The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ™: 28 Classic Tales

by Maurice Leblanc

  McNaughton leaped to his feet, his face purple with rage.

  “Do you dare to accuse me of robbing my own steamer, sir?” he cried, shaking a weather-bronzed fist at the detective.

  “I don’t accuse anybody—yet,” Rentor answered quietly, “but I have just stated a fact you can’t deny; and Captain, every man, woman and child who was on the Humboldt is under suspicion till this mystery is cleared. Sit down, and we’ll get to brass tacks. You have told me that you and the purser together locked the door of the vault immediately after the gold was placed there at Nome, and that your key never left the belt you wear round your waist night and day. Are you absolutely sure that’s the truth?”

  “Absolutely,” said McNaughton.

  “Your key was never out of your possession for an instant? No passenger or officer went to you with a story of something to be put in or taken out of the strong-room? Think carefully, Captain, and remember your reputation is at stake in this matter.”

  “The key never left my body,” McNaughton answered without hesitation. “No one asked to have the strong-room opened for any purpose whatsoever, and I wouldn’t have permitted it if I had been asked.

  It is specially prohibited by the company that the treasure-room be opened at sea when we’re carrying the Nome gold, and I obey orders. No, Rentor, from the moment I locked up the bullion, the key never left my belt.”

  The Captain sat a moment, thinking. “On the northbound trip when the strong-room was empty—” he began, then paused, suddenly hesitant.

  “Yes, yes, on the northbound trip when the strong-room was empty—what happened then?” demanded Rentor eagerly.

  “I remember now that Purser Jessen came to me and asked for my key. He wanted to show our treasure-room to some curious passenger,” the Captain replied with reluctance. “But that means nothing. We could have left the strong-room door open if we had chosen. There was nothing inside then to be stolen.”

  Rentor bent over his desk and hid the eager, preying light in his eyes as he fumbled for another cigar. “How long did this Mr. Jessen have both the keys?” he demanded with the exultant ring of unhoped-for triumph in his voice.

  “A half-hour, possibly an hour. I didn’t notice particularly.” The Captain now was grave and plainly worried. “Don’t jump to conclusions because of what I’ve told you, Chief. I know Jessen. I knew his father, the old captain; and a finer, straighter man never walked a ship’s bridge. I’ve known young Dave since the days when I dandled him on my knee when he wore short breeches. I’ve seen him grow up and become a ship’s officer in line for a command of his own some day. He had no hand in this crooked business; no, sir, Dave Jessen’s like his dad, straight.”

  Rentor leaped up with a scoffing, worldly-wise smile on his lips.

  “Because you held this fellow on your knee when he was a boy, that’s no reason he mightn’t be a crook,” he cried belligerently. “If his father was honest, that’s no reason he is; and I’ll tell you now we’ll prove he isn’t. While he had your key, he did one of two things; either he made a duplicate of it himself, or he gave it to a confederate who did. Dave Jessen’s the man who robbed or helped to rob the Humboldt, and in twenty-four hours I’ll have his confession.”

  Captain McNaughton shook his head in firm unbelief.

  “Call him down and talk to him,” he suggested. “If he knows anything, he’ll tell you gladly. But don’t do anything to ruin his prospects. Reputation is about all we seafaring men have that we can’t afford to lose. If you were to hold him, even on suspicion, he’d never command a ship as long as he lives. Besides, he has a mother old and feeble, and—”

  “It isn’t my business to worry about men’s mothers or reputations. I put men behind bars who belong there. This young crook is going into a cell, and in a cell he’ll stay till he tells me who stole the Humboldt’s gold or signs a confession that he did it himself. Where does he live?”

  Captain McNaughton gave the address and went out sorrowfully with bowed head. Ten minutes later two detectives in a police auto were on their way to Jessen’s home to take him into custody as a suspect in the bullion robbery.

  “Maybe Jessen did this and maybe he didn’t,” Chief Rentor mused as he impatiently awaited the car’s return. “There’s better than an even chance that he’s really guilty, but whether he is or not, one thing is certain: I’ve found a goat and a bit of incriminating evidence that will justify the pinch in the newspapers.”

  One after another he pulled the knuckles of his big hands until the joints cracked like pistols. That was Larry Renter’s way of expressing extraordinary jubilance. He was planning the details of the “third degree” by which he hoped to extort a confession that would clear the Humboldt mystery…

  The door of the Jessen home was opened to the detectives by a sweet-faced little woman with snow-white hair and age-dimmed eyes.

  “My son is at home. I’ll call him,” she said in response to the detectives’ inquiry.

  Dave Jessen, roused from a day dream in which he stood again on the Humboldt’s deck beside a dark-eyed girl with sun-tinted cheeks and wind-blown hair, appeared behind his mother. Mrs. Jessen vanished.

  “Put on your hat and coat, Jessen. The Chief wants to see you,” said Mulligan, spokesman of the paired officers.

  “Sure. I’ll be with you in a jiffy,” the purser agreed, dropping the nautical book in his hand.

  “Mother,” he called, “I’m going down to police headquarters, but I’ll be back in time for the dinner you’ve been fussing over all afternoon so foolishly.”

  He kissed her and followed the detectives to the auto waiting at the curb.

  “What’s happened, boys?” he inquired as they climbed into the car. “Have you caught the bullion robber?”

  “I reckon we have—now,” said one detective pointedly. He drew a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and deftly slipped them over Dave Jessen’s wrists.

  The first instinctive flush of anger on the purser’s cheeks faded, leaving him pale beneath his sea tan.

  “You’re arresting me?” he gasped in bewilderment. “I’m accused of the gold robbery?”

  “Looks that way. What do you think yourself?” replied the detective.

  “This is ridiculous. It’s an outrage!” cried Jessen, straining his wrists against the steel circlets so hatefully new to them. “I know nothing of the missing gold except what I’ve told. I’m not a thief.”

  “Prison is full of men I’ve heard say those identical words when they were arrested,” said the detective. “Save all that guff for the Chief, young fellow. All I’ve got to say to you is that you’re three times seven kinds of a fool to get yourself tangled in a mess like this. A nice old mother you’ve got, too. It’ll go hard with her when she learns what you have been up to.”

  “But man, I didn’t do it. I have neither done nor said anything to justify the faintest doubt of my honesty,” cried Jessen. “Who dares say I robbed the Humboldt? Who accuses me?”

  The detectives smiled at each other knowingly.

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” replied Mulligan’s partner. “Take good advice and forget that high-and-mighty stuff before we get to the Chief. He has the real dope on you.”

  Then though Jessen, outraged, angry, incredulous, asked a dozen fiercely insistent questions, the two officers maintained an omniscient silence until the car stopped at detective headquarters. The prisoner leaped to the sidewalk in advance of his guardians.

  “Take me to Chief Rentor, quick,” he demanded. “Somebody will suffer for this, for it won’t take me ten minutes to clear myself of whatever charge some irresponsible blunderer has made against me.”

  “Easy lad, easy,” cautioned the first of the officers, taking him by the arm and into the building through a private entrance. “You’ll see the Chief, all right, bu
t don’t be in a hurry. Time is one thing you’ll have to spare from now on.” Fretting with rage and impatience, Jessen was taken into a private room where his name was entered in the “detinue” or “small” book, a police device—unlawful, but that is a mere detail—for holding prisoners against whom the department is not ready to make a public accusation. He was searched and relieved of papers, watch, pen-knife, money and all other trinkets in his pockets. Then he was pushed into a dimly lighted steel cage, and its massive door clanged behind him. A bolt shot into its sockets. The footsteps of the departing officers died away.

  Many minutes, each longer than any hour Jessen had ever passed, dragged away while he paced the steel floor.

  “It’s only a few minutes,” he kept assuring himself. “I’m innocent. They can’t keep me in this filthy den. It isn’t possible.”

  But the minutes dragged into hours, and no one came.

  Meanwhile the arresting officers were reporting.

  “How’d he take it?” asked Rentor, cracking his knuckles.

  “Mad as a she-bear, and stands pat he knows nothin’,” answered Mulligan.

  “Naturally he’d do that,” said the Chief. “You couldn’t expect a man with nerve enough to pull a stunt like this steamer robbery to cough up at the first touch of the cuffs. He’ll come across, though. I’ll leave him in there alone to sweat awhile. Tonight we’ll spring the phony identification stuff, and then I’ll be ready to talk turkey to him.”

  CHAPTER XVII

  THE THIRD DEGREE

  Chief Rentor then climbed into his auto and was driven home to dine leisurely, while at Dave Jessen’s bungalow a little old woman who reminded one of a fading flower fretted nervously as she kept an overdone dinner hot for the son who didn’t and couldn’t come.

  It was early in the evening, though Jessen was sure it must be early morning, when a door opened noisily in the corridor and he heard voices nearing his cell.

  “At last!” he cried, springing eagerly to the door.

  Suddenly his cell was flooded with light, though the corridor beyond remained in darkness. He waited, hot with impatience, for the welcome sound of the jailer’s key in the lock. Instead, a wicket in the door was lifted, and a pair of eyes peered in from the outer darkness. There was a moment’s silence, then a man’s voice spoke.

  “That’s him,” it said. “I could swear to him on a hundred Bibles.”

  “Good!” replied Mulligan’s heavy voice. “We knew we had him right, but this settles it.”

  The wicket dropped, and the men started down the corridor.

  “Come back,” shouted Jessen as he realized that they did not intend to release him. “Take me out of this hole. I demand to be taken to the Chief.”

  Somebody’s laugh came back through the darkness as the door at the far end of the corridor closed with a bang. Ten minutes later the same performance was repeated, and a new voice assured the detective that it would “know that fellow’s face anywheres.”

  Again Jessen’s shouts and demands remained unanswered, and the lights winked out. For the first time, though the consciousness of innocence buoyed his dropping spirits, a numbing horror of the inconceivable thing that had happened overwhelmed him—exactly as Chief Rentor intended.

  Back from dinner, Rentor cracked his knuckles noisily as his men reported the prisoner’s shouts and violent demands for a hearing, following the faked identifications.

  “Fine!” he ejaculated. “That stuff always jars their nerves, whether they’re innocent or guilty. He’s ripe now for a friendly, heart-to-heart talk. Bring him in, boys, and see that the detectaphone operator is on my line ready to get every word that’s spoken in here. I’ll cut out the parts of the talk I don’t need, afterward.”

  “That sympathy stuff you told us to spill about his mother seemed to hit him hard,” suggested Mulligan.

  “That’s a trump card,” replied the Chief. “Lead in the lamb and forget the bawling out I’m going to give you, boys. I want him to think I’m a friend.”

  Jessen, fresh from the gloom of his cell, stumbled at the threshold as the detectives threw open the door of the Chief’s office. They pushed him roughly into a chair, his hands still bound by the steel cuffs, and the glare of a desk-lamp full upon his face.

  “Who’s this?” asked Rentor, looking up from a pile of reports in simulated surprise. “Not Dave Jessen—handcuffed! Take off those bracelets, Mulligan.

  “They’ve had me locked in a dirty cell for hours, Chief,” interrupted Jessen. “I demanded to be brought here to you, but they only laughed.”

  “I told you to bring Jessen here to my office, but I didn’t give you permission to treat him like a common crook,” roared the Chief angrily at his men. “I knew this boy’s father before he was born, and no matter what sort of trouble he is in, he will be treated right while he’s in my custody, you blockheads, or I’ll know why not.”

  “I didn’t think it safe to take any chances after those two positive identifications, Chief,” said Mulligan in mock humility, “and you being out for dinner, I thought—”

  “You’re paid to do as you’re told, not to try to think,” interrupted Rentor. “Get those cuffs off his wrists and get out. I want to talk to this boy alone.”

  As the door closed behind the detectives, the Chief motioned Jessen to draw his chair closer. His manner was grave, sorrowful, deeply sympathetic.

  “Dave, you’re up against it hard. I’m your friend, but it’s going to take every bit of influence I can swing to keep you out of stripes,” he began with the air of a man who regrets his bad news. “Old Clancy wants you prosecuted to the limit. How the devil did you ever come to lose your head and get tangled in a mess of this kind?”

  “Prosecute me!” echoed the prisoner. “Surely you can’t believe I’m guilty of the robbery on the Humboldt, Chief. On my word of honor, I’m as innocent as you. I—”

  Rentor interrupted by laying a friendly hand on Jessen’s arm.

  “Don’t, Dave,” he cautioned kindly. “It’s useless to deny facts. I’m your friend, willing to go the limit for you, but you must be square with me. If there are others in this job and you help to land them and get back the gold, I think I can save you, and I’ll do it for the sake of your old mother and your dead father—God bless him! But you must tell me the whole truth. I’ve brought you in here alone so that no one but me will ever hear what you tell me tonight. It’s your one chance, boy, and for the sake of your mother who’s worrying herself into hysterics already, don’t throw it away.”

  “Chief, I’m innocent; but it is evident some blunderer has given you reason to believe me guilty,” replied Jessen. “I’ll clear myself to your full satisfaction in ten minutes if you’ll tell me exactly on what grounds you suspect me.”

  Rentor drew further into the shadow of the shaded lamps and fixed his eyes on the purser’s face to catch the slightest betraying change of expression.

  “Evidence against you has been coming in for two days,” he began. “But I’ll ask one question that will show why we first suspected you.”

  He paused, then thrust his face close to Jessen’s and spat out his question viciously.

  “What did you do with the two keys of the treasure-room while they were both in your possession?”

  “I never had both keys,” answered Jessen, unperturbed and without hesitation. “From the moment we locked the gold in at Nome, Captain McNaughton—”

  “Wait,” interrupted Rentor peremptorily. “I didn’t say you had both keys after the gold was shipped. You couldn’t have got them then. But on the way up to Nome, Jessen—how about that? Have you forgotten your story to the Captain about showing the strong-room to a curious passenger?”

  “You’re right about that,” admitted the purser slowly. “I did get the Captain’s key while we were on the
way up. But what of that? The treasure-room was empty then. I borrowed the Captain’s key to show the strong-room to—a—a—passenger, one whom I had told of the millions in gold we would carry there on the trip home. How can you connect that with a robbery many days afterward?”

  Rentor was cracking his knuckles as he answered.

  “Because while Captain McNaughton’s key was in your hands, duplicates of it, and of your key as well, were made for the bullion-robbers, who used the duplicates later to remove the padlock when there was something in the strong-room well worth taking.

  With growing exultation Rentor saw the blood drain away from Jessen’s cheeks. Instantly he knew that his bold guess had found a vulnerable mark.

  “What happened to those keys while they were in your possession?” he snapped. “Did you let them go out of your hands, or did you yourself make duplicates?”

  Jessen’s eyes wavered and fell. For the first time doubt of the ultimate outcome of his interview with the Chief crept into his mind.

  “I made no duplicates,” he said nervously. “Neither key was out of my hands except for a single instant.”

  He paused and Rentor leaned forward, eager for the all-important admission to follow.

  “While we were in the empty treasure-room,” Jessen continued, “the person to whom I was showing it remarked it was curious such frail bits of metal could protect such vast treasure as I described. My companion took the keys from my hand and held them for a second. One dropped. She picked it up from the floor before I could stoop, and handed both to me.”

  “A woman!” cried Rentor, springing triumphantly to his feet at Jessen’s use of the feminine pronoun. “I might have known there was a woman at the bottom of a job as clever as this! When she dropped the key and stooped for it, she took wax impressions of both of them, of course. That stunt’s as old as the hills. Who is this woman? She’s the party I want now.”