Death on the Highway

by Death on the Highway (retail) (epub)

  “Is it possible?” asked Harrison.

  “I have warned you before not to sneer, it will not help you,” said Mrs. Crewe. “On the other side of the picture, Mr. Harrison, you have been a fool—” now for the gloat, thought Harrison—“an interfering fool, but all the same, a fool. You thought you were ingenious enough to beat Mrs. Crewe’s organisation, and yet every move you have made has been watched and countered; every little plan you have conceived has been frustrated; every effort on your part has been turned to profit and therefore against yourself by me.”

  The murmurs of approval from the hall were loud and enthusiastic, and no effort was made to check them.

  “But fools who interfere must pay the penalty,” continued Mrs. Crewe, speaking slowly and emphasising every word. “The court has taken every circumstance into consideration and as you have refused to plead before it and therefore have produced no fresh evidence which might affect its decision, has agreed on its sentence.” She paused, and again the room was heavy with silence: “That sentence is death.”

  For a moment all was still except for a sobbing gasp from a weaker member of Mrs. Crewe’s community.

  “If you have any request to make,” said Mrs. Crewe, “it will be sympathetically heard and, if possible, carried out for you by the court.”

  “I should like to ask a question,” said Harrison.

  “You are at liberty to do so,” answered Mrs. Crewe.

  “What has happened to Miss Esberg and Mr. Hooker?”

  Mrs. Crewe looked at him for a moment, and then said, “I’m afraid this court is unable to keep records, Mr. Harrison.”

  “I understand,” said Harrison; “all three of us are likely to meet in Toulon Harbour.”

  There was a cry from one of the spectators, probably the weaker member again, but it was immediately hushed.

  “Flippancy at this moment is out of keeping, Mr. Harrison,” said Mrs. Crewe. “In the short time left to you, I would advise you to think more seriously. Is that your only request?”

  “No,” was the reply, “I would like one word with your friends behind me.”

  “I am afraid that is not permissible,” said Mrs. Crewe.

  “So much for Mrs. Crewe’s justice,” said Harrison, quickly.

  Mrs. Crewe hesitated and consulted in whispers with the men beside her. Harrison felt he could rely on M. Manet and his forces. They would be likely to arrive at any moment now. But if he could keep Mrs. Crewe’s followers concentrated in the hall their task might be simpler, and, in addition, some unforeseen accident might occur if he were removed and placed alone in some part of the building. Even if his wish was not granted, he must strain every effort to stay there as long as possible.

  There was obviously great difference of opinion between the five “judges,” and a vigorous argument proceeded between them, their heads pressed together around Mrs. Crewe. All to the good, thought Harrison, a few more minutes gained. There was a buzz of conversation among the spectators, and the irrelevant thought came to Harrison’s mind that the law court atmosphere was now quite complete.

  Finally the occupants of the dais again settled in their places, the hall was still, and Mrs. Crewe addressed Harrison. “The court will grant your request, but if it appears that you are merely wasting its time you will be immediately stopped.”

  Harrison moved slightly so as to face the seated rows, turning his back to the platform. He first looked at Netta, whose face was white and drawn and who turned her eyes away as if unable to face him. He then looked at Archie, who returned it with venomous hatred. He then looked at the variety of faces before him and realised the cruelty and vice with which he was confronted.

  “Mrs. Crewe,” he started, “has told me that you trust her for her justice. She has told me, for your benefit, that, if you are properly organised, properly led and obey implicitly, you will continue to succeed in the life you are leading. I tell you, you are making a great mistake. It can’t be done. The law of the world is stronger than any Mrs. Crewe. You are fools to be deceived by her. You will pay in the end, every man-jack of you.”

  “Mr. Harrison—” protested Mrs. Crewe.

  “Stop him—” shouted Archie Crewe.

  “Silence,” cried Harrison, raising his voice; “I’m telling you the truth. Justice—trust—” He was shouting now, an man of the others were shouting too. “It is fear. You’re all afraid. A collection of rotten cowards.”

  By this time a number of men had risen in the hall and were shouting back at Harrison. Mrs. Crewe, unable to maintain her attitude of dignified judicial calm, was growing ruffled and raising her voice almost to a scream for silence.

  Harrison’s voice was again heard above the tumult. It had now reached a full-throated bellow. “All of you are traitors at heart. Give anything away if you dared. Afraid of an old woman who would give anyone away herself without a second thought. Take my warning. Get out of it while you can.”

  Mrs. Crewe’s voice now reached a scream. “Stop him,” she shrieked repeatedly, and the men who had risen rushed forward towards him to obey her orders. The babel, however, was still unrestrained and hysteria reigned. Harrison was shouting no longer, but the man and women around him were frenziedly raising their voices, apparently shouting out phrases for the sake of shouting. This was possibly a reaction from the tense scene at which they had just assisted. Harrison’s “sentence” had affected the nerves of each one of them. Deep in each heart there was a fear of a similar fate. Harrison’s cry that they were all traitors had gone home. This truth, acting on their concealed fear, had been the last straw, and the pandemonium was the irresistible outbursting of their pent-up feelings.

  So unconscious were they to their actual surroundings that few except the Crewes saw a man come to the doorway with his eyes starting from his head. He was hardly able to articulate, but his mouth framed the one word “police.” Archie Crewe, for one, understood, and Harrison saw his hand go quickly to a side pocket. With a quick movement Harrison ducked to the level of the table beside him and none too soon, for Archie, with amazing dexterity, had pulled out a small automatic and a bullet had whistled over Harrison’s head into the wall of the hall beyond him.

  The noise of the shot added to the din, and before the crowd had had time to realise the message of the terror-stricken man, a confused mass of men rushed into the hall, a mingling of police uniform and civilian clothes. More and more men in uniform came behind them, and the room was soon full of struggling groups.

  Again Archie Crewe fired, but Harrison’s cover was effective, and the second bullet was as harmless as the first. He was preparing to fire a third time when a figure which had been running down the hall towards him, leaped full tilt at him with all the weight of its body, and brought him to the floor with a hand from the shock and was immediately pounced upon by a policeman, while others quickly secured and handcuffed Archie Crewe. His assailant raised himself cautiously from the ground and gave Harrison that smile of supreme satisfaction which only appeared on Henry’s face when he was conscious of a duty carried out with special merit.

  “Always on the spot when most needed, Henry,” said Harrison, going up to him and grasping him affectionately by the arm. “Hurt?”

  “Good heavens, no, sir,” was the reply; “he was underneath. But are you all right, sir?”

  “Absolutely, Henry,” said Harrison; “and never happier in my life.”

  Spasmodic struggles were still going on in different parts of the hall, and sometimes it looked uncertain as to whether Mrs. Crewe’s followers were fighting the police or each other. There had been one or two stray shots, but the surprise had been so complete that even those who had been able to produce revolvers had been quickly overpowered. A steady stream of prisoners was being marshalled out of the door by the police, and it was obvious that there was going to be no chance of escape for any of the men and women who had assembled there. Harrison saw Netta Crewe being led away without protest, and then realised that Mrs. Cr
ewe was still sitting in dignified and solitary state on the dais. Her companions had all made a last effort to escape in the hall, and Harrison felt that, even if there had been some secret mode of departure which Mrs. Crewe had prepared for such an event, there were too many police in the hall to enable her to use it, and she had therefore philosophically decided to wait events.

  A handsome Frenchman, with a twinkling eye, appeared in the doorway and came towards Harrison. “I have been troubled for your safety, M. Harrison,” he said. “You are unhurt?”

  “Safe and sound,” answered Harrison. “And you are satisfied?”

  “Ah!” answered the Frenchman, with a delighted smile, “it is a great day, Harrison.”

  The Frenchman looked up to where Mrs. Crewe was sitting, and bowed gravely.

  “M. Manet,” she said, with a cordial smile of greeting. “But what brings you from Paris to Toulon?”

  “The honour of seeing you, madame,” answered Manet.

  “Perhaps you will explain to Mr. Harrison, whom you seem to know already, that we are very old friends,” said Mrs. Crewe.

  “It would be better to say that we have known each other for many years,” retorted Manet.

  “And very ungallant,” was the old lady’s comment.

  “I am not here to be gallant,” said Manet, severely.

  “M. Manet is here as an official,” said Mrs. Crewe, very quietly; “but he is not going to be so imprudent as to arrest me.”

  “My thoughts are far otherwise,” replied Manet. “But madame is discreet and will follow my suggestion. I wish to talk alone with you at the police station, one twenty-four. Will you come?”

  Mrs. Crewe shrugged her shoulders and, coming majestically from the dais, followed M. Manet obediently out of the hall.

  Chapter XXIII

  One Twenty-Four

  Some time later, in the course of the afternoon, Harrison was sitting in a room at the Toulon police office. He was contentedly smoking a cigar, and was occupying a somewhat angular armchair at the side of a bare looking desk at which sat M. Manet, of Paris.

  “Very seldom are my journeys so entirely successful, M. Harrison,” said the distinguished police official, with a satisfied smile.

  “I am glad to hear it,” answered Harrison.

  “And, apart from the enterprise itself,” continued Manet, “it is a great pleasure to work with you, M. Harrison. Many of my colleagues have spoken of you to me, but I have never been as fortunate as they. I now join that band of admirers of your methods. So neat, so clean, so logical, and, may I say, so witty.”

  “You overwhelm me, M. Manet,” said Harrison.

  “That pillar of smoke rising into the clear sky above this town of Toulon,” said M. Manet, closing his eyes as if visualising the picture; “so artistic and, as I have said, so witty.”

  “And the enterprise, M. Manet; was the catch good?”

  “We have not sorted all the small fish yet, there were so many of them, but the big fish are excellent. It is seldom, M. Harrison, that so many gather themselves together in one spot.”

  “Mrs. Crewe’s gang was quite important, then?”

  “Important, M. Harrison,” said Manet, his eyes shining with ecstasy. “We have known of this organisation and have fought against it for many months, but we could never really get hold of it. A slight success, here and there, but not, as you say, ‘all along the line,’ until now. Confidence tricks on the large scale, ingenious swindles on Atlantic ships, mainly going to South America; robbery of strangers on the Riviera, like your Mr. Hooker. All well-planned and excellently carried out—that was the basis of their trade. And they had been very successful, M. Harrison.”

  “Providing a great deal of employment, M. Manet?”

  “Most certainly,” answered Manet. “My men, however, reported great difficulty in getting them away.”

  “That’s curious,” said Harrison. “From what I saw I thought they put up rather a poor fight.”

  “It was not the fish who made the trouble,” answered Manet, with a smile; “it was the people of the district who gathered together and wanted to pull them to small pieces. At first, my men thought they wished to aid escape, but that was far from the case. The people of the district were very angry. It is almost laughable, M. Harrison. I am told that they themselves are willing to sacrifice any policeman on the altar of political liberty, but they have a strong aversion to crime and, when they discovered the true nature of our fish, they wished to execute justice on them, then and there.”

  What a number of people seem to think themselves entitled to execute justice in Toulon, thought Harrison.

  “When our men, not without a certain amount of violence,” continued Manet, “had convinced them of their error, they were still not satisfied, and I have only just interviewed a deputation of citizens anxious to explain to me the insult that has been cast upon their district.”

  “Remarkable,” commented Harrison.

  “It is truly so,” answered Manet. “Three of their most important residents came to me to represent them all. Splendid men, M. Harrison, I assure you. Splendid Frenchmen, into the bargain. They would allow no man to affect their opinions but they cherished their honour. The explained that they had been persuaded that the people who rented the disused factory were of extreme opinions like themselves, and that their mysterious visitors and secret meetings were all necessary to safeguard them from authority. They admitted that they might have been somewhat careless, but they had been taken in by the old lady. To them she seemed like a Red Rosa— you know, the Bolshevik leader—and they could hardly believe that they had been deceived by a collection of criminals. It was lucky the police discovered them first, for they still regretted that they had not been permitted their own way. They were genuinely apologetic, and said that such a thing should never occur again.”

  “And what did you do, M. Manet?”

  “I am afraid I shook hands with them all, said they were fine fellows, and told them also that, if they ever grew tired of politics in the South, I could always find them satisfactory employment in Paris.”

  A knock on the door was followed by a messenger who gave a discreetly quiet message to M. Manet. Harrison realised, by the subordinate’s deferential manner, that M. Manet’s visit to Toulon was of outstanding importance in police circles. It was obvious that the “fish” must also be of an outstanding size to justify this personal appearance.

  “Your young lady,” said Manet, turning to Harrison.

  “Splendid,” was the reply. “She had better come up at once.”

  “I have obeyed you implicitly, M. Harrison,” said M. Manet, as the messenger disappeared with his instructions. “I, Manet, who obeys no man, have taken orders from you. That is very surprising, isn’t it?”

  “I appreciate the honour,” answered Harrison.

  “It is gratitude,” said M. Manet. “Important criminals are not captured—how do you say—in shoals every day. The number of faces I recognised myself was surprising. Criminals of whom I had no trace, all cosily together like that. It was a masterpiece. And so I obey your orders. The man they call Crewe, for example. Your orders were that he should not be searched. Very well, it is against all the police regulations of France, but you have been obeyed even if it costs me my dismissal. You demand that you shall see him here with me—and your young lady. Very well, he is waiting in another room.”

  “You overwhelm me, M. Manet,” said Harrison. “And what is the real name of the man they call Crewe?”

  “He has so many,” answered Manet, with a laugh. “Better keep to the latest edition and call him Crewe still.”

  “Right,” said Harrison. “And just one more favour. I shall be grateful if you will have a pad of ink and some finger-print forms ready on your desk so that we can tackle Mr. Crewe right away.”

  “Most unorthodox, M. Harrison,” replied Manet. “But they are your orders and it shall be done.”

  M. Manet gave a few curt instructions b
y telephone as another knock came on the door, and a messenger held it open for May Rich, who came somewhat nervously inside.

  “Your young lady,” said M. Manet, beaming.

  “Miss May Rich,” introduced Harrison, who was secretly somewhat disappointed at the appearance she made. He had been rather impressed with her as a fresh type of English girl during the time he had seen her at La Plage, but she was now much more “worthy” in dress and appearance. She was again more a companion than a human being. Miss Docket’s arrival must have had a subduing, and therefore rather unhappy, effect.

  “I am delighted to meet you, Miss Rich,” said M. Manet. “Have no fear. The ordeal is not for you. But I will go and fetch the prisoner myself, M. Harrison, and that will give you time to explain what you wish to the young lady.”

  Manet disappeared with a gallant bow after Harrison had praised his national tact. He then turned to Miss Rich and said, “I hope you’d not mind my saying so, Miss Rich, but I am somewhat disappointed.”

  “Don’t rub it in,” was her pathetic answer, “or I shall burst into tears.”

  “You know what I mean?” asked Harrison.

  “Yes, I know I look a sight,” she answered; “I thought Miss Docket would be upset if I didn’t try to get back to my old ways. But I’m afraid I don’t know Julia, even now, for when she saw me like this she went for me like a pick-pocket and asked me how I dared do it. Lucky I was going alone, she said, she’d had enough of walking about with a scarecrow already. But there wasn’t time to change again and she said my punishment would be to have to come here dressed like this.”