by Molly Thynne
He peered over the edge.
“Good. It is clear. Quickly now.”
He helped Constantine down the ladder into a narrow cul-de-sac which gave on to the mews that ran behind the block of flats in which Civita lived. It formed the shorter angle of the larger-shaped thoroughfare, and contained half a dozen small lock-up garages. Naito’s car, an ancient and weather-beaten Ford, awaited them, and, with the end of the ladder projecting like a tail behind, they trundled gingerly round the corner and out through the mews into the street.
“We go now to your flat, yess?” suggested Nakano.
Constantine hesitated.
“I ought to get hold of Arkwright,” he said, “and let him know about this new development. I imagine that his man is still under the impression that Civita is in his flat. It was Civita, I suppose?”
“I do not know, but I think so from the size and the way he act. You wish to go to the police?”
“The trouble is that I don’t know where Arkwright may be. If we go to the Yard and miss him we shall only have delayed matters.”
Naito, who was driving, spoke over his shoulder.
“I believe we should go to doctor’s flat,” he said.
“You think Civita may have been there?” demanded Constantine. “Whoever attacked me went through my pockets. He may have been after my keys. Wait a moment.”
He unbuttoned his coat and investigated.
“They’re gone,” he exclaimed. “And that’s the only thing that’s missing. That settles it. I ought to have looked before, but I’d forgotten about it.”
Nakano leaned forward.
“We go to the flat,” he said briefly.
“There’s only one thing that can have taken him there—the curtains. Though how he knew I had taken them is a mystery.”
“When did you acquire them?” asked Nakano.
“To-day, then I went with Arkwright to Civita’s flat.”
“And the porter saw you, yess? That is enough for the intelligent Mr. Civita. He would leave nothing to chance.”
“All the same, he’ll have his trouble for nothing,” said Constantine. “Arkwright took the curtains to New Scotland Yard. The only thing that worries me is Manners. He’s alone in the flat.”
The policeman who had been holding up the traffic dropped his hand and ramshackle little car sped on its way.
Constantine’s flat was above a shop, and was approached by a side door opening on to a narrow flight of stairs. Nakano was the first out of the car. He placed his hand on the door. It swung open at his touch. Naito, who had been watching him eagerly, joined him.
“You allow?” he queried.
Constantine, his finger already on the bell, nodded.
“If Manners is all right he’ll answer this,” he said, but he spoke to empty air. The two Japanese had already disappeared up the staircase.
He followed more slowly. As he arrived at the top Nakano’s head came round the door of the flat.
“I think that Mr. Civita has gone,” he said, “and there is no Manners. Everything is very badly upset.”
Together they went over the flat. Everything was, as the Japanese had said, “very badly upset”. Considering the short time at his disposal Civita had been pretty thorough in his search.
There was no sign of Manners. Constantine looked in his bedroom and found that the coat and hat he usually wore in the street were missing from their accustomed hook on the door.
“It looks as if he had deliberately dressed himself to go out,” he said. “I only hope so. I’d better get hold of Arkwright if I can.”
He rang up the Yard. Arkwright was not there, but he had left instructions that Constantine was to be informed as to his movements.
“I’m beginning to wonder whether we’ve been on the wrong scent all the time,” he said when he rejoined the two Japanese. “Arkwright received word fifteen minutes ago that Civita was at the Trastevere and he has gone there with the warrant for his arrest. If he’s taken fright over the curtains he’ll hardly dare to show up there.”
Nakano shrugged his shoulders.
“It was Mr. Civita,” he insisted. “There has been no thief. All the silver and such valuables are here, you say. Unless, perhaps, you have something else of great worth?”
Constantine glanced round the room.
“Everything’s valuable, more or less,” he said. “My father was a collector. But there’s nothing missing, so far as I can see. It certainly looks as if the curtains were the objective. That being the case, why has he deliberately shown himself at the Trastevere?”
“Perhaps there is something there that he must have,” suggested Nakano, “before he can go away for good. It is possible. It would be better if this arrest was made quickly.”
Constantine nodded.
“I must see Arkwright,” he decided. “But there’s Manners. If he’s in any trouble…”
Nakano solved the difficulty.
“We wait here,” he said. “If the servant comes back we telephone to you at the Trastevere. If not, you will be back soon, yess?”
Reluctantly yielding to necessity, Constantine picked up his hat. Any movement was still painful and he felt utterly weary. As he made his way slowly down the stairs his mind dwelt miserably on Manners. It was Mrs. Carter’s afternoon and evening out, and he would have been alone in the flat. Taken by surprise he could have stood no chance against Civita.
The sound of a key turning in the lock of the front door brought him to a halt. He stood waiting.
The door opened and revealed Manners, apparently very much himself, dressed for the street. He looked up, realized his master’s presence, and, at the sight of him, cast his habitual pose of decorous imperturbability to the four winds. The blood rushed to his face, then receded, leaving him white with emotion.
“Thank God you’re here, sir!” he exclaimed.
Constantine seized him by the arm and pushed him up the stairs.
“Your relief can’t be greater than mine,” he declared. “Where have you come from?”
“Charing Cross Hospital, sir,” said Manners.
Constantine turned on him.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded.
Manners shook his head.
“I’m all right, sir, but they said you wouldn’t last through the night.”
“That’s putting it rather strongly,” Constantine assured him with a reminiscent twinkle in his eye, “though I’m willing to admit that another few hours of that infernal garage would have made death seem sweet. Good heavens, Manners, but I’m glad see you!”
“You haven’t been in an accident, sir?” enquired Manners doubtfully.
“Not to my knowledge, though so many things have happened to me to-night that an accident would have been almost superfluous!”
They had reached the hall where the two Japanese, who had caught the sound of their voices, were waiting.
Manners eyed them in silence, slowly taking in the situation.
“I’ve been a fool, sir,” he announced at last. “All the way home the plate’s been on my mind. I expected to find the place ransacked. But I could have sworn I’d taken every precaution. When I got the message on the ’phone saying you’d been knocked down by a car and taken to Charing Cross Hospital I did smell a rat, but I was so upset and worried I didn’t know what to do. They said you were not expected to live through the night and would I go at once. Knowing it to be a favourite trick of burglars, I naturally wasn’t going to take any steps until I’d verified the message, so I rang off and called up the hospital. I got them at once and asked whether anyone of your name had been brought in. The porter answered in the affirmative and said you were in a bad way. After that I didn’t hesitate. I picked up a taxi and went straight there. I’ve been wasting my time arguing with them, or I should have been back sooner.”
“No one could possibly blame you,” said Constantine. “You did everything possible. The explanation’s simple enough, of course. Civita held th
e line at his end, gambling on your ringing up the hospital immediately, and he was still on it when you asked for information. It was easy enough for him to answer your questions. You never got on the hospital at all, but you couldn’t be expected to know that. In any case there’s no harm done, and it may comfort you to learn that he caught me even more thoroughly than he got you. Mr. Nakano here came to my rescue. If it hadn’t been for him I don’t know what might not have happened. Even now I’m rather vague as to precisely how he tracked me.”
Nakano beamed.
“Very simple,” he purred. “I wait in the doorway opposite and I see you get into a car. I think it may be all right, then again, perhaps not, so, to make certain, I run and leap on to the luggage-rack of the car. Mr. Civita keeps to the dark streets for his own purposes, and when we come to Victoria Street I jump off and run along the pavement. In the dark I jump on again. When he reaches the garage I am not there, oh no! But I am close at hand!”
“I’m deeply grateful to you and Mr. Naito. If it hadn’t been for your suspicious I should be in that abominable garage now. Manners, get some food for these gentlemen, will you, and make them comfortable while I try to get a word with Inspector Arkwright. And ring up the Yard and tell them you’ve come back. I think, in my anxiety, I gave them the impression that you’d been abducted!”
He was gone before Manners could voice his fears. Nakano reassured him.
“Mr. Civita is at the Trastevere under the watchful eye of the police,” he said. “And he has no motive now for harming Doctor Constantine. I think his cleverness is over!”
Constantine, meanwhile, walked to the corner and took a cab from the rank. He had developed a prejudice against prowling motors of any description. He stopped it at the mouth of the side street leading from the Trastevere to Steynes House.
As he alighted, a dark, thick-set figure materialized out of the shadows.
“Good evening, sir,” it said “The inspector’s inside. There hasn’t been any call for us yet. Looks as if everything was going according to schedule.”
Constantine recognized a plain-clothes detective he had met before in Arkwright’s company.
“Are there many of you on the job?” he asked.
“Enough to keep the exits covered. If you go round to the front you’ll find a car with a couple of men in it. We’ve got instructions not to show ourselves unless we get the signal. Pretty full the place is to-night.”
Constantine turned the corner, crossed the road and stopped opposite the Trastevere. From where he stood he could see the reflections on the plate-glass shift and disappear as the swing-doors opened to admit new arrivals. Evidently Civita’s arrest the day before had proved an excellent advertisement for the restaurant, and, instead of scaring people off, would seem to have attracted them. He crossed the road once more and stood close to the entrance, his eyes on the gay crowd, his ears on the alert for any suspicious sound from within.
His mind was engaged with the problem of how to get in touch with Arkwright. After what had happened he could not show himself in the restaurant. Whether Civita was aware of the fact that he had escaped from the garage he did not know, but he could not afford to risk being seen by him.
He strolled along the line of waiting motors until he came to the police car. Here his luck was out, as the two men in it were strangers to him, and he had to fetch the detective from his post in the side street before he could convince them that his errand was important. Apart from the fact that they were not in evening dress, they were under strict orders not to show themselves inside the restaurant unless they were summoned. The best they could do was to try to get in touch, through the kitchen staff, with the detective Arkwright had planted among the waiters.
While the detective made his way to the service door, Constantine strolled once more past the main entrance to the restaurant. The porter, magnificent in green and silver, recognized him.
“Coming in, sir?” he asked.
Constantine shook his head.
“I’m waiting for a friend,” he said. “Are you full to-night?”
“Fair to middling,” answered the man.
He took a step closer.
“A pretty mixed lot, sir, between you and me,” he said confidentially.
A car drove up and he turned to open the door.
As he did so the unmistakable sound of a shot came from inside the restaurant, followed by two others in quick succession.
The porter stood transfixed, a look of ludicrous surprise on his face, then he pulled himself together and made a dash for the swing-doors.
But long before he reached them, Constantine, moving as he hadn’t moved for years, had hurled himself past him and disappeared into the restaurant.
CHAPTER XVI
ARKWRIGHT, meanwhile, had spent an afternoon which, if less physically painful than Constantine’s, was, if anything, more exasperating. He had hoped to take Civita at his flat, thus avoiding the publicity of an arrest at the Trastevere, but by the time he had seen the Assistant Commissioner and applied for the warrant it was close on six o’clock, and, realizing that if Civita adhered to his habit of going early to the restaurant there would be little chance of catching him at his flat, he changed into dress clothes before returning to the Yard.
He had not been there more than five minutes when the telephone bell rang. The detective who was keeping Civita under observation was at the other end. From the tone of his voice it might be gathered that, at the moment, he wished he was anywhere else.
“He’s given me the slip, sir,” he said. “I’m very sorry. He’d left the lights on in his flat and I’d no cause for suspicion. He’s got clean away, I’m afraid.”
Arkwright smothered an ejaculation.
“When did this happen?” he demanded.
“About ten minutes ago. I’m ’phoning from the hall porter’s office at the flats.”
Arkwright wasted no time in recrimination.
“I’ll come along,” he said.
He found a very chastened subordinate awaiting him. Civita’s plan of action had been maddening in its simplicity. The detective, after an irksome three hours spent in dodging up and down the street, had thankfully taken refuge in the doorway of a timber yard which closed down at six. It was situated immediately opposite to the entrance to the flats and was an ideal place for his purpose, as, invisible himself in the dark entry, he could keep an eye, not only on the doorway, but on the windows of the flat itself. He declared that he had watched both unremittingly, and Arkwright, for all his wrath, was prepared to believe him. The windows of Civita’s sitting-room looked out on to the well at the back of the house, but the light in his bedroom had been turned on shortly before six and was still burning. The curtains were not drawn, and the detective had even seen Civita’s form pass and repass the window, evidently in the act of changing his clothes before going to the Trastevere.
About half an hour after the lighting up of the bedroom a string of coal-carts had passed slowly down the street on their way to the depot. They were piled high with empty sacks, and for a short space blocked the watcher’s view of the door of the flats. Civita must have been in the hall, waiting his opportunity, and have taken advantage of them, for when they were some distance down the road the detective, from sheer force of habit, cast a reconnoitering glance alone the pavement and spotted the figure of a man just turning the corner of the street. Realizing that he had materialized since his last uninterrupted view of the road, he jumped to the conclusion that he must have come out of one of the houses opposite and strolled across to the flats for a word with the porter.
“Did any of your people go out just now?” he asked, holding out his cigarette-case. “I picked this up on the pavement outside, and I’ll swear it wasn’t there a couple of minutes ago.”
The porter examined it.
“Might belong to Mr. Civita,” he said. “He’s just gone out. You’d better leave it with me.”
But the detective already had him b
y the arm and was shoving him in the direction of his office.
“Where’s your telephone?” he demanded. “Quick! The matter’s urgent.”
And from then on the porter’s normally rather monotonous life took on a new aspect. On the arrival of Arkwright he accompanied him upstairs, opened the door of Civita’s flat for him with his pass-key, and was even permitted to stand by while the two detectives went hurriedly through the flat.
Civita’s bedroom contributed certain illuminating details. That he had changed was evident, and the clothes he had taken off had been left out in a manner that suggested his intention of using them again that night. On a chair by the bed was an open suitcase, packed as for a journey, and, what was even more significant, an attaché-case containing a bulky packet of French and English notes lay on the bed itself. There seemed little doubt that Civita intended to return for these before he left the flat for good.
Arkwright stared at them, frowning, then turned to the detective.
“You’re not new to this game,” he said. “Do you suppose he spotted you?”
The man shook his head.
“I don’t think so, unless something else happened to rouse his suspicions. I was very careful.”
An idea struck Arkwright. Without a word he left the room and ran up the stairs leading to the box-room. The door was open, and from where he stood on the threshold he could see the cupboard in which Constantine had found the curtains. He had closed and latched it carefully on leaving, but now the door swung wide upon its hinges. He turned and went back to the bedroom.
“He’s smelt a rat all right,” he said. “Our only hope now lies in his coming back. We’ll leave these lights as they are. Meanwhile, you’ll take charge here on the chance that he turns up. If he does, you’re to hold him at all costs. I must get a word with Ferrars at the Trastevere and put him wise to Civita’s escape.”
“I’ll carry on till you get back, sir. I’m sorry for what’s happened.”
His tone was abject, and at the sight of his face Arkwright’s lips twitched involuntarily. He knew how the man felt. He had been through it himself his day.