaps you’ve got some little security in this piece of paper. One thing is plain: they certainly believe in the deposit of jewels themselves, else they wouldn’t have taken so much trouble to get the paper back, on the chance of seeing some way of using it after they had got into the house they speak of.”

  “Then I guess I’ll go on with the thing, if that’s it.”

  “That depends of course on whether you care to take trouble to get possession of what, after all, is somebody else’s lawful property.”

  Hoker looked a little uneasy. “Well,” he said, “there’s that, of course. I didn’t know nothin’ about that at first, and when I did I’d parted with my money and felt entitled to get something back for it. Anyway the stuff ain’t found yet. When it is, why then, you know, I might make a deal with the owner. But, say, how did you find out my name, and about this here affair being jined up with the Wedlake jewels?”

  Hewitt smiled. “As to the name and address, you just think it over a little when you’ve gone away, and if you don’t see how I did it, you’re not so cute as I think you are. In regard to the jewels—well, I just read the message of the ‘Flitterbat Lancers,’ that’s all.”

  “You read it? Whew! That beats! And what does it say, and where? How did you fix it?” Hoker turned the paper over eagerly in his hands as he spoke.

  “See, now,” said Hewitt, “I won’t tell you all that, but I’ll tell you something, and it may help you to test the real knowledge of Luker and Birks. Part of the message is in these words, which you had better write down: ‘Over the coals the fifth dancer slides says Jerry Shiels the horney.’ ”

  “What?” Hoker exclaimed, “Fifth dancer slides over the coals? That’s a mighty odd dance-figure, anyway, lancers or not. What’s it all about?”

  “About the Wedlake jewels, as I said. Now you can go and make a bargain with Luker and Birks. The only other part of the message is an address, and that they already know, if they have been telling the truth about the house they intend taking. You can offer to tell them what I have told you of the message, after they have told you where the house is, and proved to you that they are taking the steps they talk of. If they won’t agree to that I think you had best treat them as common rogues (which they are), and charge them with obtaining your money under false pretences. But in any case don’t be disappointed if you see very little of the Wedlake jewels.”

  Nothing more would Hewitt say than that, despite Hoker’s many questions; and when at last Hoker had gone, almost as troubled and perplexed as ever, my friend turned to me and said, “Now, Brett, if you haven’t lunched, and would like to see the end of this business, hurry up!”

  “The end of it?” I said. “Is it to the end so soon? How?”

  “Simply by a police raid on Jerry Shiels’s old house with a search warrant. I communicated with the police this morning before I came here.”

  “Poor Hoker!” I said.


  “Oh, I had told the police before I saw Hoker, or heard of him, of course. I just conveyed the message on the music slip, that was enough. But I’ll tell you all about it when there’s more time; I must be off now. With the information I have given him, Hoker and his friends may make an extra push and get into the house soon, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to give the unfortunate Hoker some sort of a sporting chance—though it’s a poor one, I fear. Get your lunch as quickly as you can, and go at once to Colt Row. Bankside—Southwark way, you know. Probably we shall be there before you. If not, wait.”

  Hewitt had assumed his hat and gloves as he spoke, and now hurried away. I took such lunch as I could in twenty minutes and hurried in a cab towards Blackfriars Bridge. The cabman knew nothing of Colt Row, but had a notion of where to find Bankside. Once in the region I left him, and then Colt Row was not difficult to find. It was one of those places that decay with an excess of respectability, like Drury Lane and Clare Market. Once, when Jacob’s Island was still an island, a little further down the river, Colt Row had evidently been an unsafe place for a person with valuables about him, and then it probably prospered, in its own way. Now it was quite respectable, but very dilapidated and dirty, and looked as unprosperous as a street well can. It was too near the river to be a frequented thoroughfare, and too far from it to be valuable for wharfage purposes. It was a stagnant backwater in the London tide, close though it stood to the full rush of the stream. Perhaps it was sixty yards long—perhaps a little more. It was certainly very few yards wide, and the houses at each side had a patient and forlorn look of waiting for a metropolitan improvement to come along and carry them away to their rest. Many seemed untenanted, and most threatened soon to be untenable. I could see no signs as yet of Hewitt, nor of the police, so I walked up and down the narrow pavement for a little while. As I did so I became conscious of a face at a window of the least ruinous house in the row, a face that I fancied expressed particular interest in my movements. The house was an old gabled structure, faced with plaster. What had apparently once been a shop-window, or at any rate a wide one, on the ground floor, was now shuttered up, and the face that watched me—an old woman’s—looked from a window next above. I had noted these particulars with some curiosity, when, arriving again at the street corner, I observed Hewitt approaching, in company with a police inspector, and followed by two unmistakable “plain-clothes” men.