He hung up. That was all he could do at the moment. If Freddie was following the unknown his route would be seen and noted, for Jimmy’s car was well-known. He settled himself down to wait, occupying his mind in puzzling over the photograph. It seemed ridiculous that anyone should go to such trouble and risk to secure such an object, but it was obviously valuable to the unknown.
It was midday when the call came through. Jimmy’s car had been found empty and unattended up a side turning leading down to the river at Staines and five minutes after he got the message Jimmy was on his way. A police car picked him up at Wyvern Court, and, immune from traffic regulations made short work of the distance.
In less than an hour and a half from the time the notification had been received Jimmy was standing beside his abandoned car speculating as to the whereabouts of Freddie Babbington. There was no sign of that large individual or any indication where he had gone to.
“He must have gone a pretty good distance, sir,” said Sergeant Scorby. “The car’s been here nearly two hours.”
Jimmy nodded, his brow furrowed in thought. What had happened to Freddie? He was trying to construct a workable theory as to what had taken place when the local policeman, who had found the car and reported the fact, made a remark that brought him out of his reverie with a jerk.
“Somebody’s taken old Bilter’s boat over to the houseboat,” said the man, nodding across the water. “That’ll be them boys, I expect. Young varmints, they’re allus up to some mischief or other. The other day—”
Before he could recount what happened the other day Jimmy interrupted him.
“Do you mean that dinghy?” he snapped.
The constable nodded.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “It should be moored alongside the bank. Belongs to old Bilter.”
“Never mind old Bilter,” broke in Jimmy. “I want to get over to that old houseboat. How can I do it?”
The policeman scratched his head and looked vague. The problem was evidently beyond him.
“Isn’t there a boat we can borrow?” said Jimmy impatiently.
“There’s Mr. Rancy’s punt,” replied the constable slowly. “But that’s a good way from ’ere. ’Bout a quarter of a mile—”
“That’ll do,” said Jimmy. “Show us where it is.”
“Along the path this way, sir,” said the man of law. “Yer see where that there white post is?” He pointed.
He swung off in the direction of the white post followed by Sergeant Scorby.
Jimmy strode rapidly towards the punt and reached it a good twenty yards ahead of his panting companion. There was a paddle lying in the bottom, and by the time the breathless Scorby arrived Jimmy had scrambled into the punt and was disentangling the mooring chain.
“Come on, jump in!” he said, and the sergeant obeyed.
“What do you expect to find at the houseboat, sir?” he ventured as Jimmy sent the punt out into midstream.
“I don’t know,” came the answer. “But I’m hoping to find Miss Kesson and Mr. Babbington—and I’m hoping they’ll be alive!”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Just In Time!
The icy shock of the water counteracted the effect of the sudden blow, and the Hon. Freddie came to the surface spluttering and spitting out pints of foul-tasting river. He made a grab for the edge of the houseboat, and his collar was seized. He caught a momentary glimpse of his recent assailant, and then something struck him heavily on the head, and he passed out in real earnest.
When he came to himself he was lying helpless on the floor inside the houseboat itself, and the first thing his roving eyes saw was the Angel, still on the settee as he had glimpsed her through the dirty window. She was looking directly at him, and he saw recognition in her eyes. He tried to open his mouth, and discovered that he had been gagged, too.
“You’ve come round, have you?” said the voice of the unknown. “Well, that’s a pity. It would have been easier for you if you’d remained unconscious.”
Freddie twisted his head in the direction of the voice and discovered that the man was bending over an assortment of rusty iron that littered the floor near the door.
“I suppose,” he continued unemotionally, “that you followed me from Wyvern Court. I ought to have expected that. It was careless of me. However, it doesn’t very much matter since I found out before you could do any real damage.”
He began to pass a length of chain through his fingers as if he were measuring it.
“You certainly won’t do any more damage,” he went on. “You and this very inquisitive lady here will keep each other company on the bottom of the river. I understand drowning is quite a pleasant way of dying.”
Freddie went cold. He understood now what the chain and the rusty iron were for.
“But for your sudden and unexpected arrival,” said the other, “everything would have been over by now, and I should have been on my way back to London.”
The Hon. Freddie would have given a lot to put into words some of the things that were passing through his mind, but he could only utter an unintelligible grunt. He cursed himself for a blind, blundering fool. A little more caution and he could have rescued the girl and probably captured this unpleasant piece of work with the scrap-iron as well. As it was, he had thrown away his chance. He looked back at the Angel. She was still watching him, and he was surprised to see no trace of fear in her eyes. By James, she’d got pluck as well as looks!
“I think I’ll attend to you first,” said the unknown. He dragged three or four of the rusty iron weights over to his captive’s side, threaded the chain through eyelets, and began to wind it round Freddie’s body. He took a lot of care over this, making sure that it would not slip. When he had finished he sat back on his haunches and surveyed his handiwork with satisfaction.
“Ladies next,” he remarked pleasantly. “I’m afraid I shall have to remove you from that settee.”
He stooped over the girl and lifted her, laying her down beside Freddie Fetching more weights and chains, he repeated his previous procedure.
“And that’s that,” he said. “All that remains now is to drag you out and drop you overboard with dear Uncle Ebenezer’s photograph to amuse you.”
He picked up the picture and stuffed it into Freddie’s breast pocket
“There we are,” he remarked, stepping back. “I’ll just make sure there’s nobody watching on the towpath, and then—!” He went out. Freddie would have liked to have said some word to the girl who lay near him but that was impossible. He tried to smile, and she evidently understood, for her eyes responded. It was hell to think of her life being cut short in this way. To drown and slowly rot in the slimy mud of the river’s bed.
He heard a shout and a wave of hope broke over him. Was there a chance— after all? The Angel’s eyes lighted as the shout was repeated.
Something bumped heavily into the houseboat, and Freddie heard a well-known voice cry:
“I want you!”
There came a shot, and then another, and another. The houseboat rocked under a stampede of feet. There was a crashing of branches, and Jimmy’s voice again:
“After him Scorby! The beggar’s lamed me!”
And then the door was flung open, and Jimmy, limping badly came stumbling into the little saloon…
*
The Angel, fresh and dainty, and presenting no trace of her recent ordeal put a match to the cigarette between her lips and lay back in her chair.
“I feel,” she remarked, blowing out a thin stream of smoke, “exactly like the heroine in every thriller I’ve ever read,”
“And so you ought!” said Jimmy Holland severely. “A nice lot of worry you’ve caused us!”
“Have I?” She smiled across the table at him. “I’m very sorry! How did you manage to turn up so opportunely?”
Jimmy told her.
“Well, you were only just in time,” she murmured; “in fact, you’d have been too late if your friend, Mr. Babbington, hadn’t d
elayed matters.”
They were seated in the lounge of the Royal Hotel at Staines, where they had taken the starving girl and given her food.
“It’s a pity the chappie got away,” said Freddie gloomily. “Who was he, Miss Kesson?”
She shook her head.
“I’ve no idea,” she replied. “I’d rather like to know that myself.”
“But surely,” protested Jimmy in astonishment, “you must have some idea of his identity?”
“I haven’t, she declared frankly. “The only thing I know about him is that he is desperately anxious to obtain the photograph.”
“Good old Ebenezer!” said Freddie. “We’ve got him, anyway.”
He patted his breast pocket with a grin.
“But you know why he wanted the photograph?” said Jimmy, and again she shook her head.
“No, I don’t,” she answered. “It’s puzzled me a lot, and I’m still curious.”
“I don’t understand.” Jimmy scratched his chin in bewilderment. “Isn’t this the reason that Scarthright—?”
“It has nothing to do with Abel Scarthright at all,” broke in the Angel, “nor any of his friends.”
“But it was Scarthright who took you to that place at Horsham,” said Jimmy. “We know that—”
“Oh, yes,” she said, “but it was my unknown admirer who rescued me from them. I don’t suppose anyone was more surprised than Mr. Scarthright when he found I’d gone.”
“I’d like to hear more about this,” said Jimmy firmly. “Why did Scarthright—”
She stopped him with a gesture.
“I owe you a lot,” she said, “and I don’t want to appear ungrateful but I am not answering any questions, Mr. Holland.”
“But this is a serious matter,” he protested. “You must—”
“I know just how serious it is,” she retorted—“nobody better I assure you. But it’s entirely my business, and I’m not talking about it.”
“I think you’re being very foolish,” said Jimmy. “I don’t know what you’ve got against Scarthright and his friends, or what they have against you, but you can’t fight these men single-handed—it’s ridiculous!”
“I have good reasons,” she said, “at least, they seem good to me.”
“Well,” he replied, “I suppose it’s your business. After all you’re taking the risks; but I should have liked to have helped—not,” he added hastily, “in my capacity of a detective, but as a friend—if you will allow me to call myself that.”
“You’ve earned the right—both of you,” she said. "I shall never forget that I owe my life to you.”
“Oh, that’s nothing!” muttered the embarrassed Freddie. “I wish we’d caught that blighter, though.”
“He shouldn’t be difficult to trace,” said Jimmy. “If the houseboat is his own property, we ought to be able to find him that way. His anxiety to get hold of that photograph is what’s puzzling me.”
“And he only wanted it to destroy it, old boy,” put in Freddie—“don’t forget that. He was going to send the beastly thing down with me to feed the fishes.”
“Let’s have a look at it,” said Jimmy, stretching out his hand. “Perhaps we can discover its secret between us.”
Freddie produced it from his pocket and handed it to Jimmy. He drew up his chair, cleared the glass-topped table of its ashtray and matches and, laying the photograph in front of him, studied it closely. But, so far as he could see, there was nothing to account for the unknown wishing it destroyed. The same kind of picture could be found in any family album—there was nothing queer about it at all.
“It’s a mystery,” he declared after a long and close inspection. “There’s simply nothing extraordinary about this photograph.”
“Do you think the feller’s mad?” suggested Babbington. “Perhaps he's got a mania for destroying Victorian photographs—anti-whiskers, anti-aspidistras, anti-period sort of thing, eh?”
“Why concentrate on this particular picture?” said Jimmy, taking his suggestion seriously. “No, I think we can dismiss that idea. I wish you would tell us where you got this, Miss Kesson.”
“I can’t,” she replied. “I found it, that’s all I can tell you.”
“And this man has made several attempts to get it,” muttered Jimmy his brows drawn together. “Which argues a desperate necessity for destroying it. That leads to the natural supposition that its existence is dangerous to him.”
“But how?” demanded Freddie Babbington.
“I’m hanged if I know!” declared Jimmy candidly. “But what other explanation is there?”
“Well, anyway,” remarked Freddie cheerfully, “we’ve got the jolly old thing as a souvenir.”
“Yes,” agreed Jimmy seriously, “and I think I’d like to keep it. It seems to me a dangerous possession, and I should feel happier if the danger was mine and not yours, Miss Kesson.”
“Keep if by all means!” she replied, with a smile. “The only condition I make is that if you discover its secret you will let me know.”
“I’ll promise you that!” said Jimmy, and put ‘Uncle Ebenezer’ in his pocket. When the secret of the photograph was revealed, it was destined that the Angel should be present, and the revelation was to cause her to faint for the first and last time in her life.
*
Three days had passed since Jimmy Holland’s opportune arrival at the houseboat at Staines had averted a double tragedy, and during the intervening period he had made every effort to discover the identity of the unknown, but without result. Inquiries concerning the ownership of the houseboat led to a dead end. It had originally belonged to a Mr. Flaxman, who had apparently sold it to someone else. Since Mr. Flaxman was dead, it was impossible to discover any details of the transaction. Several people living in the neighbourhood were able to state that they had seen an elderly man in occupation during the previous summer, but their descriptions of him were so vague and so varied that they were useless.
Jimmy got into touch with the Thames Conservancy, for every house-boat-owner has to pay a mooring fee to that august body; but, although the fees had been regularly paid, the name of the owner had not been altered, and it was still registered in the name of Flaxman. He visited the Angel several times, and was welcomed by a smiling and affable Cordelia, a startling contrast to his reception on his earlier visits. And there was a noticeable difference in Angela’s demeanour. He was worried for the Angel’s safety, irritable at his lack of progress in the other matters, and weary with arguments to try to pacify his dissatisfied superiors, when the news came through that was destined to be the prelude to the end.
It was that undersized and insignificant specimen of humanity, Mr. Syd Higgins, who unconsciously started the ball rolling towards that startling and—to some—dreadful conclusion which was to fill the newspapers for days and cover Jimmy Holland with a cloak of glory.
Chapter Thirty
Exit Mr. Higgins
Mr. Syd Higgins had received his further fifty pounds, and in the nature of his kind had spent it and its forerunner in a glorious ‘bust’ that had left him shaky and penniless. He was sitting in his dingy little room, considering the necessity of replenishing the exchequer by the exercise of his nefarious calling, when it occurred to him that there was an even easier way to obtain the money he so urgently needed. He had read of Mr. Leeming’s fate in his favourite evening newspaper, and put two and two together. It is true that he failed to make the correct total, but he arrived at a sum that satisfied him. He concluded that for some reason or other, Mr. Leeming had been ‘framed’ by the man who had come to him, and he decided that here was his chance for easy money. The source that had supplied the first should supply some more. Although Daniel Phelps was not aware that he knew his identity, he did, for on the last occasion when that gentleman had visited him, Mr. Higgins has taken the precaution of following him home with some vague idea that the knowledge might be useful in the future. And now the bread he had metaphorically cast on t
he waters was to be returned to him with, he hoped, butter and jam.
He would go to Phelps and suggest that unless he paid a further hundred he, Syd Higgins, might prove a useful witness in Mr. Leeming’s defence. If he refused, no doubt Leeming would be prepared to pay.
Mr. Higgins thought it was a good scheme, but unfortunately for him he was not a psychologist and failed to realise the dangerous nature of the man he was contemplating blackmailing. He called at Daniel Phelps’s, in Queen’s Square, at nine o’clock that night, and put up his proposition.
Shortly after midnight a patrolling policeman found the huddled-up body of a man in a telephone-box near Kennington Cross. He had been stabbed in the back and the doctor stated that he had been dead for just over an hour. As has been said, Mr. Higgins was a bad psychologist.
Jimmy Holland heard of the discovery when he arrived at the Yard on the following morning, but since the case was in the hands of another officer and apparently had no connection with the business on which he was expending all his time and energy, he was only vaguely interested.
It was not until later that he was to realise the importance of Mr. Syd Higgins’ murder.
The Angel read in the evening paper an account of the finding of the body, and was very thoughtful, for she instantly recognised the connection between the dead burglar and the group of men who formed her chief interest in life. His had been the name which Mr. Leeming had mentioned in the car on the night when he had attempted the frame up, and it required no very great stretch of imagination to guess why Syd Higgins had died. For a second or two after she had read the report she contemplated ringing up Jimmy Holland and telling him what she knew, but after a little consideration she dismissed the idea. She would have to disclose more than she wished to, and it might also have the effect of completely ruining her long-cherished ambition. It was better for the time, at any rate, to let things take their course and carry on with the plan, which had suggested itself after her escape from the houseboat.
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