by Peter Baron
He coughed into his handkerchief again and Dennis finished the sentence for him.
“Before you take your reserved pew amongst the elect?”
George looked across at his elegant brother, who lounged by the window staring into the darkened garden.
“Wal Tompson is a damn good shot,” he said slowly. “Or, at least, he was. I fancy you knew Wal pretty well, Dennis. And Larry Wade.”
“I did.”
“And you know how I got this little souvenir?”
“That also. Incidentally it’s got round that Keating wants you for the murder of Wal Tompson,” Dennis said, lighting a cigarette.
“He won’t get me. I advise you to drop Larry, Dennis, before he drops you. He’s bad medicine.”
Dennis, perfectly unmoved, continued to look out on the garden.
“That’s rather a case of Motley calling the Jester a fool,” he said. “I take it that you didn’t send me an S.O.S. for the purpose of discussing my friends?”
“No,” answered the Colonel, “for the purpose of discussing your brothers. Briefly, will you fellows agree to pull together again in the future?”
“If that’s only the stipulation, the bequest will have to be tolerably beneficial to this child, old dear,” smiled Dennis, and he blew out a cloud of cigarette smoke.
His brother’s attack of coughing left him unmoved, but Ian’s swift ‘Tut that out” had more effect. He dropped the cigarette and put his heel on it.
“This touching solicitude in an atmosphere of legacies is very affecting,” he sneered.
“What about this—this will,” Ralph interrupted harshly.
“The will is not one that could be contested at law without the claimants getting themselves shopped. In it I bequeath the three of you the Morcovian emeralds, worth forty thousand pounds, and a like amount in notes. If I’d known how to handle a pen like your friend Larry, Dennis, I’d have cleaned Hesse’s account up in a manner that would have exempted him from super tax. The division will naturally be a third to each.”
The statement was received in silence. The Colonel watched Ralph’s mental arithmetic with amusement.
“Let me save you the trouble. If the emeralds realize their full value, with the notes, your share will be approximately twenty-six thousand six hundred and sixty-six pounds.”
Ralph had arrived at the same conclusion.
“And the denomination of the notes?” he asked.
“Twenties.”
Ralph grunted. “Twenty-five thousand in ‘twenties,’ that will place us on the suspect list every time we pass one.”
“That’s your concern. I doubt if the consideration will weigh with you for long.”
“Speaking for myself,” grinned Dennis, “I can assure you that it will not, but if you’re taking a third each I fail to see your reason for requiring our undying affection for each other. Personally, I don’t know why I should ever again endure the pain of seeing Ralph’s fat paunch or hearing Ian’s sanctimonious voice.”
“You will,” the Colonel assured him, “I think I could manage a cigarette, Ian, if you’ll light it.”
His brother’s half-spoken protest remained unfinished, and in a few moments the Colonel was puffing at a cigarette that had never been within touching distance of His Majesty’s Customs Officers.
“Unless you fellows pool your wits,” he said at length, “you’ll never get within a mile of the stones or notes.”
“Interesting but cryptic,” murmured Dennis. “I suppose in your present enfeebled condition you couldn’t be more explicit?”
“Shut your foul mouth,” blazed Ian, glaring into the insolent eyes of the younger man. “This is damned generous of George, and you know it. He owes none of us anything, not even a charitable thought. The boot’s on the other foot.”
“My good Ian,” interrupted Ralph. “You are offensive enough normally, but when you drag in sentiment you become positively obnoxious.”
Ian ignored him. “Why are you doing this, George?”
“I wonder. I suppose it’s only natural that I should want you three to profit. You’re my only living relatives and blood’s thicker than water, although at the moment mine’s not much thicker.”
Ian looked at the other’s clumsily bandaged chest, and noticed that the dull red stain was perceptibly brighter at the center, which told him that the wound was still bleeding.
“Can’t we do anything to ease that scratch, George?” he asked.
“No, all you can do is to ease my mind, and to do that you’ll have to obey instructions. If you value your liberty you’ll get out of here within the hour. I needn’t tell you that all three of you will go up if Keating finds you within a yard of my humble self.”
“You mean we’re to clear out and leave you for Keating and the Squad?” Ian protested.
“Exactly that. Now listen. This morning I posted a separate letter to all of you, and each letter contained a slip of blue paper. Any one of those slips taken separately is valueless. Taken in conjunction they will tell you exactly where to lay your hands on my—latest acquisition.”
He puffed at his cigarette appreciatively, and watched their varying expressions through the blue smoke that hung in the air.
Ralph seemed the most perturbed.
“From what I can see this is less of a stipulation than an ultimatum. In fact, you’ve made it impossible for us to do other than work together.”
He cast himself into a chair and gazed at his brothers in turn with an expression which included many of the greater emotions but none of the nobler.
“Is that so difficult?” asked the Colonel. “You’ve done it before. You could do it again, and the police of three continents could never lag one of you.”
Ian nodded uneasily.
“Look here, George—forget this generous whim. You’re assuming that you’re going to die—you aren’t. You’re not out of the game by a long chalk yet. Dennis has got his car outside. We can get you away and patch you up, and perhaps take up things where we dropped them—at any rate, we can call an armistice for the time being and——”
“My dear, Ian, if I’ve got more than an hour to live I shall be disagreeably surprised. My friends Keating and Kaye will be here soon enough to do more caring for me than I consider necessary.”
He smiled grimly. None better than he knew that the respite was temporary.
“Well, I for one accept,” said Ralph, rising suddenly. “Er—were you serious about Keating and Kaye? Are they—I mean, I had the deuce of a time shaking the Squad off——If they’re likely to—”
“They are. Right on my heels. Nothing gets past Kaye. They!! be in at the death, so the sooner you get your fat little hide out of here the safer it will be.”
Ralph scowled, and rising walked to the door.
“I hope the wound mends,” he said, but there was not the slightest conviction in his voice.
Both Ian and Dennis watched him depart with contempt in their eyes.
“The lovable Ralph prefers the results to the risks,” sighed Dennis.
“They’re there,” answered the Colonel, “and if you’re going to avoid them, get out. Goodbye, boys.”
He held out his hand and Ian took it reluctantly.
“I’d rather stay, George——”
“Stay be damned—do as you’re told. I wouldn’t have it otherwise. This game loses its flavor you know, and when a Teyst loses the taste—sorry, that’s hackneyed, but perfectly true. Good luck, old fellow.”
They shook hands, and Ian walked out without looking back, but Dennis paused at the door. He seemed rather embarrassed, which was for him a new sensation.
The Colonel looked up to find himself the subject of the younger man’s quizzical regard. For once there was almost a friendly smile on the other’s cynical face.
“You’re making a mistake, George,” said Dennis slowly. “You think this will knit us together. Well, it won’t. You’ve forced something into existence that until t
oday was passive. Until now I never had any reason to envy Ralph anything, unless it was his charming daughter, Barbara. He had no reason to envy me and neither had Ian, although I fancy Ian’s besetting sin will never be envy.”
He lighted a cigarette and watched the smoke drift ceiling-wards.
“You’ve started something you can’t finish,” he continued. “I don’t mince words. You’re a dying man, and it’s only a question of time before two more of us follow you. I wonder which two? And what will the survivor get out of it? A fortune—prison—the rope? I’m telling you, George, you’ve signed somebody’s pass out check.”
The Colonel looked at him thoughtfully.
“You’re clever, Dennis,” he said, “but you’re a thorough swine. All the same, I fancy you’ll find my solution the easiest.”
Dennis laughed lightly.
“Well, good luck. Here’s wishing the Central Office in Hell. If I thought I’d be any use I’d stay——”
“You won’t, clear out and watch your step.”
“You betcha.”
Dennis nodded and turned his back on a man who was speaking for the last time.
He left the house without hearing the half-choked sound that came from the room in which his brother sat. It was George trying to call him back. The Colonel was dead before Dennis reached his car.
Even in death the Colonel had tricked his enemies—the law, and the Poacher.
CHAPTER EIGHT
At exactly five minutes past eleven a small and decidedly grubby urchin paused in blank wonderment before the recumbent figures of Inspector Keating and Superintendent Kaye and scratched his head perplexedly. Inspector Keating with his mouth wide open was snoring melodiously in the key of A sharp in an attempt to drown his friend’s effort in G flat minor.
For some seconds the boy stood and marveled, while he debated the safest method of awakening the sleepers. Then he bent down and cautiously shook Kaye.
The Superintendent sat up and yawned, conscious that a piece of paper was being waved beneath his nose and that a small boy was talking in the inconsequent manner peculiar to small boys.
“Said as ‘ow the fat ‘un would gimme two bob, ‘e did,” said the boy tentatively. It was an invention of which he had great hopes. When Detective Sergeant Brown of the Squad had written the message he had said that the man for whom it was intended would probably give the bearer sixpence but the small boy had his own theories on the subject of Capital and Labor.
Kaye took the note and unfolded it. The message it contained was scrawled in pencil and barely readable.
“Can you come at once?” he read. “Traced Dennis Teyst’s Chrysler to a house and can’t round up the Squad. Daren’t leave the place in case the Teysts beat it. The place is in the London Road, the boy will lead you here.”
Kaye asked a few questions and the boy, with a reward in view gave directions that were not too explicit.
“Let’s be goin’,” he urged. “Shall I give ould ‘Shut Eye’ a shove an’ wake ‘im up?”
“You couldn’t,” said Kaye paternally. “He sleeps like a Waterman fountain pen writes, in any position.”
Stooping, he awakened his friend by the simple method of tweaking his nose.
“They’ve traced Dennis,” he said, rising to his feet, and Keating grunted.
“Oh they have, have they? I thought they’d gone for their summer holidays. Where is he?”
“His car is parked outside a house on the London Road.”
“How long has it been there?” Keating rumbled as he got to his feet.
“The house has probably been there twenty years,” Kaye retorted patiently. “I’m not sure if the car has been there twenty minutes or twenty seconds. We’ll go and find out, if you’ll shake off your hog-like slumber.”
Keating still rubbing his eyes followed his superior across the square.
“Who spotted him?”
“Brown,” Kaye said over his shoulder. “By the way are you walking with me or just shadowing me?”
“Brown,” said Keating impassively, “has got no imagination. He’ll probably walk into the house with ‘the Yard’ written inches deep all over him and try and hold ‘em by asking ‘em if they collect cigarette cards.”
Which was not really so libelous as it sounded. To be truthful, Detective Sergeant Brown did not handle the situation in the most tactful manner, even although he held a decided advantage. For it was an advantage.
He failed to see the going of either Ian or Ralph, but Dennis he certainly saw, and there is no doubt that that young man got the shock of his life when he found the path to his car barred by a man who positively shrieked C.I.D.
“I thought I’d shaken you fellows off at Croydon,” he said pleasantly, halting at the foot of the steps.
Brown maintained a cautious silence. He had no definite orders to stop Dennis leaving, but it occurred to him that that was what Kaye would expect.
It had also occurred to Dennis, and instinct told him that it was only a matter of minutes before half the Squad arrived and definitely placed his escape outside the bounds of possibility, but in the meantime there was only Brown. Straightening up he moved towards the Yard man with a peculiar smile.
“I don’t like your tie, your face or your general appearance, old soul,” he said kindly. “Will you get out of my way or will you be knocked out of it?”
The Yard man dropped into the approved crouch with feelings of relief. It was the opening he had been seeking and provided the necessary opportunity for delaying Dennis. About the issue, he had no doubts.
“I don’t want any lip,” he said moving forward aggressively, and that was his last coherent remark until Inspector Keating picked him up five minutes later.
“Like greased lightning, he was, sir,” the detective confided, rubbing his jaw. “I stopped a right hook and a fast left at the same time—at least that’s what it felt like. How does my face look, sir?”
“Foul,” snarled Keating, and strode towards the house after the equally irate Kaye. At the top of the steps the silence they were trying to preserve was suddenly shattered by the boy who took that opportunity to revert to matters mercenary.
Keating gave him a shilling and when he persisted, a clout on the head. Of the two treatments, the latter was the more effective. Standing in the covered-in porch, Kaye beckoned to Brown.
“Try your hand on that door,” he said, “and don’t do it like a battery going into action. Not that it matters, they’re in Mexico by now.”
Brown grinned. Opening doors was one of the things he did well. So well, that it was a matter of seconds before the entrance was effected.
“Collect any of the Squad you can get and return here pronto,” Keating instructed, and followed his friend into the darkened hall.
Both men held automatic pistols in their hands, but they were unnecessary. They found George where his brothers had left him.
He was staring straight at them when they entered and he continued to stare when Keating said, “I want you, George” and proceeded to read his warrant. The indictments were read to deaf ears, in fact Keating was still droning a formal charge when Kaye stepped forward and laid a hand on his arm. Kaye knew as much as most doctors and more than many, but it had taken him a good twenty seconds to interpret the Colonel’s fixed stare correctly.
“No good, Sam,” he said slowly. “George is holding his creditors’ meeting elsewhere.”
Together they looked down at the dead man. Neither felt any particular pity. Disappointment was their chief emotion. Disappointment that the Colonel, who had cheated all his life should have cheated the rope, even in death.
“Some people get all the jam in life—others only get the pip, and I’m one of ‘em,” grunted Keating, tossing his hat aside.
“Wal got him all right. George must have been getting old,” he continued and began to turn out the dead man’s pockets while Kaye took an inventory of the contents. They were still examining George’s few worldl
y belongings when Brown appeared in the doorway of the room with two of the Squad in attendance.
“Give the house a once-over,” Keating instructed. “You won’t find anything but it’ll keep you out of mischief, which is more than I can do.”
He rose to his feet and took up a telephone from the table. His instructions to the Superintendent of the mortuary were curt and to the point. In fact he replaced the receiver in the middle of one of the Superintendent’s remarks.
In his moment of travail, Inspector Keating regarded his job and its disappointments bitterly. Many trenchant comments on Brown’s treatment of the situation occurred to him, and most of them were embellished with unflattering epithets. Epithets that would probably have annoyed Detective Sergeant Brown, but only succeeded in amusing one member of Keating’s audience.
That member was the Poacher.
Seated on an upturned box in the garage that adjoined the house he smoked placidly and, between intervals of philosophizing on a tire burst enjoyed the Inspector’s lucid disquisition.
On his head were a pair of earphones, attached by a thin wire to a small black box in a tool cupboard let into the wall. The dictograph connected the garage to the house and Keating’s remarks were perfectly audible to the unseen listener. They afforded him a considerable amount of amusement, but not sufficient to overrule caution. Even during the Inspector’s most vitriolic attacks, the Poacher continued to keep his eyes on the small curtained window of the garage.
Not that it detracted from his enjoyment. He was a person of many accomplishments, notably that of being able to listen attentively to one thing and think intently about something else. And at the moment he was thinking very intently.
Through the agency of a tire burst, he had missed by a margin of sixty minutes, the coup of a lifetime. It was an experience calculated to try the patience of nobler beings than the Poacher, but unlike Keating he viewed defeat philosophically. There were other things that he viewed less philosophically. Particularly the fact that the Squad were even then exploring the house and the grounds and might at any moment discover the; flat-tired car that was parked at the rear of the house.