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Roy Glashan's Library
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THE Bunn-Fortworth Combine, rounding off a successful year with a so-called "deal in oil," make the painful discovery that there are times when virtue must positively be regarded as its own reward.
MR. SMILER BUNN put down the bank-book which he had been studying for the previous ten minutes, and turned to his partner with a sigh of content so emphatic as to be almost a sob.
"Yes, Fortworth," he said to his partner, who, in the opposite armchair, was tenderly nursing an obese cigar, "it's been a good year—a thundering good year. We've made a lot of solid money, and haven't had to put up with much hardship. We've had our setbacks—that last lot of Madeira was well-nigh undrinkable, for instance—but, on the whole, we can't complain. I wish Sing Song was just a leetle bit better at soups—not that he ain't very good already, but he's just an inch or two short of perfection. But, barring that, I haven't got any serious grouch. It's been a good year, taking it all round. And we haven't had the gout. And I attribute it to our being well nourished. If a man don't get enough nourishment, Fortworth, he ain't going to do much good in the world. He ain't going to get on. If two-thirds of a man's brains are grizzling about the hollow hole in the man's stomach, same as an empty cistern, it isn't much 'good for the other third to be plotting about making money. That's how I look at it, Fortworth."
Lord Fortworth—or, as he was more generally known, Mr. Henry Black—nodded dreamily.
"You're right," he said. "If a man neglects his lunch, his brains neglect him."
"And serve him thundering well right," concluded Mr. Bunn warmly. "Pass the whisky."
They were sitting quietly at home in their London flat one December afternoon, resting after lunch. As Mr. Bunn had so complacently remarked, they had enjoyed a very successful year indeed. And what they had made they had held. It was all reposing beautifully in the various banks they used—they had many bank accounts under many names, as a far-seeing crook of these days must; so that if as Jones he is financially squelched in one direction, he can, as Brown, bloom anew like the flowers of spring in another.
They sat quietly but firmly sopping up the whisky and soda with which it was their custom to soothe themselves after their siesta. But, presently, Mr. Bunn began to move uneasily, restlessly, almost as though he was worrying about something. Fortworth watched him indolently until he could stand it no longer.
"What's biting you, Flood?" he asked presently, with a remote irritation m his voice, "You're heaving and rolling and squirming about like a porpoise on a meat hook! What's the matter?"
Mr. Bunn waited a moment. Then he spoke out.
"The fact is, Fortworth, I ain't satisfied. I've been trying to persuade myself I was, but I ain't, and that's the fossilised truth. We've had a rare good year—a rare good 'un—but, without any wish to be hoggish, I can't help thinking we ought to follow it up. Our luck has been in, and we ought to crowd it while it's good. We ought to. Something kind of tells me we ought to go on making hay while the sun shines. That's sense—not greediness. I should hate to be greedy. But being sensible's a different thing. And to put it bluntly, what sticks in my crop is the thought of our old pal the Rajah of Jolapore sittin' tight in his Grosvenor Square palace, with an income that runs into great big millions of money." He wagged a plump, well-kept forefinger at his partner, "We ought to be doing better out of the Rajah, Fortworth. Man alive! it's our duty to be doing better. There he is surrounded by sharks of all sorts and sizes, parting right and left with big nubby hunks of that income, and you and me—you and me, of all men—stand by, idle and looking on. I don't mind admitting, Fortworth, it preys on my mind and worries me. True, we've had a scrunch or two at the Rajah's revenues; but what's a mere scrunch to a man like him? You see what I mean—surely you can see what I mean?"
Lord Fortworth absorbed the balance of his whisky and set the glass down with a rattle.
"Flood, you're right," he said, not without admiration, "And I admit it, fully and freely. I'm a man who has worked hard and lived hard—and now I'm a little too prone to take things easy; but you're different. You're a stayer—a sticker—you're a slugger. You're a whale, with the same size mouth as a whale and the ideas of a whale."
Mr. Bunn, nodding with gratification, rang for the unparalleled Chinese man-servant (and man-eater) who attended them—Sing Song— who appeared, silent and impassive as ever.
"Ring up Mirza Khan, my lad, and look alive," said Smiler, "Say I want to see him urgently. Tell him to put down that corkscrew and come on here at once. That's all. Skid 1"
Sing Song "skidded" with the faint gleam of enthusiasm in his eyes which signs of activity on his master's part usually caused to dawn there. He knew that when Mirza Khan, who was confidential body-servant and personal intriguer to the Rajah of Jolapore, was invoked by the partners, there was something interesting in the air. This was by no means the first time the partners, with the assistance of Mirza Khan, had wound themselves up for a whirl at the ruler of Jolapore's treasury. The Rajah was one of those potentates who spend two-thirds of their time in England and on the Continent—and pay tolerably heavily for the privilege. Mr. Bunn had first made his acquaintance when he
found him wandering aimlessly about London, with his memory temporarily lost. He had been drugged by a certain adventuress, now "put away" for life, and Smiler had been able on that momentous occasion to render certain services to the Rajah which gave him a practically permanent half-nelson upon the gratitude of the dusky king. No one knew this better than that shifty old Mahommedan, Mirza Khan.
So that, when presently Mirza arrived at the flat, with an eager if slightly greedy smile lighting up his face, the partners did not conceive it necessary to waste time in uttering idle nothings as a preliminary to more serious matters.
"Hello, Mirza!" said Smiler, "How are you?"
The Indian, a big, bulky affair in a poorly-fitting frock-coat and trimmings to match, helped himself to a whisky-and-soda and took a chair.
"I am rejoicing in best health, misters," he replied, "And I am veree overjoyed thatt you both are in thee same boatt. Yess."
"How's the Rajah?"
"Oah, His Highness is most well. He iss fraish in England from trip to Paris."
The bright, beady eyes of the Indian slid furtively from one to the other of the partners.
"How's the money-box—the sovereign tank—looking?" requested Fortworth bluntly, "Any congestion in that department?"
Mirza Khan wobbled slightly under the influence of a vast but practically silent chuckle.
"Oah, yess, indeed—thatt department iss in pretty affluent condition," he said, "There iss not severe congestion, perhaps, but att thee same time there iss plentee, and to spare."
"Spare, eh? Plenty to spare, is there?" Mr. Bunn brightened up, "How, Mirza, old man? How can it be spared?"
"On the terms thatt we adjusted in thee past times. One-third each for us present trio off gentlemen," explained Mirza Khan with precision.
"Yes, yes—we know that, you old hyaena!" replied Mr. Bunn rather impatiently, "But how can we get our hooks on a hunk out of the treasury?"
"Oah, I cannot tell thatt. It iss matter for your skilful manipulation, misters."
Mirza Khan's strong point was in executive work.. He was no star organiser, or he would probably have retired from the Rajah's service with a fortune years before—probably have been Rajah himself. Give him the idea, and he was in the six-cylinder one hundred horse-power class for carrying it out. But his mind was not of the kind which can spin out a web and sit tight, out of sight, while the web does the work.
"Well, what's been happening round your way lately?" asked Smiler, "Any trouble—any entanglements? Give us the news, in fact. Has the Rajah made any new friends lately? Has he been going the pace?—he usually has. Reel out a few feet of friendly gossip, Mirza, and as likely as not we shall notice a useful little peg sticking out of your narrative that we can hang our hats upon."
Mirza Khan tipped down another whisky-and-soda, and without a qualm began in a chatty sort of way to expose most of the secrets of his master's private life during the past six months—the two smooth old rascals with him listening attentively, thoughtfully, and apparently idly. But the idleness was merely apparent—the same sort of idleness, in fact, that characterises a couple of Bengal tigers prowling round the goat-paddock of some simple, horny-handed Indian dairy-farmer, while the farmer himself is prematurely indulging in dreams of a harvest that will, make harvest thanksgiving worth while.
ABOUT twenty minutes later they broke in on the smooth monotone of the "confidential" body-servant.
"That'll do, Mirza," said Smiler, "We shall waltz in through that oil concession door—eh, Fortworth?"
Fortworth grinned, nodding.
Mirza Khan had mentioned a certain oil concession en passant, and the two crooks had broken in a few seconds later. For some time they proceeded to question the fat Indian, and then Mirza, his eyes sparkling, withdrew silently. He knew better than to "hang about" while the partners were racing their thinking machinery up to several thousand revolutions a minute, so to speak. He saw that they had discovered their "opening," and he cleared out, some five inches "up" on their whisky decanter, leaving them to elaborate their plans.
The point upon which the partners had seized so avidly was concerned with a concession to bore for oil in the State of Jolapore. Neither the Rajah nor Mirza Khan nor anyone else had ever heard that any oil but "palm" oil existed, or was believed to exist, in Jolapore. But it had chanced that when in Paris His Dusky Highness experienced a slight and merely temporary stringency in the money department. He wished to bestow upon a great friend of his—one of the many popular so-called beauties for which Paris is considerably overrated—a modest little token of his esteem, some trifling gift which would be accepted in the spirit in which it was offered—in short, a pearl necklace, which was listed at a fraction under twelve thousand bombardiers (as Smiler Bunn had recently dropped into the habit of calling sovereigns), and to his surprise and pain the Rajah had discovered that the harsh-minded, mercenary-souled grasper of a jeweller who owned the necklace desired cash down for the bauble. And since even a genuine, hall-marked Rajah must wait a day or two upon occasion while some financier or other is painfully uncoupling himself from his money, His Highness of Jolapore, who was childishly fond of doing things instantly, had promptly agreed to grant the oil concession to an American who had been asking for it, and who offered to pay fifteen thousand pounds down just as quickly as a lawyer could grind out sufficient deeds, and so forth, to protect him. It was an easy way and a short cut to ready money, and the Rajah had a lawyer instructed immediately. He did not know, nor did he care, whether there was any oil in Jolapore. If there was, and the American had bought for fifteen thousand something worth a million, it did not disturb His Highness. It was a flea-bite to him, anyway. The lawyer had duly shuffled out the documents, and the Rajah was within fifteen minutes of the money, when news was brought to the hotel to the effect that the American had been killed by a taxi-cab. As it chanced, however, the accident made very little difference to the Rajah, as the same day the popular beauty left for Blinkski-on-the-Blankovitch, or words to that effect, in the company of a bloated Russian Prince, to whom it was said she had been secretly married. At any rate the money was no longer instantly needed, and the regular huge drafts arriving for the Rajah shortly after, the oil concession and the document relating thereto had been filed away and practically forgotten.
But evidently the American had "known something," for within a week no less than three people had popped out from Nowhere and begun negotiations with the astute Mirza Khan for the same concession.
It was at about this period that the Rajah and Company had returned to London. The concession-hunters had come over also. No doubt Mirza Khan could have engineered a small deal for the concession long before with one or other of them, but for the fact that the simple heathen had it firmly fixed in his head that the concession was worth thirty thousand pounds of anybody's money, and refused to approach the Rajah with any less buxom figure in his mind. So there had ensued a period of haggling, which had now been broken into by the astute Bunn Combine. Among the other parties to the haggling was an English stockbroker (so-called and self-styled), named Skinkowitz, an alert-looking bird, with an accent that was far from Scotch, and a reversed-retroussé nose. Skinkowitz talked in a tone of expostulation and lament about "five tousand pounts and maybe a schmall sveentener" for Mirza Khan when he (Skinkowitz) would have got it (" de concession ") in his pocket.
Another inquirer was a military— ex-military—man, with an address at Ostend and one in London. He called himself Captain Brecon-Lankerly, and would have inspired confidence if he had not possessed a habit of talking mostly under his breath and glancing warily out of the corners of a pair of steel-blue eyes at the people round about him a good deal.
The third of the inquirers was a lady—one Madame Lafite—a very charming and well-preserved French blonde, who seemed to be working alone.
Mysterious crew though they were, it was obvious that there were three people who knew more about the natural resources of Jolapore than the Rajah and Company did. Indeed, Mirza Khan had been rather puzzled at this sudden craze for oil concessions, and had welcomed the abrupt entrance of his old allies, Smiler Bunn and Fortworth.
He gave them the facts and left them to "organise."
Which they proceeded to do.
OBVIOUSLY the correct thing to do was to get the concession for themselves, first of all. This they decided very speedily. Then they could sell it to the highest bidder. It was as easy as drinking wine or refusing tea. Neither of them felt energetic enough to float the thing on to the public themselves. They believed in the simple life and quick "turnovers."
On the point of ordering their motor, the telephone bell rang.
It was Mirza Khan who rang up to inform them that Madame Lafite, the French concession-seeker, had Just been badly, if not fatally, injured in a street accident. A. private motor which had been standing by the kerb outside the hotel had reversed suddenly just as Madame was passing behind it, and knocked her down. Mirza Khan thought they might like to know as soon as possible that there were now only two after the concession.
"Yes," he said, in answer to a sharp question, "that was how the wealthy American in Paris had died ¦—a motor accident."
"All right. We're coming round," said Smiler, hanging up the receiver. He turned to Fortworth, looking rather serious.
"Queer kind of coincidence, that, Fortworth," he said. "Two concession hunters killed the same way, just as they seemed certain of getting it."
(Mirza Khan had said that of the three, Madame Lafite, being pretty and charming, would probably prove the successful applicant when matters came before the gallant Rajah.)
Fortworth nodded, his face hardening a little.
"Of course, it may be accidental— or it may be due to Mr. Skinkowitz or Captain Puzzle-name—what is it? Breakfast-Lankerly? It wouldn't be a bad idea to send Sing Song round to keep an eye on one of 'em. The thing is—which?"
Smiler pondered.
"Well, of the two I should try Brecon-Lankerly. He sounds a tougher sort than Skinkowitz somehow. Skink has mentioned money— but this captain hasn't."
He rang the bell for the ever-ready Sing Song, and gave him his instructions.
"Watch him, my lad, mind. If he behaves funny at all, make a note of it. You don't want to see me flattened out by a taxi-cab some day, do you?" asked Smiler.
"No, mastel," replied the Chink.
"Well, keep a lamp out for Brecon-Lankerly. Find out about him. You can go to it."
Sing Song "went to it" abruptly. This was the kind of work he loved.
At Grosvenor Square they encountered a disappointment. The Rajah was out. He had received a pressing telephone invitation to take tea with a very charming friend, and Mirza Khan had been unable to throw enough obstacles in his way to keep him at home. He had left word, however, that he would gladly see Mr. Coomber Huish on the following day. ("Coomber Huish" was the nom de guerre Mr. Bunn modestly employed when dealing with the Rajah.) Smiler explained to Mirza Khan the precaution they had taken concerning Brecon-Lankerly, and Mirza agreed that it was not altogether uncalled-for.
The partners left, deciding to look up Mr. Skinkowitz.
But that gentleman had left his office in the City and had gone home. They gleaned rather expertly from a clerk his home address—a place near Weybridge—and decided first to see, if possible, Madame Lafite, dine, and then take a little run down to Weybridge and back.
"I don't suppose we shall be permitted to see her, but we might try," said Smiler.
But at the hotel they received an unpleasant shock. Madame Lafite had died in the hospital an hour before. A pretty French maid, her eyes red with weeping, explained the accident to them. Madame had been quite alone in England, she said, and she (the maid) was bewildered. There were no friends that one had to whom one could appeal for help and advice. What was she to do? It was not as though the good Monsieur Rally was alive—he had been such a good friend to Madame—he would have seen about things— known what to do.
The partners exchanged glances, "Rally" was the name of the rich American who had tried for the concession in Paris before he was killed.
Smiler patted the French girl on the shoulder.
"Don't you worry, madummaselle," he said good-naturedly, "I'll send someone to help you look after things."
He telephoned to Mr. Ferdinand Bloom, the experienced butler-valet-all-rounder who, with his wife, tool: care of the comfortable little country house of the two crooks at Purdston on the Surrey-Hants border, and ordered him to come up and make all necessary arrangements for the maid.
Then he and his partner dined.
Two and a half hours later their big car was rolling smoothly through Weybridge, and at half-past nine stopped at the entrance to a rather lonely-situated house some two miles farther on—the residence of Mr. Skinkowitz.
The place was in absolute darkness—there was no gleam of light at any window, and, save for the low, sustained note of a cold wind through
some stark fir trees at the back of the house, all was silent.
Smiler Bunn, leaning over the wheel of the big, saloon-bodied car, peered out through the elaborate glass windows.
"Not a very bright sort of shop for a stockbroker's private residence, Fortworth," he said.
"No."
Fortworth shook his head.
They alighted. The entrance-gate to the tiny drive leading to the house was open, and as they were about to enter, leaving their car outside, a figure crossed the road and approached them.
Mr. Bunn turned on the newcomer.
"Mr. Skinkowitz, the stockbroker, live here?" he asked. The figure— seen in the electric glare of the motor lamps as a shabby, slightly alcohol-ravaged individual in need of a shave—laughed rather huskily.
"He's s'posed to, guv'nor. But I can't get in at him, I got a bit of paper here for him, if I could kind of cop him."
The crooks understood. The alcoholic one had a writ for Skinkowitz in his pocket.
Smiler nodded thoughtfully.
"I see," he said.
They turned in up the drive—the "writsman" sneaking unobtrusively after them some yards behind.
Mr. Bunn knocked imperatively at the front door—which gave under the blows. No one answered. Another knock revealed the fact that the door was not fastened. It swung inwards silently under the weight of Smiler's hand. He stared into the dark hallway doubtfully.
"What d'you make of it, Fortworth?" he asked.
Fortworth sniffed. A faint odour of cigar smoke hung stuffily on the air. Evidently someone had been in the house very recently—possibly was there now. After all, there was nothing very surprising in the fact that the house was in darkness (plenty of people go to bed at ten o'clock), or even that the door should be unlocked and unlatched—doors are often forgotten. Nevertheless, the trained instinct of the two crooks—sensitive, alert, wary—recoiled somehow from that warm, cigar-scented gloom and silence. They could not have told why—any more than a fox or wolf prowling charily round a new trap can tell exactly why he distrusts it.
"What d'you think, Fortworth?" asked Smiler Bunn.
Fortworth, his eye on a dim lurking figure a few yards down the drive, to which his attention had been attracted by a light crunch of gravel, answered softly:
"I don't like the look of it. Let's get a lamp from the car."
Smiler. agreed, and they went together down to the motor, took an electric torch from its receptacle, and returned.
The process-server was hanging about the steps, peering into the house.
"Hey, Bill, you can't do anything this time of night with your writ," said Fortworth abruptly.
"No; but there's no harm having a look round. Skinkowitz is an artful old lot," muttered the man.
"Oh, all right! You'd better come in with us."
Together they entered the house, the blaze of the torch flashing eerily on the sparse and shabby furniture in the hall.
They turned into a room on the right-hand side of the house, and so solved the secret of the silence, the darkness, and the open door. Skinkowitz sat in a loose, collapsed heap in a big basket-chair, stone dead. On a table by the chair was an empty tumbler, a whisky bottle, and a syphon, and on the hearthrug an empty phial. They recognised him instantly from Mirza Khan's description.
The process-server cried out nervously, but Fortworth turned on him savagely.
"Shut up, you fool," he snarled.
Smiler was sniffing at the phial.
"It was that stuff—what is it?— hydrocyanic acid—prussic acid," he said, very white.
They stared at each other. The teeth of the writ-server were chattering audibly.
"We'd better get out of this," said Smiler jumpily, "And as quick as we can!"
A minute later they were out of the house and in the car.
"You'd better keep your trap closed about this, old man," said Smiler to the process-server, who nodded.
The car slid away, and rarely has a motor conveyed two more startled and puzzled men from Weybridge to London than did the car of the Bunn Combine that night.
"Why did Skinkowitz commit suicide?" they asked each other a dozen times, without any satisfactory answer. If the man had been murdered it would have been easy to have found the answer—Brecon-Lankerly. But if ever any case looked like suicide, this did.
"All the same," said Mr. Bunn, "you've got to look at results. And the result of two motor accidents and a suicide is that Captain Brecon-Lankerly is the only applicant for the oil concession left. See what I mean, Fortworth? I don't say that this chap knows anything about the accidents or the prussic acid; but if he doesn't, then all I've got to say is that he's remarkably lucky in his affairs."
Fortworth pulled thoughtfully at his cigar as the car ran on towards their flat.
"We shall hear what Sing Song says presently," he said, "There's something in all this I can't understand. I know the City, and I know about concessions, and men don't commit murder much in England for sake of an oil concession that mightn't be any more valuable than a concession to mine dead cats out of the bed of the Thames."
Fortworth was right, but neither he nor Smiler guessed how extremely right he was.
Sing Song was waiting for them at the flat—and, better still, he had prepared what Smiler described as a rather "saucy" little supper which did much to defeat a pair of appetites that already were beginning to recover from the knock-down blow administered to them by their owners at dinner-time.
HAVING utterly abolished the supper, the partners called upon Sing Song for the result of his shadowing of Brecon-Lankerly. It was soon given, and cleared things almost entirely.
The deft Chinaman had gleaned the fact that the private motor which had caused the death of Madame Lafite was a hired car used by Captain Brecon-Lankerly. It had been driven at the time of the accident by the Captain's man—a thin, quiet, pale-eyed person whom Sing Song instinctively summed up as a "tough." The Chinaman had hung about discreetly outside Brecon-Lankerly's rooms until about seven o'clock, with the Bunn Combine's fast two-seated car waiting round a corner in charge of an amiable loafer with whom the Chink had made an arrangement. It was lucky that the policy of the Combine was never to "work," if possible, without a car in reserve, for just after seven o'clock the Brecon-Lankerly car had pulled up outside—and, Sing Song noted, its number plate had been changed.
Sing Song knew a little about changing number-plates himself, and he got to work, so that when the Brecon-Lankerly car presently slid
away, Sing Song, in the two-seater, slid unobtrusively after it—and continued so to slide until it stopped.
And it had stopped at a lonely house some two miles out of Weybridge!
"Hey—what's that?" Smiler Bunn, strangely excited, stood up suddenly.
"House at Weyblidge, mastel— Mistel Skinklewitz house," said Sing Song gravely.
"Well, get on—get on! What happened?"
"He gettee out, mastel, and go in house. I cleepee to window. Listen plentee long time. They angly—allee same quallel. I findee place to see past window-blind, lookee in and watch." The face of the Chink was as expressionless as wood, but his eyes were gleaming, "They talkee 'bout concession. Angly. Then Blecon-Lankelly he takee Skinklewitz by thloatee—all samee way like this "—the Chink crooked his fingers—" and stlangle—velly quiet—velly devel. Skinklewitz only stluggle one piece—die velly quick. Blecon-Lankelly makee all things tidy-up— then puttee plenty-small boddle to Skinklewitz mouth, thlow empty boddle down to calpet, and come away quiet. Come stlaight home—I coming home allee samee time."
Sing Song ceased, eyeing his "mastels" curiously.
Smiler nodded approval.
"You're a good lad, Sing," he said, "That's all we wanted to know."
The partners looked solemnly at each other.
"A bad, dangerous blackguard, Fortworth," said Smiler seriously, "And I ain't sure I've got any hankering to get in his way."
"Nor me—nor me," agreed Fortworth, a red glitter at the back of his eyes.
"I ain't a coward," continued Mr. Bunn, his face set in hard lines, "but I ain't a fool, neither. And we've got to bear in mind that this Brecon-
Lankerly man-eater would rip our throats open as soon as look at us if he got a chance and suspected us." His voice had thickened a little, and the veins across his forehead were standing out like cords.
"Yes, that's true," replied Fortworth, glaring balefully at his partner.
"Now, we don't need to lose our tempers, of course," Smiler went on; "but, at the same time, a man like this gets me kind of ruffled up and set on edge, and—and "—Mr. Bunn's temper went suddenly—"we've got to get him, damn him I and have him hung like a dog, concession or no concession."
They were on their feet now, half-snarling with rage. Crooks they were, hopelessly dishonest, dangerously shrewd, a standing menace to Society's bank account, but—murder —cold-blooded, deliberate murder— they barred absolutely. For in their weird, selfish way they were good-hearted. Not with any conventional goodness of heart, but none the less genuine for all that.
As a rule, it was their speciality to snatch plunder from the plunderers; but it should be remembered to their credit that in the case of Brecon-Lankerly they now forgot any question of profit to be made out of the affair in their cold rage to avenge the poor little Frenchwoman, the mysterious Mr. Skinkowitz, who talked of "five tousand pounts" and dodged writs, and Rally, that unknown American, who had been the victim of Brecon-Lankerly in Paris.
They stared at each other with blood-shot eyes.
"He's vermin—a mad dog," said Smiler, pouring himself out a whisky-and-soda, "I don't know what you think, Fortworth, but I think we can very well postpone this concession business until we've done Captain Blank Brecon-Lankerly up."
Fortworth agreed almost before Smiler had finished.
They talked it over for a few moments, gradually regaining their coolness.
Finally they rang for Sing Song.
"It's getting on for Christmas," said Smiler. as he rang, "and as we've done very well out of the nation, taking it all round, I consider it's about time we returned the compliment and presented a gift to the nation for a change. We'll present this mad wolf Brecon-Lankerly, and I hope they'll hang the swine 1 "
A brief but very pointed conversation with Sing Song helped matters forward very considerably
Within half an hour their car pulled up outside a big block of flats not far from Northumberland Street, and the three old campaigners— simply disguised as coloured men— went openly, though quietly, up to the fifth floor, whereon the murderer occupied a small flat. They were reasonably certain of finding him alone, or with only his sinister-looking servant—Sing Song had made fairly minute inquiries about him that afternoon.
The door was answered by the man-servant who had been driving the car when the "accident" happened to Madame Lafite. He looked at the trio of dusky callers with wary eyes, and in reply to Smiler's question as to whether Captain Brecon-Lankerly was at home, asked for his name.
"Thee name iss of no importance," said Mr. Bunn in the Mirza Khan manner, "Tell him some native gentlemen who own thee option on oil concession in Jolapore."
The man opened the door widely.
"Come in, gentlemen," he said, and as they entered the dimly-lit hall, closed the door behind them.
Smiler indicated Sing Song.
"There iss not any objection to gereat kindness of giving my secretary a seat?" he asked, "There iss possibility we may not need his presence."
"Oh, yes, sir—I'll see to that," said the thin man, and showed them into Brecon-Lankerly without delay.
"Two gentlemen who are interested in an oil concession, sir," he announced, a faint repressed eagerness in his voice.
Brecon-Lankerly rose to greet them as the door shut gently. He was a tall, well-made man in evening dress. But he had a bitter mouth, and cruel, shifty eyes. A powerful, determined scoundrel, if ever there was one. He looked hardly less dangerous than he was. At sight of him the faces of the partners hardened.
He stood in the middle of the room, facing them.
"Good evening, gentlemen," he said, in a calm, emotionless voice, "Do I understand that you refer to that Indian concession?"
"Oah, yess, thatt iss correct situation," said Smiler, "We own thee whole option. But at same time we are veree kindly willing to sell."
A sudden light gleamed in the cold, crafty eyes of the-murderer.
"That is good," he said with satisfaction. "I think we shall be able to make an arrangement—if you are moderate."
"Oah, we shall be thatt," said Smiler ambiguously.
Brecon-Lankerly gave a non-committal laugh.
"Sit down," he said, and turned to pull a chair towards the fire, stooping a little.
At the same instant a queer, low gurgle sounded from the hall outside.
The murderer straightened up suddenly.
"What was ¦" he began, and
said no more, for a huge arm slid swiftly over his shoulder, crooking under his chin, and hugging him savagely back against a chest like a stone wall. A big knee thrust itself remorselessly into his back, pinning him. And at the same moment he felt pressing into his body, just under
the arch of his chest, the hard muzzle of a pistol. The eyes of Smiler Bunn stared down his eyes, baleful, ruthless, merciless.
"Be still!" growled Mr. Bunn, "Struggle and I'll spread you over the carpet."
But the trapped wretch was past any threat.
With the snarl of a mad thing he wrenched, trying to twist free from the arm of Fortworth, which was clamping itself tighter and tighter round his throat. For a long minute he strained in silence. Then Fortworth spoke with an efforts
"All right," he said, "I've got him. I could hold him here a thousand years, damn him!"
Swiftly, expertly, Mr. Bunn searched the man—taking away from him another little phial like that which they had found at Skinkowitz's house, a repeating-pistol, and so forth. From one of the curling lingers he slid a large ring which looked as though it might contain poison. Then he produced from his own pocket a long, thin cord, and bound the man as few men are ever bound nowadays.
"Right!" he said, and Fortworth thrust the murderer into a chair.
"What's this?" he said, deadly pale, in a voice that had suddenly become reedy.
"The finish—for you!" said Smiler briefly.
"What are you raving about?" asked Brecon-Lankerly. But there was no confidence in his voice or in his eyes. The two ignored him. Fortworth went out to see if Sing Song had dealt with the thin man, while Smiler sat down to write at a table. He did not write long. Presently he pinned the paper upon which he had written to the captain's coat.
"Between you and your blackguard out there you murdered Rally in Paris, Madame Lafite in London, and Skinkowitz at Weybridge.. ..
Don't talk. We know. And you're going to hang for it," said Mr. Bunn.
The man's eyes went strangely blank, and he said no more. It was as though he was intelligent enough to see that these black, mysterious, capable men who had surprised him were not in the least likely to have made any mistakes in their calculations as to his disposal. Probably he was. Certainly he must have realised the futility of talk—for he did not open his lips again, save once. That was when Sing Song and Fortworth had bundled the manservant—unconscious, for Sing Song was ever thorough—into the room, and the Chink had gone over and supplemented the knots of Smiler's cord. Then the doomed man spoke.
"Loosen my wrist and give me the phial, and I'll save people the trouble of hanging me," he said quietly.
"No," said Mr. Bunn and Lord Fortworth together.
Sudden fear leaped into the wretch's eyes.
"For God's sake give me the phial 1" he implored.
Smiler's face was like white iron.
"For Madame Lafite's sake I will not," he said—and that was the last word.
The Combine left the flat, and sent a letter to Scotland Yard by a messenger boy. Twenty minutes later the police had the murderers, and they found pinned to the coat of one of them an anonymous letter detailed enough to satisfy them that it was worth while telephoning the Weybridge Police. And that was the beginning of the end of Brecon-Lankerly and his satellite. Nevertheless, had they been loyal to each other they might ultimately have escaped. But the thin man, probably in sudden panic, turned in' former before the trial, and thereafter Brecon-Lankerly's entire energies and abilities were devoted to making as certain as possible the
hanging of his pseudo-servant and ally, the thin man—completely disregarding the fact that the tighter he drew the rope round the other's neck, so much more certain he made his own end.
"If those two men had been out just to steal that concession, I wouldn't have interfered," said Fortworth some months later, "but murder I bar."
Smiler Bunn nodded gravely.
"Me, too," he said sincerely.
"What I shall never understand is why a man with the brains of that chap, Brecon-Lankerly, should have valued a concession to bore for oil (and in a place where it is a million to one there isn't half a pint of oil) enough to commit murder for it."
Smiler Bunn stared at a roughly drawn plan which he had found in the murderer's pocket on the night he had searched him.
"He knew something. Perhaps there's something better than oil there—gold, jewels, perhaps."
He passed the plan to Mirza Khan, who had called in.
"What do you make of it, Mirza?" he asked.
The native looked at it carelessly, then started a little, and stared more closely. They watched him curiously. He began to smile, nodding like a mandarin—a black one.
"Thiss explains thee matter in very minute detail," he said, "There iss no oil att thee place referred to in thee concession. But at thiss spot"—he indicated a certain place in the centre of the plan—"wass buried the treasure off a great queen before she was killed. Thatt was many hundreds off years ago. Fearin' her enemies, thee Ranee caused certain eunuchs off thee palace to hide in secret place her treasure. Then thee son of thee queen killed thee eunuchs so that thee secret should be safe. Hundreds of years ago."
"Playing it low down on the poor devils of eunicoms, or whatever you call 'em," commented Smiler.
"Wait, mister," said Mirza Khan, "Thee same day thatt queen wass stabbed, and died. But thee secret of thee treasure wass lost. There wass great frenzy of searching, but it wass onlee discovered in reign of present Highness's father—and moved in veree secret fashion to private treasury."
"Why secret?" asked Fortworth.
"Because off Beritish Political Resident," he replied, "There are gereat number Beritish political representatives in India, misters, and it iss veree distinctly not part off their job to encourage rajahs to hoard up gereat treasure. Thee Government would have wanted finger in thatt pie. Therefore, the treasure wass taken up secretlee and att night— fifty years ago. Thatt iss what the American Rally and thee others desired to find—treasure, not oil. But he would have had gereat surprise, eh, misters? At thee same time it iss mystery where he learned off existence off secret hoard."
Mirza paused to sop up a whisky-and-soda.
"Thatt iss-reason all thee concession hunters were in gereat earnest," he said, "Thee treasure wass worth a million pounds!"
There was a momentary silence.
Then Mr. Bunn sighed gustily.
"Oh, well, I don't give a d—n," he said carelessly, "We were all fifty years behind the times this deal. It's a bygone anyway—let it be a bygone. We can't make a fortune every time. Hey, Fortworth?"
His partner leisurely selected a cigar.
"We've ridded the country of the scoundrel—that's one thing," he answered, "It ain't our line as a general thing, but I'm not growling about it. Virtue is its own reward."
"Ain't that what I'm always telling you?" said Mr. Bunn, "Pass the whisky!"
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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