Ricardo interrupted.
“But, my dear Hanaud, you are dining with Septimus. He said so in his office.”
Hanaud swept the interruption away.
“Comedy, my dear friend. The false invitation which leaves me free. It was arranged.”
“I shall come back with full authority,” said Maltby, his breast swelling, “but...” and he relapsed again into doubt. “A little before eight, then. That will give us time — if we move,” he said, looking at his watch.
“Then perhaps you will dine here?” said Mr. Ricardo, and Hanaud took him up at once.
“Yes, yes, we will dine! But not the big dinner, no. Some hors d’oeuvres perhaps, the joint, the sweet, the coffee. Admirable.”
“Really, really.” Mr. Ricardo addressed dumbly the vacant air. “Do I keep the inn, The Policemen’s Rest?”
But Maltby was clattering down the stairs, and Hanaud was urging him to hurry. Hanaud came back to the library and dropped into a chair, limp and dejected.
“It is but and but and but with that man!” he exclaimed moodily. “He will never — no, never — come up and be scratched.”
Whether Mr. Ricardo was still contemplating himself as the appointed innkeeper to the police, who shall say? He cried indignantly, for he had the strongest possible views upon this necessity of the times: “I bet you he has been vaccinated over and over again.”
Hanaud stared at him.
“The vaccination? You talk of this at this hour!” He danced in a rage about the room and suddenly slipped, tame as a cat, to Ricardo’s side. “It is not yet six of the clock, no. And at the moment when I most need his friendship, I gibe. Yes, I gibe fatally!” Smooth, soft words, and the voice so remorseful, so tender.
“What do you want now?” Ricardo asked laughing — though he did not wish to laugh.
“The Rolls Royce.”
“What!”
“Not the Rolls Royce No. 1. No, no, my friend! I ask for no such enormity. But the Rolls Royce No. 2. the wee, wee one.”
He smiled like a child asking for his father’s second gold watch and confident that he would get it.
“I have no wee, wee car,” Mr. Ricardo said firmly. But it was clear to him that Hanaud was passionately anxious to go somewhere. After all, he wanted help.
“I doubt if I shall have a chauffeur waiting,” he objected. “I have given no orders.”
“A chauffeur!” cried Hanaud, and he thumped his chest. “I, Hanaud, I am the best chauffeur in Europe.”
There was no answer to this statement, except the most direct of negatives; and Ricardo had no authority to make it.
“Come!” he said.
He led Hanaud to the back of the house and to the garage in the Mews. He threw open the doors whilst Hanaud climbed into the car.
“You go to Scotland Yard?” he asked.
“Perhaps,” said Hanaud, fiddling with the instruments.
“And you will drive on the wrong side of the road?”
“I will.”
Ricardo stood at the side and saw Rolls Royce No. 2 dash out into the street, scatter a handful of people in the roadway and disappear.
“It may be that he is the best driver in Europe, but there are no signs of it,” he said to himself. However, what did it matter, even if Rolls Royce No. 2 became a scrap heap? Agitations were here. The world was bubbling. Great criminals sitting at their ease would feel the handcuffs on their wrists. If only Maltby had the courage.
“But, but...” Mr. Ricardo could take it to his soul with pride that he had never said “But but...” when Rolls Royce No. 2 had been commandeered. He had let it go to a man who must drive on the wrong side of the road, if he was to survive.
Ricardo shut the garage door and returned to the front of his house. He ordered the short dinner which Hanaud demanded. It was to be on the table at eight, with the Burgundy — say the Musigny, a lighter wine and more fit to precede a nocturnal expedition. Coffee to follow and perhaps a glass of Armagnac. He did not want fingers to tremble on the trigger of a pistol. Mr. Ricardo waited. The clocks chimed — the hour of seven, the half hour which followed; and Hanaud tumbled into the room, his dress dishevelled, his face dirty, his hands scratched and bleeding, yet with so proud a look of conquest in his face that Mr. Ricardo thought of Napoleon at Marengo, and, being English, of Wellington on the mountain of Bussaco. His eyes sparkled, his arms were spread out in an ecstasy. But Ricardo noticed, above all, the lines of dirt upon his face, the torn collar, blood upon the knuckles, the dust upon the clothes.
“You have had a smash!” he cried.
“No, I am not hurt,” Hanaud answered, “but I thank you for the thought.” It was not for him to recognise that Ricardo’s thought was for Rolls Royce No. 2. “It was nothing. Just once I was on the right side of the road and I meet a taxicab. But I was quick — oh, I surprise myself. The driver he threw a name at me — the name — not nice. I forgive him with a wave of the hand, and I drove on. I keep on the wrong side of the road carefully, and Rolls Royce No. 2, she has the right to be proud. Look, it is seven-thirty. We have a quarter of an hour before Maltby arrives.”
“Yes,” said Ricardo eagerly. He was to hear, no doubt, the story of Rolls Royce No. 2’s adventures, “Over a glass of Porto, you shall...” But he got no further.
“But first the wash!” Hanaud exclaimed “I disgust myself. I change the clothes. But not the smoking. Nor for you, my friend. It will not be. But — but Maltby, but Maltby, winner of the Derby Round. You shall, see! To-night we prowl!”
Hanaud was half-way up the stairs to his bedroom before he had finished talking. Ricardo delayed following his example for just the time it took to order Royce No. 1 to be ready at the door by half-past eight.
Washed and dressed in inconspicuous clothes, the two men descended into the study with five minutes to spare before the time of Maltby’s arrival.
“A Porto,” Ricardo cried gaily as he filled Hanaud’s glass. “For me the Manzanilla!”
There was just time, he reflected, for him to hear the story of his friend’s adventures and the reason for all his excitement.
“There’s something I want to tell you very much,” said Hanaud, as he lit a cigarette and sipped his Porto.
“Yes, you would wish it!” cried Ricardo. “Such old compères as we are,” and with a most unusual gesture he clinked his glass against Hanaud’s. But, alas! he was to be disappointed.
“There was much misunderstanding. I was hurt. ‘He makes a jest of me,’ I said, whereas Maltby explained that his mistake was to imagine that I understood English which, as you know, I do.”
Ricardo sank back. He was to be told, after all, nothing more than the tale of some ridiculous squabble which he and Maltby had in olden days. He could have groaned.
“But the first day, when I came on Gravot’s account and dined with Maltby in Soho, all was put right.”
“So you told me,” Ricardo answered acidly. And he had lent the man his Rolls Royce, too!
“But I did not tell you the story of the misunderstanding.” Hanaud leaned forward smiling, so urgently did he feel that he must tell it.
“Fire away,” said Ricardo with resignation. “I’m here to be shot.”
“The fact is,” he said to himself, “I’m not audience enough for the real thing. He wants Maltby and myself to be paralysed together.”
Hanaud fired away accordingly.
“There was a dead Frenchman in Golden Square with a bottle beside him..”
That was as far as he got in this never-to-be-told story, when the door was opened and Maltby announced.
CHAPTER 29
THE LETTER TO SEPTIMUS
THEY STOOD ABOUT the fireplace, Ricardo upon one side, Maltby on the other, and Hanaud, serene, masterful, in the middle. The Manzanilla and the Port were forgotten. It was the scene of three men, Ricardo realised; the inevitable great scene of the plays of Sardou; and this one stage-managed — produced was the modern word, wasn’t it? — b
y Hanaud, chief dramatist of the Sureté Française.
“I have a present for you,” said Hanaud, smiling.
“There is only one present,” Maltby grumbled.
“And here it is,” said Hanaud. Slowly he brought out from the inner pocket of his jacket an oilskin wrapper fastened with a button, He offered it to Maltby with a bow. For a moment Maltby stared at it. Then he raised his eyes to Hanaud’s face. Then he pounced upon the present. He carried it to a small table farther back from the fire, and the group of three was formed again about it.
Maltby unbuttoned the wrapper and took from it a folder of morocco leather, which might hold perhaps a button-hook, a penknife, a nail file, a pair of tweezers, such as a woman travelling light might take in her suit case. This he unwrapped and disclosed, folded length wise on the washleather lining, a letter in an envelope, so folded that the seal was not cracked.
With a little cry Maltby tossed the morocco case aside and flattened the letter upon the table under the palm of his hand. It seemed that he was afraid to reveal even to himself the name of him to whom the letter was written, so long he looked from one face to another, so firmly he held the envelope flat upon the table. At last lie lifted up his hand sharply and there was the name for all three of them to read ‘Septimus Crottle, Esq.,’ and the address in Portman Square.
On a writing-table by the window a tortoiseshell paper-knife with a silver handle was gleaming. Maltby fetched it and pulled up a chair.
“Let us see where we are.” he said, tapping the letter with the tortoiseshell blade. “This is presumably the letter which Horbury took away from his office on the afternoon of Thursday, August the twenty-sixth.”
“With the chart,” cried Hanaud.
“Yes,” Maltby agreed.
“Which we found this afternoon in the office of the younger Crottles.” said Hanaud.
Again Maltby agreed. He took the paperknife and slit the top of the envelope.
“It ought to have gone to Mr. Septimus before I opened it,” ‘he said remorsefully.
“But since you have opened it,” Hanaud suggested, and he had no twinges of conscience.
“We might as well read—” said Maltby doubtfully.
“What that old rogue Daniel Horbury had to say to him. Yes, yes!” cried Hanaud, and he turned to Ricardo. “You agree, my friend? To be sure. Yes.”
“I think,” said Ricardo, “that you are the most lawless person in the world. Still, I agree.”
And Maltby, with his forefinger and his thumb, slipped out of the envelope a letter with two enclosures folded within it. He flattened his hand upon the enclosures as they dropped on to the table.
“Horbury’s letter first, I think.”
“Yes, yes,” said Hanaud, and though he sat upright at the table, his feet were dancing with impatience upon the carpet.
Maltby read it through without the omission of a word. It was written in Horbury’s dutiful style. He was a public man and a Member of Parliament. His first thought was that his obligations demanded in no uncertain manner that he should communicate the enclosures at once to the Crown Prosecutor for such action as he deemed fit. On the other hand, he could not shut his eyes to the high prestige of the Dagger Line and its importance as a commercial asset to the country. On the whole, then, he had determined, though with some heavy doubts, that the patriotic thing to do was send the two documents straight to Mr. Septimus Crottle as Chairman of the Line, and leave them in his hand. He remained Mr. Crottle’s obedient servant.
“Send them straight, to be sure,” said Maltby with grunt. “So he keeps them in the secret drawer of his desk. The damned old blackmailer!”
He dropped the letter with disgust upon the table and took up the two enclosures. As he read them his face grew very grave, and he nodded his head twice or three times to Hanaud.
“Yes, these are enough,” he said.
The first was a receipt for three thousand pounds made out to Kapitän von Kluckner, Military Attaché, and signed George Crottle. The second was an undertaking that SS Harold, a freight carrier of the Dagger Line, would call at a certain port in the Adriatic Sea and take on board two hundred kilogrammes of hashish and five hundred grammes of heroin from Sofia for Egypt.
And this undertaking, too, was addressed to Kapitän von Kluckner and signed by George Crottle.
Of the three, Ricardo alone was plunged in confusion George? George Crottle, drug-runner in the pay of a foreign Embassy? The kidnapper, then, of old Septimus? George, with his charm and his slim figure and his bright fair hair. It was not possible! But Hanaud and Maltby kept exchanging glances as though they met at last on friendly ground. Maltby packed Horbury’s letter and enclosures away in his pocket-book; and Thompson at the door announced that dinner was served.
It was a meal taken in haste and seasoned with little conversation. The presence of Thompson prevented all discussion but that of world affairs, and nobody at the table was for the moment interested in them. Coffee was served in the dining-room. An extraordinary habit, Mr. Ricardo reflected, that of drinking black coffee and liqueurs after meals when obviously there was work waiting to be done. Cigars were on the way round, too. Then we shall never get off! A small fellow for Maltby — that was sensible. Hanaud only ate his own black cigarettes. Well, he might as well smoke a small cigar himself and, like Maltby and his friend, sip this very seductive yellow Chartreuse. Even Mr. Ricardo realised that there was no need for hurry, and he was inclined to resent the strokes of a nearby clock. Maltby counted the strokes.
“Nine,” said he.
Hanaud looked at his watch.
“Nine,” said he.
For both men the search was ended, conclusions had been reached, action was now to be taken, peace of mind had come. They might be wrong, but the question was for others to decide, not for them.
Thompson entered.
“Sergeant Hughes is in the hall, sir.”
“Sergeant Hughes!” Ricardo repeated. For some vague reason the name was familiar.
“We wanted a young man,” said Maltby. “I got him moved up to the Yard.”
He remembered now the young officer in uniform who took notes at White Barn. “Why?” he asked.
“I liked his cheek,” Maltby replied with a grin “Shall we go?”
Sergeant Hughes saluted as the three men descended the stairs.
“All quiet, Sergeant?
“Up till I left, sir. There’s a journey proposed for to-night.”
“So I supposed,” said Maltby.
“But,” and Sergeant Hughes looked puzzled, “it’s a short journey with no luggage.”
“Just as far as White Barn and back,” Hanaud suggested, and Maltby smiled.
“Yes, that criminal stays and fights,” and Ricardo had reason afterwards to reflect how wrong these great men could sometimes be.
A small black police car stood in front of the Rolls Royce.
“Hadn’t I better give you and Sergeant Hughes a lift? We shall otherwise leave you behind,” said Mr Ricardo grandly.
Hanaud sniggered — a malicious snigger. Maltby answered.
“We don’t look much to be sure, by the side of your elephant, Mr. Ricardo. But we can go — I don’t say faster than the wind, for the wind’s quite out of date as a comparison, but faster than an empty army lorry in a crowded street;” and he doubled himself up into the black car with Sergeant Hughes, whilst Hanaud and Ricardo climbed into the elephant. There was a man in plain clothes by the driver and no address was given. The cars started, kept their distance like ships in line ahead, and they did, to Hanaud’s delight, pass an empty army lorry in the Brompton Road.
In a quieter road the cars stopped; and as the occupants alighted, a uniformed constable saluted Maltby and spoke a few words to him. Maltby beckoned to the rest of his party and went forward. On the right-hand side of the road a crescent of small and attractive Regency houses curved about a garden. The houses were lit up for the most part and the blinds drawn. But in fron
t of one of them a small car stood with its lamps unlit.
Suddenly there was a cluster of the uniformed police about a gate which led through the garden to a front-door. The room to the right of the round white stone arch of the portico was lit. Maltby walked up to the door and rang the bell. The shrill sound of it rang through the house, but there was no answer, no movement at all in that lighted room. Ricardo had in his mind the picture of a man there suddenly stricken by that bell as by a stroke of paralysis. There was not a lift of the blind, not the shifting of a chair.
Maltby rang a second time with a louder insistence. From inside the room a shadow was cast upon the blind. A man stood with the light behind him. Then he moved somewhere to the back of the room so that no shadow was any longer shown. Even then a few unnecessary seconds passed before a door into the passage was opened and steps approached. The front door was unlatched. There was no light in the passage except the panel which glowed from the open doorway. The young man had withdrawn into the darkness behind it.
“My servants are away for the evening. Will you kindly come to-morrow?”
“Mr. George Crottle.” said Maltby.
“I, too, have an appointment. I shall be obliged...”
“I am Superintendent Maltby. My business won’t wait,” Maltby stated.
There followed a few seconds of silence.
“You will make it, please, as short as you can.” George Crottle replied pleasantly. “Will you come in?”
He led the way into a sitting-room, furnished with comfort and elegance. It was brightly lit and a writing bureau from which the chair had been thrust back filled a corner of the room. Maltby was followed by Hanaud, Ricardo and Sergeant Hughes. Crottle, as he closed the door, saw two uniformed constables in the porch.
“Rather a large escort, Superintendent, haven’t you?” he said coolly. His face was pale, but his voice was composed, and the only sign of disturbance which he showed was that only now, for the first time, did he recognise Hanaud and Ricardo.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 173