by Peter Baron
The passing of Kaye had not interested Larry. As a matter of fact he was not interested in any of his immediate surroundings—always excepting his beard. It was a peculiarly good specimen of its kind and Larry fingered it frequently and almost lovingly.
It was one of these self-congratulatory caresses that Detective Sergeant Brown noticed as he descended to the lounge in his quest of fresh air. Effeminacy was a trait that Brown had no use for and something like a sneer crossed his face as he halted to fill his pipe.
He had reached that unfortunate stage when he was looking for a quarrel and did not particularly care what means he employed to insure that end.
And Larry would have been only too pleased to have accommodated the belligerent Brown had he suspected the antagonism that he had aroused in that worthy arm of the law. Fortunately, or unfortunately, he was not, but more unfortunately he became aware of the fact that Brown was searching for matches. And that fact was directly responsible for all the discomfort that entered Brown’s existence in the following days.
It was the merest chance that in search of something to light his pipe Brown should have lighted on the letter that Kaye had recently given him to read. Normally he would have reserved it and found another means of lighting his pipe. Today the using of it was little less than a gesture of defiance, with Kaye as the person defied.
How long Larry stared at the piece of folded paper extended to the fire before he became aware of the phrase “friend Larry has gone north,” he did not know, but once he had seen it he recognized his own handwriting and the words. He had considered them rather a neat touch when he had penned them. Immediately he saw them his attention was focused on Brown, but his regard, if just as hostile, was infinitely more veiled.
The letter he himself had sent a few hours ago, in this man’s hand meant one thing only—that the man was Kaye. That he could be any one else never entered Larry’s head. Neither was he concerned with the coincidence of their sharing the same hotel. At that moment he thought of only one thing—that he was for the first time face to face with Superintendent Kaye.
He had frequently speculated on his ultimate meeting with the elusive Superintendent Kaye and now that he had met him the fact that he had penetrated the Superintendent’s identity, without betraying his own, held a distinct touch of humor. Nevertheless his face remained perfectly devoid of expression as Brown passed him on his way out.
It was at that point that Larry also felt the need of fresh air. His jaunty bearing as he got into his car and followed leisurely in the wake of “Superintendent Kaye” would have given his quarry further cause for grievance had he been aware of it. So would Larry’s intentions.
It was all so simple for Larry. As a solution it left nothing to be desired. His one aim till then had been to find a safe means of entrance to Ian Teyst’s house. Now the difficulty had been solved for him. And the solution of one difficulty was the solution of another. His treatment of Keating had placed him definitely amongst the hares, but up till then he had only eliminated one of the hounds.
He lighted a cigarette and smiled contentedly. The second was due to be eliminated.
It was not until Brown had climbed the ridge and turned off into the wood to enjoy the magnificent view, that he found that Larry had parked his car and was following on foot. Even then it had no particular significance for Brown and he walked on for some time before turning and perceiving that Larry’s taste for rural walks still coincided with his own.
In the next ten minutes Brown turned three times and each time found the effeminate intruder a little closer. It was after the third turn that Brown’s thoughts began to revolve on rather more suspicious lines. He halted suddenly and realized for the first time that dusk was falling. Leaning against a tree trunk he waited for Larry to come up.
Larry, entirely unperturbed, sauntered slowly toward his quarry.
“Nice evening,” he commented as he drew abreast.
It was, but Brown was not interested in the weather.
“Look here,” he demanded bluntly, “are you following me?”
“In a sense I suppose I am,” Larry answered pleasantly, “but the view is free to all, and I believe the Town Council allow more than one person to enjoy it at a time.”
Detective Sergeant Brown stuck out his chin belligerently.
“Cut out the funny business,” he snapped. “What’s the idea?”
“This!”
Brown never discovered what the idea was, because “this” took the form of a vicious and unexpected uppercut. Then the sky fell in—at least that was his impression. Actually he struck his head against a tree as he fell.
Larry glanced swiftly round him and then took something from his pocket. Something damp with a pungent smell which, when pressed to the unfortunate Brown’s nose, considerably diminished his chances of regaining consciousness for some time.
When he did regain consciousness he was lying on a bed—in an upper room of the lodge at Marske House—only he did not know that. The room was uncarpeted and save for a chair, unfurnished, and the light of the moon provided the only illumination.
A tentative effort to move made him realize that he was strapped to the bed. He also discovered that he was gagged—which did nothing to improve the situation. Nor did the sight of Larry standing in the center of the room, calmly smoking.
Brown mouthed angrily and Larry, carefully extinguishing his cigarette, produced an automatic pistol.
“This,” he said, “as you see is fitted with a silencer. If it has to justify its name you won’t be able to appreciate it.”
The hint had its effect. Brown made no outcry when Larry removed the gag.
“Now we can talk,” continued Larry. “And when I say ‘we’, I mean myself. For the next few days you aren’t going to do any talking except with my permission. You’re going to sit in large quantities and think in even larger—but you aren’t going to talk much.”
He tossed his cigarette away and pulled up a dusty chair, which he flicked with a handkerchief before sitting down on it.
“I suppose we owe your charming presence in Reigate to the fact that you had tumbled to our dear Ian’s presence here, Kaye,” he suggested conversationally.
For a moment Brown gaped. The unfamiliar appellation had startled him, but he realized instantly what had happened. He had been a victim of one of the frequent attacks on Kaye’s liberty and safety.
“Yes, I tumbled all right,” he said truthfully. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, and who the devil are you anyway?”
“Oh come, that’s not very inspired,” gibed Larry. “Have we worshipped a myth all these years, or is the subtle Kaye baffled for once?”
And then Brown had a brain wave. There were only two people connected with the case on which Kaye was then engaged who could have any possible interest in the holding of the Superintendent—the Poacher or Larry Wade. He took a long shot and it found a billet.
“You look better without a beard, Larry,” he said.
“Much better,” Larry approved. “You’ve had the advantage for years. I suppose I’m right in saying that you know me although I have never set eyes on you before.”
Brown thought hard, and had another brain wave. While Larry thought his captive was Kaye there was a chance for Kaye himself to move with reasonable immunity and there was one way to convince Larry that it was Kaye that he held captive. Kaye was famed for his quotations and the use of one of them ought to be conclusive proof of the user’s identity.
“Yes, you’ve got the advantage,” Brown said slowly, “but don’t forget this, Larry. ‘They also serve who only stand and wait’—even if they sit.”
“Who thought that one out for you?” Larry jeered.
“Milton. Know him?”
“Yes, I know people who put their false teeth in a glass of him every night.”
Brown grunted and racked his brain furiously for a further quotation. But it was not forthcoming.
“What�
�s the idea of dumping me here?” he asked suddenly.
“Ideas,” corrected Larry. “Plural, old soul, for there are many. One of them is that you shan’t be free to crab anything I start. Another is that I shall shortly assume your divine personality. Naturally a battalion of Kayes drifting round would create unpleasant doubts in the minds of the innocent—hence your retirement to cloistered seclusion.”
Brown stared round the darkened room and remembered another of Kaye’s quotations.
“Abandon ye all hope who enter here,’” he said somberly, and added considerately “From Dante’s ‘Inferno.’”
“Yes, make a bad break and try and get out of this and you’ll taste it,” Larry said.
“I shan’t get out of it,” Brown retorted philosophically. “I’m very much bound up in this place.”
Larry rose to his feet and took up the gag.
“This is where your gas gets turned off at the main,” he grinned and in two minutes Brown was mouthing inarticulately again.
“I shall drop in occasionally,” said Larry as he walked to the door, “and feed you with my own lily-white hands. If you get lonely, try counting the cockroaches. Quite a thrilling game. Ten points for each and twenty if they get down your neck.”
He smiled pleasantly and withdrawing, descended to the hall and let himself out. From where he stood he had a clear view of the drive and he waited for some moments to assure himself that no one was in the vicinity before he made for the gates.
Arrived there he looked back at the house that was Brown’s prison. Ingress had presented no difficulty and the dust he had found there made it seem unlikely that any one had visited the place or was likely to. The lodge of Marske House was admirably situated as a prison for his captive, particularly as Larry himself would be staying at the house.
He had little fear that his prisoner would free himself or attract attention—there were few people living who could teach Larry anything in the matter of ropes and their uses. The more he thought of the idea the more it appealed to him. For an effective and convenient prison it was unequaled and enabled him to keep Kaye under his eye without having to go far to do it.
That of course was an error which Larry was not aware that he had made. Neither was he aware that as he passed out of the gate a shadow detached itself from the still deeper shadow of the trees further up the drive and crossed to the porch of the lodge.
The “Shadow” was Superintendent Kaye who had been an interested spectator to the evening’s happenings.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ian Teyst was a paragon of consistency. He had consistently lived on the earnings of his fellow men for years, and in minor matters he was also a creature of habit.
Any morning, wet or fine, would find him in the long garden of Marske House studying the progress of his flowers, undeterred by an absolutely unique ignorance of all matters concerning them. After ten minutes of miscalling perennials, “biennials,” and watering weeds that he thought might be gems of the flower world, it was his custom to stroll round to the drive via the garage and smoke a cigarette while he contemplated his plans for the day.
Whatever his plans for that particular day had been they had certainly not included half that transpired. Least of all a meeting with his artist visitor. On entering the drive he again found the man admiring the lodge. Had he been closer he might have noticed a faint smile in Larry’s eyes. Which was not surprising. Larry’s recent conversation with the recumbent Brown, regarded purely from Larry’s point of view, had been distinctly amusing.
But Ian was not aware of any of these things, nor of any particular desire to renew an acquaintance with the follower of a profession that he privately regarded as a waste of time. In spite of which he strolled forward and nodded a polite greeting.
“Thinking of redeeming your promise to immortalize my lodge?” he asked jocularly, and experienced the first of those shocks that were not scheduled in that day’s arrangements.
“No. As a matter of fact I was thinking of preventing your early demise,” said Larry thoughtfully.
Ian’s eyes narrowed slightly and his bearing became a little less that of courteous disinterest.
“My demise—?”
Larry faced his enemy squarely.
“Exactly, my dear Ian,” he retorted, and it had the desired effect of making the other start.
“You have the advantage——
“Yes, the advantage that the law always has when it deals with criminals. The advantage of knowing more about its quarry than the quarry knows about the law.”
Larry thought that was rather well put. Mentally he awarded himself a medal, but Ian failed to see it in quite the same light.
“The law? I don’t follow you. I understand that you were an artist——.”
“So I am.”
It was quite true. He was, only he spelled it “artiste.” He lighted a cigarette and enjoyed his rival’s amazement.
“I’m an artiste all right, but not of the brush, pencil and pen type, although I’m not unconnected with the latter. Does that little insignia of merit suggest anything to you?”
He took a small silver badge from his pocket and dangled it before Ian’s amazed eyes.
It did suggest something. Ian was not at all unfamiliar with that badge or what it stood for. It explained much, including the cryptic allusion to the “pen,” and for the moment it startled him into silence. His first thought was that the Yard had traced his connection with Clem’s death, and with it he regained control of himself.
So it had come out? Well it remained to be seen whether he was easily snared or not. He followed Larry’s example of lighting a cigarette to gain time to think.
“The Yard?” he asked. “I might have guessed that from the cheap melodrama. What particular ornament of the Central Branch have I the misfortune of addressing? And why the elaborate deception?”
Larry’s reply struck him as meaningless.
“Try the eleventh letter of the alphabet,” he suggested, and Ian made a rapid mental calculation.
“K?” he asked blankly.
“Exactly, but Superintendent to you.”
Ian drew a deep breath and studied the other with interest. “So you’re Kaye? Well, I don’t know that that stops the sun shining. What do you want, anyway?”
“A small strip of paper,” Larry retorted easily. “It’s no good, Ian. The ‘Innocent-At-Home’ stuff won’t wash. We know you’ve got it and we want it. You’ll be serving two ends by giving it up.”
“Whose ends?”
“Yours and ours. Particularly yours. The Poacher croaked Clem, and Clem hadn’t got that slip. You have. Work it out.”
“I have, thanks. What’s this tripe about a strip of paper?” Larry sighed patiently.
“The strip your brother gave you. We’ve got Larry Wade’s strip—the one Dennis gave him. The Poacher’s got the second slip—the slip your brother Ralph received, and he’s out to get yours and he’ll get you in the process.”
Ian laughed silently.
“Kaye, you’re wasted. I know comedians with an inferior sense of humor who make fortunes on the boards. Your beard would be an asset too. You’re too funny. For years you’ve been trying to put me in the pen to save my soul, now you’re trying to perform a like service for my body. Go on, be funny, I’m enjoying it.”
“Glad to hear it. So am I. Only I shall be the one to enjoy it when you’re put away. Laugh at that.”
Ian obligingly complied.
“You’ve got a chance to avert it,” Larry continued. “You know what it is. We want that slip of paper.”
“And €we’ aren’t going to get it.”
“That remains to be seen,” Larry retorted. “You’ll be having an unwelcome visitor during the next few days, Ian.”
“Meaning the Poacher?”
“I hope so, but I was thinking more particularly of myself. I’ll be frank. While you hold that paper you’re a marked man and sooner or later the Poach
er is going to drop on you. When he does, I want to be there.”
“So that’s the game?”
“Well, more or less. There’s nothing to prevent you thinking that we are here to protect you as we should any other citizen, although it doesn’t matter a tinker’s curse to us whether a few more of your type get wiped out or not. The Poacher is doing a public service that far, but by the unfortunate laws of this country you’re entitled to police protection. And you’re going to need it when that young man gets going.”
“You’re not very brilliant are you?” Ian asked. “Why, man, you and that beard of yours will scare every crook off for miles.”
“It hasn’t scared you off yet. Anyway, I’m staying.”
Ian accepted the situation with a shrug and began to stroll back towards the house. The situation needed delicate handling. To openly consign Kaye to the devil and, in effect, kick him out of the house might lead to a revival of one or two little points in Ian’s career that were best left undisturbed.
Apart from that, Ian was conscious of a certain sense of relief. At least Kaye was not there in connection with Clem’s death. To the other’s remarks concerning the Poacher’s possible intentions, Ian paid scant attention. He was not easily frightened.
Larry on his part was congratulating himself. That his disguise had passed muster before his keenest enemy spoke well of it.
They had almost reached the house when Barbara appeared coming from the garage. She paused uncertainly as she saw Ian’s companion, and then walked slowly towards them.
Ian made the introduction smoothly enough despite the fact that he realized her possible curiosity about the visit of a Yard man to the house.
“This is Superintendent Kaye, Barbara. Mr. Kaye will be staying—er—.”
“Some time,” supplemented Larry coolly. “How do you do, Miss Teyst? A charming home you have here, and a fortunate one.”
“Fortunate?” she asked, offering her hand.
“In its choice of mistress,” Larry explained, and looking into her eyes realized that he had been merely truthful where he had intended to be extremely courteous.