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Roy Glashan's Library
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In which the Bunn-Fortworth combine are entrusted with a little commission by the Rajah of Jolapore, and in carrying it out, with the aid of one Mr. Raymond Carey, of the Secret Service, come into short but sharp collision with a digit of "The Unseen Hand."
In which the Bunn Brigade renew their inquiries into the methods of the Unseen Hand, and, with the timely aid of Mr. Raymond Carey, deftly and not unprofitably lop off, as it were, another digit from the Hand.
In which the Bunn Company, tranquilly pursuing certain speculative investigations in Suffolk, again encounter the Unseen Hand, and become exclusively possessed of a valuable asset in the field of scientific research.
In which, owing to entirely unforeseen circumstances, the Bunn Brigade are robbed of a fortune by the Unseen Hand, and, faring forth to regain it, nearly rush in where Carey feared to tread.
In which the Bunn Combine receive a late caller and a later report, and once again find themselves in quick action with more emissaries of The Unseen Hand.
Wherein the Bunn Brigade very generously permit themselves to be utilised as a form of bait at which the Unseen Hand clutches in no uncertain manner, seriously to the partners' discomfort, but more seriously to its own.
Wherein the Bunn Brigade insinuate themselves into the financial side of certain Chinese intrigues, fail to discover any trace of the Unseen Hand, but do not suffer any serious loss thereby.
MR. SMILER BUNN woke with a start so violent that he snorted like a horse—thereby waking his partner ex-Lord Fortworth, who, also, had been dozing for an after-lunch half-hour in the sunny window of their London flat.
They looked rather sourly at each other with sleepy and somewhat suspicious eyes. It was Mr. Bunn who emerged first from the state of mental muzziness induced by their profound slumbers.
"What's the matter, old man?" he inquired not unkindly. "You were making a devil of a noise in your sleep!"
Fortworth scowled a little.
"If I was making half the row you were I ought to be stifled," he returned sharply.
Smiler shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, well, we won't quarrel about it," he said. "In fact, I'll own cheerfully that I was making a slight noise. As a matter of fact I was dreaming sudden death and things like that!" He shook his head thoughtfully. "It must be my nerves—or the lobster, though to tell the truth I never yet saw the lobster that could give me indigestion."
There was a brief silence, broken again by Mr. Bunn.
"Personally speaking, old man, I don't consider that either of us have thoroughly got over that nightmare in Germany last year."
Fortworth ran a still dull but rapidly clearing greenish-grey eye over his partner's massive form.
"Well, I don't know that you look any the worse for it, anyway. There's a good two stone more of you now than when we landed back in London. And you eat like a bull, sleep like a bear, and work about as hard as a brick. No, I shouldn't go so far as to say your health and nerves ain't practically perfect."
Mr. Bunn shrugged his shoulders, smiled indulgently, and selected a cigar.
"As you wish, old man, as you wish," he said. "You don't exactly starve yourself either, you know. But why should you, anyway?" he added hastily. "God forbid that I should criticise any man's menus!" And he pressed the bell for his valet and handy-man, that practically indestructible Chinaman, Sing Song.
"Bring in the whisky and soda, my son, there's a good lad," said Mr. Bunn, cheerily, "and we'll get our heads clear: It's wonderful how this after-lunch dozing muddles your wits, Sing Song. Take warning from us and don't do it."
"No, mastel," replied the Chink gravely, and slid out to get the stimulant which Mr. Bunn found so efficacious in the matter of head-clearing....
The months which had elapsed since the return of the trio (and their friends Carey, the South African revolver expert, and Mirza Khan, that smooth rascal, the confidential servant of the Rajah of Jolapore) from Germany, through the war-zone, had dealt kindly with them. From the weather-bitten, haggard unnaturally bright-eyed, baggy-skinned spectres that had landed at Harwich at the conclusion of the journey they had gradually grown into themselves again—that is to say, into a brace of stoutish, well-preserved, prosperous and extremely well-groomed individuals who, judging by their tightish lips and their rather bold, clean-shaven jowls, might have been good-humoured and well-to-do barristers, actor-managers, Stock Exchange or racing men.
They had suffered many privations during the previous year—but they were suffering none whatever this year. They were taking very great care to exist without privation of any kind. They considered that, as Mr. Bunn was apt to put it, they had "done their bit" in the matter of privation. But although they had sufficient funds in hand to "see them through" for quite a considerable time, they were both very keenly alive to the fact that the art of banishing privation on the scale which they considered only reasonable, was eating very voraciously indeed into their bank accounts.
As Mr. Bunn was accustomed to say—with a faint touch of anxiety in his voice—" We've got to let that German business be a serious warning to us, old man. It gave us a reminder of what life might be without the proper means of carrying on. Think of the stuff we ate—if you've got the heart. That horse-meat that time! My G—d, old man, I shall never see a dead horse again without feeling my works inside miss a few beats. We've got to keep clear of that sort of diet again."
"We will," Fortworth would reply grimly. "We will—even if we've got to work to do it."
"That won't be necessary if we keep our eyes open. But we've got to keep our eyes on the blink, our ears at half-cock, and our heads clear," Mr. Bunn would reply, reaching for his patent "head-clearing" mixture and lighting another cigar, as, it is to be presumed, an extra precaution against brain-muddle....
They had not been awake more than a few minutes when Sing Song, the soundless one, appeared at the door to announce a visitor— none other indeed than the worthy Mirza Khan, who came in smiling abundantly, and evidently extremely pleased to see his old comrades.
"Aha, sars, how do you do yourselves, my lads? Itt iss pleasure off peretty considerable dimensions to witness you again, I can jolly-well assure you. Oah, yess indeed!" said this black but more or less comely gentleman from India's coral strand, advancing to the partners.
They greeted him affably but without ceremony.
"Hello, Mirza. You look a bit more chirpy than you did," said Mr. Bunn. "How are you?"
Mirza sat down—within comfortable reach of the decanters.
"Oah, in excellent fettle, yess," he replied. "In very good order, sars, and remarkably fit." His teeth gleamed whitely as he smiled to prove it.
(For some months after his return Mirza Khan had pined because his master the Rajah had been pronounced medically unfit for service, and consequently his chance of riding with the lancer regiment, which the Rajah had developed from his personal body-guard in Jolapore, had vanished. But he was evidently getting over his chagrin. Time— and the knowledge that winter trench work is not exactly an ideal form of warfare for native cavalry—had worn his disappointment so threadbare that, practically, it had ceased to exist. Mirza had settled contentedly down in the old groove of confidential body-servant to the Rajah, who, being a person of racy tastes and tendencies, needed such an individual as the smooth Mirza rather badly.)
Behold him, therefore, sitting down to converse with the partners quite cheerily— with a cigar the size of a large tipcat in one hand and a whisky and soda stiff enough to daze a European or any but a gentleman apparently weaned on opium, in the other hand.
"Well, Mirza, how's the Rajah?" inquired Smiler, opening the conversation in the customary manner. (On more than one, or two, occasions, His Highness had proved an extremely lucrative friend to the two old fish-hooks, and they rarely encountered his dusky henchman without making the politest of inquiries about (1) the Rajah's health, and (2) the state of his Treasury.)
"His Highness, I am veree glad to announce, iss successfully growing out off his extremely bitter disappointment att receiving medical wet blanket. He has received information to effect thatt he iss not thee only Prince who has been forbidden to jeopardize his life by fighting while suffering from feebleness att valves of thee heart. Noa, by Jove."
Mirza drank deep.
"He iss not so sullen ass previously—which is peretty satisfactory for me also for I was decidedlee toad under harrow for considerable period after his disappointment."
The partners nodded.
"That's good, Mirza. He's beginning to sit up and take notice again, is he? Getting about a bit, is he? We've seen his name in the papers a good deal, lately." Mirza Khan nodded.
"Yess, indeed, sars. There iss no other ruling Prince in all India thatt has contributed so generously to thee needs off Beritish Empire on thiss gerave occasion. He iss a gereat Prince and he can give like a Prince, sars. Lac upon lac upon lac of rupees—men—horses—picked horses from every corner off thee State—guns—motors—and goods off many valuable descriptions. Peretty good for moderate sized State like Jolapore, sars!"
"Very good, indeed," said Mr. Bunn, "but at the same time there's no need for him to go and bust himself, you know, Mirza. The British Empire is a pretty well-off little old Empire—and she hasn't got down to the bottom of her stocking yet."
"Bottom!" said Fortworth, who, as an ex-financier, probably knew what he was talking about. "Bottom! Why, she hasn't touched her money yet. A few thousand millions gone, so far. What's that? Nothing —to her. Why, she's so rich that nobody's got the glimmer of a glimpse of how much she has got, If money'll beat those grey-green gorillas over in Flanders Great Britain will win in a walk—in a walk! She'll do that anyway."
Mirza agreed, smoothly, and continued: "There iss small matter thatt His Highness expressed wish thatt I should find favourable opportunity off discussing with you, sars. His Highness, ass you are highly probable aware, has gereat respect for your judgment."
The partners stiffened up a little. There came suddenly into their expressions something remotely resembling that which comes into the expression of a hungry recruit who hears afar off the luring strains of a bugle which announces the arrival of the dinner hour.
"Sure," said Mr. Bunn, very heartily indeed. "And we've got a very great respect for the Rajah's treasury. What's the trouble, Mirza, old man?"
They waited while Mirza Khan thoughtfully refilled his glass.
"I will partake off further supply whisky soda, sars, in order to keep my head perfectly clear."
He did so, and proceeded: "His Highness, ass you are well aware, iss a gentleman off veree tender susceptibilitees. He iss of veree impressionable nature and his emotions are easilee stirred."
"Sure. We know that, Mirza. Get on, old man. Who's the lady?"
Mirza grinned slightly.
"She iss onlee daughter off Sir Steel Basson—thee gereat chemical manufacturer."
The partners nodded.
"His Highness met thee lady recently and was very seriouslee impressed. Soa seriouslee indeed that he dined with small select party at Sir Steel Basson's house last night. It was onlee then thatt he made mortifying and painful discoverys thatt thee lady was already affianced and thatt she was not in least degree interested in His Highness."
"Fierce luck. Go on, Mirza!" murmured the partners.
"Veree well. His Highness lost interest, too, peretty quickly, sars. He was dissappointed with second glimpse off lady, anyway. During course off evening the fiancé off young lady was presented to His Highness, and His Highness—who, ass you know, sars, iss peretty shrewd man of thee world—took bitter dislike to thiss man—the fiancé, thatt iss to say. He iss convinced thatt thee man iss scoundrel. He told me soa thiss morning. 'Look you, Mirza Khan,' said he, 'do I know the difference between the hamadryad'—thatt iss thee deadly King-cobra of Hind, sars— 'do I know the difference between the hamadryad and the rat-snake?'—which is harmless as thee earthworm, jass. I assured him that it wass so. And he said:
"'Then I say that suave brute who is to be the husband of Sir Steel Basson's daughter is deadly, Mirza Khan! And I wish to know more of him. See to it—quickly.' I bethought myself off you, sars, and I spoke off you to His Highness. He approved.
"'See them, Mirza Khan—they are capable men,' said His Highness—and, you see, sars, here I am. There will be—off course—subsequent considerable bestowal off gifts," concluded Mirza Khan, with a faint excitement in his voice. He had hunted with the Bunn Combine before and was always ready to do so again.
For a moment the partners looked at each other in a thoughtful silence. Although they, themselves, on various occasions, had done extremely well out of the Rajah, they knew perfectly that Mirza was right—his master was very far indeed from being a fool. They knew that he could tell "hamadryad from rat-snake" every time he cared to try—and if his instinct against the fiancé of Miss Justine Basson was so strong that he troubled himself to give him a second thought neither Mr. Bunn nor Lord Fortworth would have cared to risk as much as a postage stamp on the gentleman's integrity. They leaned forward, suddenly keen as hawks.
"There's something in this, Mirza," said Mr. Bunn solemnly. "We'll talk this over."
And they did so—for the following two hours—a part of which time was consumed by Mr. Bunn in ringing up and carrying on a vivacious and cryptic conversation with one "Mr. Carey "—none other, indeed, than the extremely level-headed South African ambidextrous revolver shot who had accompanied them upon their German journey the previous year. It might have been noticeable to a listener that there was occasionally a certain vague suggestion of respect in Mr. Bunn's voice as he talked with his old comrade. But perhaps this was due to the fact that Carey was engaged on Secret Service work—"for duration of war." Whatever their cryptic conversation may have meant, it is certain that Mr. Bunn returned from the telephone in an extremely good humour.
"Carey's dining with us to-night. We'll talk it over with him, too, Mirza. Meantime give the Rajah our compliments and tell him that the little matter will be attended to all right, all right. See, Mirza?"
SIR STEEL BASSON was a self-made man. He owned the biggest private chemical and explosive works in the country. He hardly knew bone-manure from hydrofluoric acid— but he knew how to hire men who did. He was not a proud man nor unapproachable and he was in the fifty-knots-an-hour class as a business man. Also he possessed two weak points, to wit, he loved a good dinner and he idolized his daughter. In his office he was as hard as carborundum—in his home his daughter and his chef twisted him round their little fingers.
Thanks, mainly, to a deft pulling of certain strings by Messieurs the Rajah and Carey, not to mention others who have nothing else to do with this story, Sir Steel Basson, about a week after Mirza Khan's visit to the Bunn Company, might have been seen very cordially welcoming the partners, who had just arrived for a few days' shooting on the Basson Surrey estate. He had met them twice during the previous week (thanks to the string-pullers) and they, or their frankly Epicurean tastes, had charmed him. They had dined together, at the Astoritz, and their knowledge of menu-choosing had "set him afire," as Mr. Bunn put it. Now he proposed to show them what he could produce in the menu line. They were willing....
"Welcome—though you're late. Dinner will be ready in half an hour!" said Sir Steel—a short, stout, thick-set, grizzled, prosperous-looking man of perhaps fifty—in his bluff out-of-office-hours way. "What will you have? I'll join you. It's past seven. Never drink before seven p.m.," he explained, with a chuckle which, genuine though it undoubtedly was, seemed a little unexpected, issuing from the firm, thin lips of the explosive king.
"Nor after two a.m., hey, Squire?" said Mr Bunn, jocosely. "Well, well, it's a good rule—for those who can stand it."
A door opened at the far end of the hall and a very pretty girl came in.
The "Squire's" face lit up.
"Here is Justine—my daughter," he said with a pride in his voice that he did not attempt to disguise; "Justine, my dear, I want you to like two friends I wish I had met years ago—Mr. Wilton Flood "—he indicated Smiler Bunn—" and Mr. Henry Black "—he referred to ex-Lord Fortworth. "They think about things the same way as your old Daddy does, Justine."
The girl looked gravely at them for a moment. Then she smiled. She was lovely enough to justify all her father's pride.
"We shall be good friends, father," she said, and shook hands with them both.
"Now, that's fine—fine!" said Sir Steel, with something almost like relief in his voice. He turned to the burly partners. He stopped a reverend-looking butler with a wise eye, who had been arranging matters concerning luggage with Sing Song outside, and in his bluff way invited his guests to "give it a name."
They did so—a Scotch name—and their host beamed on them.
"My own brand," he said.
"The best in the world," agreed Mr. Bunn
"I've always said so," supplemented Fortworth.
The butler looked as though he would like to add his unqualified approval also, but controlled himself and disappeared.
They drew round the enormous fire for a cosy five minutes before going to their rooms.
Justine Basson remained with them for a little. It was while her father was discussing rather interestedly some point about the cyanide gold extracting process with Fortworth that Mr. Bunn, looking across at her, received a shock.
Whether it was or was not merely some trick of light and shade in the comfortably subdued illumination of the luxurious hall Mr. Bunn was not then able to decide—though he knew later. She was looking straight at him, but it was quite evident that her thoughts were far away—and on her beautiful face was an expression of such complete sadness and despair that it literally haunted Mr. Bunn for the next few hours.
He stiffened a little, shocked and amazed; his swift instincts leaped to attention like steel springs. "By God! the Rajah's right!" was the thought that speared through his brain like an electric shock. "Nothing but a love affair gone wrong could put that expression on the face of a girl—she's no more—in such a position as this one!"
He glanced at Basson and Fortworth to see if they had noticed it, but they were still discussing keenly their cyanide point; and when he turned again the girl had risen and with a smiling word or so about her "duties"—for Sir Steel was a widower—was on the point of going out.
Her face was completely tranquil again....
While they were dressing for dinner, Smiler spoke of that strange transformation. It seemed to have affected him rather unusually.
"This little girl, Justine, isn't happy," he said to Fortworth—they were in communicating rooms. "I saw it."
He explained what he had seen, Fortworth listening attentively.
"It may be due to this smooth guy she's engaged to—what's his name, Massarene, ain't it? Yes, Massarene—sounds like some kind of hair-wash or ointment. We'll keep a sharp lamp out for him—it's what we're here for, anyway."
"Well, we shall meet him at dinner," said Fortworth.
"Yes, and with any luck Sing Song will have gone through his things by the time we've finished what Basson—a fine old chap, that!—puts before us. And there's the gong. Look alive, old man."
They "looked alive," Sing Song, who had already received his instructions, flitting round about them like a yellow valet-conjurer....
They discovered Mr. Massarene to be one of the smooth, olive-hued, black-haired kind, handsome enough, sleek as silk, cool as cream, absolutely correct, with biggish dark eyes, rather effective, but which he was clever enough not to use too much. He seemed to watch Justine considerably, but that was natural. He was not the only one who did some watching during that sumptuous meal.
Neither Massarene nor Justine nor a rather faded and very silent aunt who appeared took a very prominent part in the conversation, which had to do mainly with menus and so forth, and when, later, the dining-room was reluctantly evacuated by the gourmets the younger couple hovered mostly between the drawing-room and the smoking-room, which was strongly occupied by the trio. Once the rosy Sir Steel was called to the telephone by someone at the works, some four miles away, and the partners had a minute to themselves.
"Well," said Fortworth, softly, "what do you think of him?"
Smiler carefully deposited an inch of cigar ash in a tray.
"I'd as soon have a black viper about the place, old man," replied Mr. Bunn earnestly.
"Sooner. See? Don't ask why for I don't know yet. But the Rajah's right. I don't like the guy—I don't care about him. He's too damned smooth—he don't ring right— and" Mr. Bunn leaned forward—"Fortworth, he's clever and he's dangerous. See? Dangerous! We're allowed to have instincts as well as Rajahs, ain't we? Sure. And I've got a bale of 'em somewhere inside me that says he's dangerous."
Fortworth nodded slowly.
"And me!"
Then Sir Steel returned, looking annoyed.
"There's a difficulty cropped up at the works!" he said. "I've got to get across there now—an hour earlier than usual. I take my 'last look round' at eleven as a rule. It's a pity—" His thumb was on the bell.
"Do you work at nights, too?" asked Mr. Bunn. "I'd like to see ah explosive works going at full speed at night."
"It must be a thrilling sight," said Massarene's smooth, musical voice at Smiler's elbow. The lovers had just come in from the drawing-room.
Sir Steel ordered his limousine round.
"Yes, a fine sight," supplemented Fortworth, following his partner's lead.
Sir Steel hesitated.
"Well, it's Government controlled—but as I own every half brick of it, I suppose I can invite you along to look at it. Eustace here doesn't really want to come, does he, Justine, my dear?—be a fool if he did—but these old bachelors are different, eh?" He chuckled, then hesitated, frowned and decided.
"Pity if I can't take two friends round my own factory," he said, and Smiler blessed the last whisky and soda which their host had surrounded.
So they sent for their furs.
But Mr. Bunn had caught the expression which for the fraction of a fraction of a second had flitted across the face of the romantic-looking "Eustace," quite clearly enough to make him thoughtful.
"Massarene wants to see that factory a damned sight more than he wants to stop at home with his girl and her silent aunt," he mused, as he selected a further cigar for company. "Must make a note of that!"
THEY saw the factory—a mighty place, alive with the night shift; they saw, too, the difference between Sir Steel Basson at home and Sir Steel at business—much the same difference as there is between a circular saw at work and a feather-bed ; they saw strangely-named explosives in various stages of deadliness; and then they went home. They arrived there at about half-past midnight, dealt faithfully with some extremely well-devilled delicacies, and so to bed. But by no means to sleep. As Mr. Bunn pointed out, they were not there to sleep but to put His Highness the Rajah of Jolapore, if possible, under an obligation to them—or, more frankly, to spike the matrimonial guns of Mr. Eustace Massarene.
They made themselves comfortable and proceeded to interview Sing Song. But for that evening the Chink had drawn a bad blank. Mr. Massarene's man—a Swiss of a taciturn nature, who lodged in a dressing-room adjoining Massarene's—had remained in that room all the evening, and even the Chinaman was not sufficiently a magician to examine Eustace's effects with Eustace's man in the room adjoining and communicating and pottering in and out all the evening. Further, a few inquiries carefully put in Sing's simple Chinese way in the servants' hall had elicited in a round-about sort of manner the news that the three rooms were never vacant at the same time. Eustace, it seemed, was supposed to be writing a book and spent quite a lot of time, when visiting the Bassons, in his sitting-room, which also adjoined and communicated with the bedroom. And, usually, when Eustace was not in one of the rooms Felix, the valet, was. For Felix did, among other things, a good deal of typing for his master.
The Chink's beady eyes glittered a little as he noted that Mr. Bunn grasped the significance of this.
"Little Eustace isn't going to have his room searched if a lie or two will prevent it," said Smiler.
Fortworth grunted.
"Well, we'll see about that—I suppose there's some dope or other we can feed to him and his merry Swiss boy," he began, when, quite unexpectedly and soundlessly, the door opened admitting the grave and reverend-looking butler. He closed the door behind him, and, still holding the handle, said quietly:
"Mr. Massarene talks in his sleep and sleeps like a log while he's doing it! This is a duplicate of the key of his room!"
He placed a key upon a small table near him, and, without another word, quietly opened the door and vanished.
The partners stared at each other.
"What's that for?" demanded Mr. Bunn. "What's it mean?"
"You can search me, Flood," replied Fortworth. "But if it's true, it's worth knowing."
Smiler pondered, scowling. Then suddenly his face cleared.
"If I can't trace Carey's ringer in that I'm no judge of a horse," he said. "Carey. That's it. He's getting in a little of his fine work."
They cross-examined Sing Song about the old butler—one Wilston—and the Chink spoke well of him. He had only known him a few hours, but in that space of time he had learned enough to know that he was devoted to the Bassons. They accepted that absolutely— for they understood that what Sing Song, who was faithful as a dog to Mr. Bunn, did not know about devotion was not worth learning. Incidentally, they learned, too, that Massarene was as unpopular in the servants' hall as Justine, her father, and even the silent aunt were popular. The Chink could give no reason. It was instinct again.
"Sure—I've got that instinct, too, Sing."
Mr. Bunn went across to the door, opened it and put his head out into the corridor, remaining so for some minutes.
"The house is as still as a grave," he said, returning. "Just slide down to Massarene's rooms and listen, Sing. Let me know if you hear anything worth hearing."
The Chink glided out and down the darkened, heavily-carpeted corridor, as noiseless as a big yellow moth.
"There's a mystery in this house," said Smiler, quietly, after a while. "A big one— and a bad one and a—"
He did not finish, for at that moment Sing Song slipped in again.
"Quiet lady, allee same Missee Clement"— he meant the silent aunt—"kneelee on mat outside Mistel Massalene's door listening!" His tell-tale eyes gleamed. "Inside Mistel Massalene's loom anothel lady clying. Missie Justine, mastel—clying velly soft."
The partners were on their feet like two big, fierce animals of prey.
"What's that?" snapped Mr. Bunn.
Patiently the Chink repeated it.
Mr. Bunn turned to Fortworth, and his face was hard and grim.
"This means more than the ordinary tomfool would think," he said softly. "Hey?"
Fortworth understood and nodded.
"Well, what are we going to do about it?" snarled Mr. Bunn, under his breath. "That pretty, hospitable little woman crying in that black snake's rooms at two o'clock in the morning—with her aunt on her knees outside at the keyhole. My God! It would break her father's heart."
He thought swiftly. Then moved to the door.
"Just a minute," he said, and went quickly and softly down the corridor. Sing Song stole after him, one hand in his pocket. It would have been indeed an evil moment for the man who had tried to injure Mr. Bunn with his yellow worshipper stealing, ready and alert, behind him. But it was only the silent aunt whom Smiler had gone to find. She was where Sing Song had left her—on her knees outside Massarene's door, listening. She turned sharply as Mr. Bunn approached, and he saw that she was trembling. He stooped, whispering.
"Don't be scared," he said. "Come and tell us about it. It's what we're here for."
She gasped a little, rising. Mr. Bunn heard a faint, muffled footfall down the corridor and half-wheeled with extraordinary swiftness. But it was only the butler again.
"Do as he says, Madame—you will always regret it if you refuse—what he says is true," whispered the man. Mr. Bunn stared.
"Well, you'd better come along, too—you seem to know something about what's going on. You come along, too, my lad."
Miss Clement rose, hesitated, then, with a long intake of the breath, said softly, "Very well," and followed Smiler.
"Wait here, please," said Mr. Bunn, giving her a chair. "I'm going to be indiscreet— so're you, old man"—to Fortworth. "Come on! You wait here and take care of Miss Clement till we're back, d'ye see?" he added to the butler, who nodded, his eyes on the key which Smiler had taken from his pocket.
"I'm going in there," said Mr. Bunn, quietly, "and chance any misunderstanding, for I don't like the look of it."
The butler and the aunt stared at each other, but said nothing.
The partners, with Sing Song, disappeared into the corridor again.
For a moment they listened outside the door. They heard no sound of weeping now—only a low, swift whispering as of someone speaking in most desperate earnest.
Then Mr. Bunn's fingers played lightly about the keyhole, the duplicate key was slipped in absolutely without sound, turned—and, abruptly opening the door, the Bunn Co. walked into the room. Quite what they expected to see they never troubled to think out. But what they actually did see was Justine Basson, still in her evening gown, sitting at a table, with her face covered by her hands. Sitting close to her was Massarene. Evidently it was he who had been whispering.
The man's head twisted over his shoulder like the head of a startled snake, as the Bunn Combine entered. For a moment he seemed stunned at their appearance.
Then he sprang up. His face was ugly with rage.
"What does this mean?" he half hissed. "Are you mad to invade one's rooms at this hour—in this manner—?" But if he had intended to carry things off high-handedly he was wrong.
Mr. Bunn's face was suddenly thrust close to his own—a big, broad face from which two greenish-grey eyes glared palely out with a chilling menace in them that startled the man.
"Forget it, Eustace, you blackguard," came a low, deadly voice from the owner of that face: "We want a word with you."
Massarene hung fire a moment, then his face cleared a little, and he motioned towards Justine's hand. The girl had not moved. Smiler saw what Massarene intended him to see—a wedding ring encircling one of Miss Basson's fingers.
"We have been married for the past two months," he said, his widely-dilated eyes searching Mr. Bunn's face. "Now," he added, "apologise for the vile bad taste of this intrusion."
Mr. Bunn hesitated. Then his face hardened again.
"I don't apologise to men I don't like," he said. "And you're one of them, d'ye see? Sing Song!"
The Chink slid forward, cat-like and sinister.
"Watch him, Sing. Put him out if he moves!"
"Yes, mastel."
Smiler went to Fortworth.
"I'm taking a chance of being slung out of the house," he said softly. "But there's more in this than a secret marriage. It's another instinct—and one or two things I've seen. Stand by." Fortworth nodded dourly, and then Mr. Bunn approached Justine.
"There's some trouble, my dear," he said very gently—far more gently than one would have expected from him—"and we're here to put it right. Will you trust us? Your aunt is waiting for you in our rooms. Come with us and we'll talk things over."
There must have been something very convincing in his voice for the girl suddenly dropped her hands, and stared at him with swimming eyes.
"Very well," she said dully, "I will come," and rose from her chair.
Massarene spoke as she moved to the door.
"Remember, Justine, that you are my wife," he said, with a latent threat in his voice.
She turned, without stopping.
"Remember?" she said. "If only I could forget!"
Smiler remained a second longer.
"Keep him pinned, Sing, till I get back," he said, and followed the girl and Fortworth.
NEITHER Miss Clement nor the butler, it appeared, had heeded Mr. Bunn's instructions to wait in his room. Certainly, they were not there when the partners and Justine Basson entered. But Mr. Bunn did not let their departure disturb him. He and Fortworth were occupied with the girl, who clearly was on the edge of a breakdown. They were very kind to her, albeit a little clumsy.
"Now, my dear," said Smiler, awkwardly, "don't fret yourself. There's nothing to worry about—nothing. I know there's a mystery somewhere—sure of it—and I believe you don't like that man Massarene at all—and I don't blame you. But to a girl in your position it's nothing to fret about—nothing. What? Fret when there's your father and my friend Black and me—not to mention that yellow dev—that yellow Chink of mine—all here to take care of you. See what I mean, Justine? Come, now, my dear—tell us—is there anything wrong? What can we do for you? Would you like your father fetched?"
She did not answer—only stared with wide eyes that seemed not to be looking at the two men but at some vision of horror beyond them. Her beautiful face was pale with a greyish terrifying pallor ; huge dark circles ringed her eyes ; she seemed stunned.
The partners glanced at each other uneasily.
"Better fetch her father," muttered Fortworth.
But she heard, for suddenly a quick tremor shook her and then her eyes cleared a little.
"No—no!" she said. "Let me think." She pressed her hands to her temples, half-closing her eyes. Her wedding ring gleamed in the light—but Mr. Bunn knew that she was confronting a problem far graver than the confession of her secret marriage.
They did not hurry her.
"Please give me some water," she asked weakly. "I—think I am going to faint." She sat down quickly.
"Faint? Nonsense!" said Mr. Bunn sharply. "What d'ye mean—fainting—a grown-up woman like you!"
He quaked as he said it—but his sharpness had the tonic effect he hoped for. She stared at him, drained the glass of water Fortworth had hastened to fetch—he had dashed a little brandy into it from the decanter hospitably placed on a table near the fire—shivered a little, and then faced them squarely,
"Very well," she said, her eyes tragic but determined. "My husband is a German agent and he married me because he thought it the easiest and quickest way to ensure the success of his plans—to blow up my father's works!" She gazed at them, searching their faces.
"Does that seem too improbable?" she said. "But it is true. I—I heard him recapitulating his plans—in his sleep—last night! I went to-night to urge him—"
Suddenly her eyes went past them and she flushed painfully, standing up, swaying where she stood. The partners turned swiftly. Sir Steel Basson was standing at the door.
"Oh, Daddy," she cried in a lamentable voice, "I can't bear it. I've been trapped—somehow—I didn't know—I thought he was good—a good man "
She ran across the room to him, weeping bitterly. Her father took her in his arms as tenderly, kindly, as any woman could have done. Her face was buried in his shoulder, but her sobs shook her. Behind the father the white anxious face of the girl's aunt appeared.
"Don't cry, my dear—my little Justine—it's all right," whispered Sir Steel. "Come with me, and we'll talk it all over together—just you—my little girl—and me—your old Daddy—like we used to." And, soothing her so, he took her out. But as he went he glanced back at the partners.
"Wait! I'll be back presently," he said. His face was hard and resolute, but nothing could hide the desperate anxiety in his eyes.
"My God, the old man's scared cold!" said Mr. Bunn, and even as he spoke a thudding, noise came from somewhere down the corridor, followed by a low sharp exclamation, a heavier thud, and a half-second later the sound of a window, sliding up.
"Quick!" snapped Smiler, and they darted down to Massarene's room. But they were too late.
Sing Song lay in a crumpled heap on the floor and an open window, through which poured an icy wind, told them where Massarene was.
Mr. Bunn swore savagely.
"We forgot the valet!" he snarled. "And what's that?"
Someone had suddenly begun to use the massive knocker on the great front door of the big house, as though he was trying to beat the door down.
"See who it is, old man," snapped Smiler, and, as Fortworth hurried out, stooped over Sing Song. He found a red furrow ploughed along the side of the Chink's head—evidently the work of a bullet from an air-pistol, fired from behind. Muttering something about being "cruel to be kind" Mr. Bunn dashed the contents of a water jug over his disciple's head, who came to with a gasp, a shudder and a tangled Chinese oath.
"Easy, my son—easy, I say," commanded Mr. Bunn, as the Chinaman rose to a sitting position and tried to get on his feet. "Easy, Sing, my lad—easy, blast you! Can't you do as you're told?" Sing became easy, and Mr. Bunn swiftly bound up his head with a towel.
"That'll do you, my son—for a bit, anyway. You get on that bed."
He helped him to his feet, but Sing Song did not want to rest.
"Please, mastel, you lettee me findee Mistel Massaline's valet. Allee same cuttee him open, mastel." His eyes were murderous.
"You'll do as you're told, see?" replied Mr. Bunn, curtly. "Lay up, my lad, lay up." But before he could say more Fortworth's robust voice made manifest that gentleman's anxiety for Smiler's presence in the hall.
Mr. Bunn hurried down, to find four men— his partner, Mr. Carey, Mirza Khan, and the old butler—waiting there with a lady, veiled and silent.
Smiler stared, but the lean South African spoke swiftly.
"This lady is Massarene's wife—his real wife," he said. "I'll explain later. Have you got the men?"
"Why, no—they bolted—out of the window."
Carey wheeled.
"The car, quick," he said. "They're going to the T.N.T. works—if we don't get them first they'll blow the place to powder."
Like one man they made for the door.
Outside in the moonlight stood the magnificent Rolls-Royce touring car—one of the Rajah's—which had brought Carey and Co. down.
"Pile in," snapped Mr. Bunn. "Who knows the way to the works? I'll drive—you might want your guns, Carey."
They poured into the car, Smiler snatching the wheel just as Sir Steel, hatless, ran out from the house.
"For God's sake, catch them," he gasped, scrambling in; "there are four thousand people in the works—four thousand—young women—girls—some of them—and tons of T.N.T. Tons! Drive!"
"Sure," muttered Smiler.
The big car glided down the drive, and away just as a figure with its head grotesquely bound in a towel reeled out from the house and, seeing that it was too late, clung to a pillar, jibbering bitter imprecations as it watched the car disappear.
"Turn right out of the gates and straight on," shouted Sir Steel, and the car swung out of the gates at a pace that no car had ever made its exit from that place before.
"What is the distance?" asked Carey. "Four miles? We'll catch them—with this light." His revolvers glimmered ominously in the light of a cold and brilliant moon.
The car was running like a huge silvery beast, very swift, very silent, quivering rhythmically as Mr. Bunn put her full out.
"Straight—straight—a straight road," repeated Sir Steel over and over again. "God, what a traitor!—the German dog—straight—straight—sharp hill coming "
She shot down that hill like a streak of darting light, soared up another like a bird, and struck the level.
"There they are!"
Far down the road two small black figures were running hard. Evidently the slaves of the Unseen Hand had not dared to wait long enough to get out a car.
Mr. Bunn switched off his lights, scowling forward down the road.
"Carey!" he roared over his shoulder.
"Carry on," came the cool voice of the South African.
Fortworth pulled Mirza and Sir Steel clear of the revolver shot.
"Don't crowd him!" he shouted.
The great car literally licked up the distance separating pursued and pursuers, and almost immediately, it seemed, the Rolls-Royce was on the heels of the men.
One, a little behind the other, swerved to the side of the road, and even as he did so a revolver cracked once—twice—and again. They must have been travelling at seventy miles an hour, but the South African's third bullet rolled the dark figure into the ditch like a rabbit.
And even as he fell they were on the other, and, without a tremor or a swerve, Mr. Bunn deliberately swung the great car on to and over him with less compunction than he would have run down a rat. A thin cry went up, lost in an instant.
As quickly as possible Smiler stopped the car and ran back on the reverse.
"It can't be anybody else, Carey," came Mr. Bunn's voice, "but, for God's sake, make sure, quick."
They lost no time.
One glance at the face of the shattered thing in the road and another at the still heap fifty yards further back reassured them.
The men were Massarene and his "Swiss" valet—both stone dead.
"Good!" said Sir Steel Basson, "You've prevented a calamity to-night. Take charge here someone, and drive me on to the works! I'll clear them in half an hour and we'll sift the gangs till we get the confederates before a man gets inside the works again."
Smiler nodded and once more the car glided forward through the moonlight, leaving Mirza Khan and Fortworth on guard over the dead men....
"By Jove, sar, His Highness was right when he called this thing"—he indicated the broken body at the road side—"a hamadryad!"
"Yes," replied Fortworth, with grim humour. "He's a hamadryad, all right—but he's a dead hamadryad...."
THE sifting of the workers at the factory was a longer and more difficult matter than most of them expected, and it was not until three days later that they were able to talk the affair over. After all there was little enough to say. Sir Steel Basson had taken Justine away to his Scotch estate, where doubtless she would learn the beginnings of forgetfulness, and there were only Carey and Mirza Khan present with the partners in their London flat—of course with the gliding Sing Song in attendance.
It was Carey who, working in the dark, as is the way of the Secret Service, had got in touch with and prevailed on the butler (who already had doubts concerning Massarene) to bring the key and his information about Massarene's sleep-talking trick to Mr. Bunn. The silent Miss Clement had made her discovery of Justine's relations with the German agent probably by accident. No doubt the butler had known of this part of the business as well, and, devoted to Sir Steel Basson as he was, had been anxious for everyone's sake to get the exposé over as soon as possible.
Massarene, of course, had persuaded Justine into a secret marriage on the plea that he was too unequal a match for Justine ever to receive Sir Steel's sanction to a public betrothal. Completely without compunction, the fact that he was wrecking the girl's youth simply for the chance of getting better opportunities to destroy the great factory, weighed not at all with him.
Who and what the man was even the Secret Service never discovered, or, if they did, they kept their knowledge to themselves.
"Well, anyway, he's dead and I don't suppose anybody but Germany will miss him. He was only a finger on the Unseen Hand, anyway!" summed up Mr. Bunn.
Carey laughed rather harshly.
"A finger?" he said. "He was too small fry to be a finger. The Unseen Hand has bigger fingers than ever Massarene could be." He stood up, his face very grim and serious. "Why, that man—and the most he could do— was insignificant— almost nothing— compared with some of the agents of what you call the Unseen Hand. The Unseen Hand, my God!" He laughed again, bitterly. "If you only knew half I know, and I don't know half there is to know, of the Unseen Hand, and it will never be known generally—you'd feel physically sick. Do you know that thousands of men—intellectual men—men with brains who don't know what fear is, are fighting the Unseen Hand night and day—fighting to keep it pinned down— flat—open?" He stared round at them with his hard, brilliant blue eyes—marksman's eyes. "If ever it closes—grips—" He ceased abruptly, shrugging his shoulders.
"But it won't—it can't!" he added flatly, and sat again.
"And now," said Mr. Bunn, "knowing even that much we'll drink one to the Secret Service!" He pinned Mirza with a firm and meaning eye.
"And after that," he added, "we ought to drink the health of the man who first put us on to that hound, Massarene—the Rajah of Jolapore, with whom, don't forget, Mirza, we've got a business audience to-morrow!"
Mirza nodded, smiling, and so Mr. Bunn, waved Sing Song forward to put out fresh glasses and otherwise "carry on."
MR. SMILER BUNN threw down the morning paper, which, pending the arrival of his partner, ex-Lord Fortworth, to breakfast, he had been reading, and uttered an exclamation of impatience and annoyance so vivid and sharp that Fortworth who entered at that moment started violently.
"Gee!" went the ex-financier. "Don't do that so early in the morning! What's wrong?"
"Oh,: only me. I'm the goat this time," returned Smiler rather sourly. I'm going to give up reading newspapers before breakfast while this war's on. It gets on my nerves."
Fortworth stared.
"Anything special happened?" he inquired.
"Nothing extra out of the way," admitted Mr. Bunn. "But there's a lot about this thundering Unseen Hand. And after what we saw the other day at Basson's place— and what Carey told us—it—it—well, damme, to tell the truth it puts me off my breakfast."
"Impossible!" said Fortworth with an unsympathetic grin. "Forget it, old man. Come and sit down—here's Sing Song with the coffee!"
Mr. Bunn gracefully allowed himself to be persuaded, but, nevertheless, he breakfasted a shade less enthusiastically than usual, though not less thoroughly.
And it was noteworthy that when, an hour later, he had finished, and, with a cigar, proceeded to occupy his favourite easy chair, the "Unseen Hand" was still the subject engaging his mind.
"The fact is," he said, slowly and deliberately, "that I've been thinking this Unseen dope out pretty thoroughly ever since that affair, and I've come to the conclusion that a very good way of doing our bit—or a bit more of our bit—would be to waltz in up against the Hand ourselves,"
Fortworth stared reflectively at his partner, who continued:
"Y'see, Squire, we're too old for the Army, and anyway you're too fat, and I don't think men of our age could stand the discipline— not to mention the feeding. They feed you out of a tin can, I understand, and I'm afraid I've got a bit past the time when I could stand much of that. And I'm sure you have. But there's no reason that I can see why we shouldn't sail in and fetch this Unseen Hand a few sharp ones over the knuckles. The thing can't work without money, and so there may be a trifle or so—perhaps more—to be picked up as well. After all, money is supposed to be the sinews of war, and if you can get at the sinews you help cripple the Hand— and do yourself and your country a bit of good, too. How does it strike you?"
Fortworth's hesitation vanished.
"It strikes me as sound—very sound. I like the idea. It's good. It's very good and a credit to you. We ought to do good all round. We should be wasted in the Army, as you say—but on our own it would be a different matter altogether."
"And it would mean that we could look after ourselves, too. There'd be no need to eat at forty miles an hour out of tin cans. We could take our nourishment as usual. We should continue to select it ourselves and Sing Song to cook it. And that's a very different arrangement from having what's chosen by a Quartermaster, cooked by a man who is really a blacksmith by trade, and served by an orderly who ought to be a bill-poster. In fact we should be our own masters—as usual; we should be doing good work for the country, and, with luck, we should be making it pay."
"Sure, sure," exclaimed Fortworth, eagerly. "It's a very fine idea. We should be Secret Service men—unattached—and doing things our own way instead of somebody else's."
"That," said Mr. Bunn, "is the exact way to put it, old man. There'll be no red tape about us!"
And he assisted himself to a liqueur glassful of their old brandy and another cigar, presumably to prove that red tape was to have no place whatever in the proposed scheme.
Sitting comfortably before the fire they discussed the plan in detail, eventually deciding that they would get into communication with their good friend, Mr. Raymond Carey, in the not unreasonable hope of gleaning from him particulars of an "opening" against the Unseen Hand—which, not very long before, they had received unmistakable evidence seriously existed.
"Well, in that case, let's get to work," said Mr. Bunn, and, without rising, reached for the telephone on a little table near his chair. "There's nothing like tackling a thing thoroughly."
"True, true," murmured his partner, and leaned back, in order to hear the forthcoming conversation more comfortably.
Carey was at the chambers which he occupied, but, being on the point of going out, the conversation was brief and to the point. It consisted mainly of a warm invitation from Smiler to dine with the Bunn Co. that evening, in order to talk over a matter of grave importance, and an unhesitating acceptance by Carey, who, lean and wiry South African though he was, nevertheless had a profound admiration for the partners' menus and their magnificent disregard of expense when planning their nourishment.
"That," said Mr. Bunn, as he replaced the receiver, "is a good job well begun—half the battle."
Then they turned to the newspapers, for nothing could impair their appetites now— their appetites having temporarily disappeared. Anyone observing them would have been perfectly justified in forming the opinion that they were much too easy-going to threaten any serious danger to anyone at all, much less an agent of the Unseen Hand. It was precisely that sort of opinion—formed by hasty people—upon which they had thrived for some years. They looked peaceful and harmless enough. So do a pair of elderly and experienced crocodiles basking in the sun and the warm surface water of some Eastern river....
But they had quite lost that somewhat lethargic appearance when some hours later they took their places with Carey round the reserved table at the Astoritz Hotel—which palatial and luxurious haunt of the wealthy and the near-wealthy was their usual dining place. They were bright—very bright. Nevertheless they did not permit their enthusiasm to spoil a superb dinner, and it was not until they reached the cigar stage that they came abruptly to the point.
The silent South African listened attentively, nodding at intervals, while they put their views to him.
"You get our idea?" concluded Mr. Bunn. "We want to waltz right in against this Unseen Hand but 'on our own'—unofficially. No red tape. We aren't asking anybody's permission to do this—we're doing it. What we are asking you is to put us on to some of your overflow work. D'ye see, Carey? Some of your arrears. We don't want you to get brain fever thinking things out for us. But what we do want is to hear you say, 'There's a man named Wurstfest in so-and-so that I don't much like the look of. See to him for me—find out about him,' and having said that, just leave him to us. We'll see to him," concluded Mr. Bunn rather grimly. "And if he's too big a handful for us, we'll call you in for consultation. That's about the idea, ain't it?" He turned for corroboration to Fortworth, who nodded.
"You've packed it in a nutshell," he said.
Carey nodded, thought for a few moments, then nodded again. He knew them pretty well—for he had been through affairs with them in the previous autumn which he would not readily forget—and he was fully aware of the fact that they could be as grim and tireless and dangerous and tenacious as, after a good dinner, they looked the reverse.
"Very well," he said quietly. "There's a woman living at Beckenham at this address"—he passed a card—"whom I intended to make a few inquiries about when I had time. But I'm full up—the whole Service is—full and over-full. Why, I don't average thirty hours' sleep a week. The only thing we've got against her is a letter from her containing a few sentences so meaningless that they must be some kind of cipher, which we found on a German who has been interned for having been known to possess a friend before the war who was suspected of being a spy.. She hasn't been properly watched, in my opinion. You might start off with her."
The partners looked at each other.
"Well, he's given us a hell of a lot to go on, hasn't he?" said Smiler candidly. "What are we going to do about it?"
"Oh, we'll give the lady a look up," suggested Fortworth. "We must start somewhere."
"All right—Beckenham's as good a place to push off from as any other," agreed Smiler, carelessly, and was about to change the subject when Carey spoke, as quietly as ever.
"Don't underestimate these Boche thugs," he said evenly, "They're cunning and they've had a long time to prepare for this sort of thing. Get into the way of keeping a gun about you—or it mayn't be long before I shall have the unpleasant duty of identifying you both in some mortuary or other. It's in real earnest, this business, and there isn't a half-inch of room for carelessness. You're dealing with wolves—and confident wolves—that honestly believe they're going to make this country pay the cost of putting their country on Easy Street for ever."
There was a chill note in his voice that they had heard before, and they knew that it was not there without cause.
They nodded gravely, their eyes momentarily hard as polished flint.
AT that period one of the easiest things to find in Great Britain was a "House to Let" at Beckenham. Doubtless there are many reasons, each better than the other, why this should have been so, but it applied mainly to unfurnished houses.
Consequently, if the Bunn Combine had troubled to speculate upon the matter— which they did not—they would probably have decided that they were most fortunate in securing on a short term (with the option) a furnished house at the quiet end of a road which ran out into the country, the said house being the last but one on that road, and the last being none other than that occupied by the lady-—one Mrs. Ferrilby—whom the partners wished to watch. It was decidedly lucky.
They secured the house by the merest fraction of time, for within a minute of their signing the agreement a very fine green cabriolet rolled up to the agent's door and a very correctly dressed, quiet-mannered, well-preserved gentleman of perhaps forty-two issued therefrom into the office. The partners were in the agent's inner room, but the door was slightly ajar, and every well-enunciated word of the new-comer, as he spoke to the clerk in the outer office, was audible to the partners.
The visitor announced briefly that he was Mr. George Ferrilby, and that he had called to enter into an arrangement on behalf of his mother, Mrs. Mary Ferrilby, to rent Manor Court Hall—for so the house which the partners had just taken was humbly named. Mr. Ferrilby added, casually enough, that his mother wished to have it for a very old friend from the North of England.
The house-agent, excusing himself to Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth, hurried out, and emitted sounds of regret and desolation, offering practically any other house in Beckenham. But it appeared Mr. Ferrilby was not sure that any other house would suit mother—he would ascertain and very probably call again.
He was very pleasant, very affable, in spite of his disappointment, and shortly left, leaving a distinctly good impression behind him— upon all save the two old man-traps in the inner office who exchanged a glance that might have meant anything, as the agent returned to close the bargain.
"Of course, it may mean nothing, that old lady—and if she's mother of that smooth stiff she is old—wanting the house next door. But it may mean a lot," said Mr. Bunn, thoughtfully, as they rolled London-wards in their car.
"True," agreed Fortworth, "And it's up to us to find out what it means—if anything.... His mother may be a bit ancient, but George looks all there. That guy is nobody's fool."
It was Mr. Bunn's turn to nod. Then they lapsed into their cigar smoke....
They had arranged to enter the house two days later. Nothing happened to prevent them, but a somewhat significant little occurrence cropped up on the day before they went in.
They had informed Carey of their progress by telephone, the South African being busy, and, returning from a very tolerable lunch at the Astoritz—a pre-food-economy lunch—they were greeted by Sing Song with the information that a caller, with a note from Carey, was awaiting them.
They discovered the caller to be a youthful-looking person, very carefully and rather "nattily" dressed, with a palish, weak face, very little chin, corn-coloured hair and, briefly, with something—a good deal—of the fop about him.
He greeted them rather sleepily, and, speaking in a low, languid voice, proffered a note of introduction from Carey. Mr. Bunn, regarding him with some distaste, noted casually that he seemed too lazy or bored even to open his eyes properly.
Thus the contents of the note gave them something of a surprise. Briefly, the South African wrote introducing Mr. Reginald Hay.
"... I've an idea that you are going up against a stiffer proposition than you think," ran the more salient part of the note, "and I've managed to get Hay detailed to help you. Don't be haughty about it, and don't make the mistake of judging Hay by his appearance. He is one of the chisel-wits—fears nothing, knows an uncanny lot, and is one of the best men in the Service. I couldn't have got him for you if he hadn't just wound up a special thing he was working on and I happened to be in good odour because of that Basson business. Take him and be glad of him."
The partners read and looked anew at Mr. Hay. For his part Reginald was looking anew at them also. And this time, for a few seconds, his eyes were wide open, and, being accustomed to reading men, they understood.
Mr. Hay's eyes were clear danger-signals. They were a pair of wireless messages which emitted the perpetual hint "Haul off!" or "As you Were!" or "Don't touch—Dangerous!"
The eyes which are inserted in the human face serve several purposes, among them being that of indicating, more or less clearly, the type, disposition and calibre of their owner. And the Bunn Co. had not gazed, so to speak, into those of Mr. Reginald Hay for more than half a second before they realized with extraordinary precision that, despite the extreme feebleness of the other portions of his visage, Reginald was indubitably "all there." It was odd that such a swift conviction could be induced by a pair of eyes that were of a cold yellowish-green as to the iris and a queer moonstone-grey as to the pupil—but it was even so.
Reginald grinned, and his lids half-closed.
"I think we are going to get on well together, what?" he said.
"Sure, son," agreed Mr. Bunn.
"And, what I mean to say, it wouldn't be such a scaly scheme—what?—if we sort of christened a meeting like this with a sensation of that Scotch stuff, follow me? Not porridge, what?"
They warmed to him instantly and rang for the whisky and soda. Reginald refused a cigar, but fastened a cigarette to his lower lip and proceeded to discuss the matter in hand.
"Dear old Carey told me all about you—what?—and I knew we'd get on—quiet in double harness what I mean to say. See? But there's one thing we ought to have a sort of understanding about. You follow me? This is a dangerous business, believe me, dear old boys—serious, y'know—make a side-slip—just one little bloomer and—" his eyes opened widely for an instant to let out a cold greenish-yellow gleam—"and God help you—you're for it! They strike like vipers when they strike."
He inhaled about a cubic yard of cigarette smoke like a man making a meal of it.
"Thought I'd mention it—what?" he said, practically every outlet in his face leaking smoke. "For instance—see this?" He opened his waistcoat and shirt, revealing a chain mail shirt, beautifully made. "It's saved my life twice in the last month. Follow what I mean to say? Thought I'd mention it. Get you one each, if you like. Expensive things, but get 'em for you cost price. Well, here's how!"
They drank to the success of their affair and their mutual healths, and proceeded to discuss ways and means.
An hour later, when the séance concluded, they had decided for several reasons, none of which, in view of what follows, matters, that Mr. Hay should live at Manor Court Hall with them as Mr. Bunn's nephew and secretary and that he should go into the house that evening while they joined him on the following evening bringing Sing Song and Ferdinand Bloom (the butler at the partners' quiet country retreat at Purdston) the evening after.
This settled—and the mail shirt matter arranged for—Mr. Hay took the key they had, languidly shook hands, attached his tenth cigarette to his lip, and departed.
"Well, what d'ye think of him?" inquired Mr. Bunn of his partner when Sing Song had shown the visitor out.
The dour Fortworth pondered.
"He's a new one on me," he declared finally. "And his appearance ain't much— but appearances are deceptive. I would sooner be working with him than against him. I should say he hasn't got a nerve in his body."
Smiler nodded.
"The sort of young chap that would borrow a cigarette from the devil—and a light too— if he suddenly appeared at the side of his bed one night. That's the kind of young fellow Reginald is. And if that mail shirt means anything—and it does—I guess that Carey's about right. We can do with Mr. Hay."
It was perhaps eight o'clock two evenings later when the partners drove up to Manor Court Hall in their fast two-seater runabout. They had left Sing Song and Ferdinand Bloom to clear up at the flat and follow on with the luggage in the limousine.
It was quite dark and a heavy rain had set in when they arrived. They had some trouble in finding the way into the motor house.
"You'd have thought that Hay would have been on the look-out for us," grumbled Smiler as he turned carefully into the drive, "but I suppose we're sooner than he expected. He doesn't seem to have lit the place up at all yet. Still, he may be down at the hotel at dinner— don't know that I blame him—it's a quiet, lonely sort of shop, considering we're in what you would call a suburb."
They rolled gently up a short drive, bordered by fair-sized trees with a rhododendron shrubbery under them, and ran the car in.
"And they don't seem to be over-illuminated next door," said Fortworth, as they came out from the garage.
He indicated the house of the Ferrilbys some thirty yards away, which, though practically invisible in the darkness, indicated its position by the faint lines of light at two of the windows.
With the aid of a flash-light they found their way to the front door, and pressed the electric button. There was no response. Far down in the lower regions of the house they could hear, faintly, the whirr of the bell, but nobody came to let them in. They rang again and again, listening between each attack on the button.
But they could hear no sound of any movement in the house, nor, indeed, any sound elsewhere, save only for the steady drip-drip of the rain and the low, dreary note of a slow wind in the still, bare branches of the trees.
"Oh, this be damned for a tale," snapped Mr. Bunn furiously. "We ought to have arranged to fetch the keys from the agent's ourselves instead of leaving it to him," He used the knocker liberally. "How long have we got to hang about here trying to get into our own house? With Hay having a quiet little evening out somewhere—with our keys and just as likely as not having a——"
He stopped sharply, listening not for any sound from the house this time, but for the repetition of a noise he fancied he had caught from the shrubbery outside the big porch— something that had sounded like a footstep in a shallow puddle of water.
They stared out into the dark, listening.
"That you, Hay?" called Smiler. Queerly enough—and as they confessed afterwards—both were uncannily certain that it was not Hay, even before Mr. Bunn called out.
There was no answer—not a sound nor a movement—only, as before, the cheerless drip-drip of rain, and the long, low breathing of the wind through the naked boughs.
Smiler muttered something under his breath and shot a beam of white light from his electric torch in the direction from which the sound seemed to have come. But they saw only the wet gravel of the path, the glistening leaves of the shrubs and the silvery streaks of rain—nothing else.
"Funny," said Mr. Bunn, "I could have sworn I heard a footstep. However—" he resumed his fantasia upon the knocker uselessly.
"Oh, all right—we'll break in, hey?" he said.
They groped round the house, found a French window, which they promptly broke. Inserting a careful hand, Mr. Bunn shot back the bolt and they entered. They switched on the light, regardless of Zeppelin—for it was in those days—regulations.
"Drawing-room—no good to us," grunted Fortworth. "Let's get on to that study or library or whatever it was. Hay would choose that for his headquarters—and we shall probably find a fire there."
They did so. The door of the "library"—which they had noted was the most comfortable room in the house—was wide open. They went in, Mr. Bunn switching on the light.
"Huh! No fire—" he began, and stopped short, staring. Fortworth craned over his shoulder.
They saw then why the house was so dark and silent.
Mr. Hay was lying at full length at their feet—and they needed no more than a glance at his head to realise that he was stone dead. On the floor, by his hand, just as it must have escaped his grip, lay an automatic pistol, a telephone on the table near him was upset, and the receiver hung down as though he had dropped that, too, as he fell.
Save for that the room was in perfect order. Mr. Bunn pointed to a fearful wound on the head of the dead man.
"My God, but they meant murder—whoever it was," he said very gravely.
Mechanically he lifted and replaced the telephone receiver, his eyes fixed on the body. His finger tips were still on the receiver when the telephone bell rang sharply, and so keyed up were the nerves of the partners that both started, Mr. Bunn snatching away his hand as though the instrument may have been a snake.
With a rather sheepish glance at Fortworth he answered the call. His sombre face lit up a little as he listened to the man at the other end of the wire—for it was Carey, ringing up from his chambers. He had just returned from a journey to the provinces and wished to know if they were "settling down" satisfactorily.
"Listen carefully," said Mr. Bunn. "We've just got here. The place was in darkness and our little pal didn't let us in, as arranged. We had to force our way in—and we've just discovered that chain mail shirts can't protect a man above the neck. Understand?"
There was a moment's pause. Then the South African spoke, and Smiler knew he understood.
"I shall be down as fast as a car can do it," he said, and rang off.
The partners decided to leave the room and its contents exactly as they were until Carey's arrival.
"Sing Song and the others can't be here for an hour or so anyway," said Smiler, "and while we're waiting we may as well have a look round."
So, after examining the desk, fruitlessly as far as any notes left by Hay were concerned, they locked the door and proceeded to search for the bedroom he had occupied the previous night.
But they found no room which bore any signs of having been occupied for some time. Evidently Hay had not slept in any bed in that house.
They went through every room minutely enough to assure themselves of that, and finally returned to the library.
"There has been something doing here in the last twenty-four hours, but unless we can get hold of something to start on I don't see how we're going to get much idea of what it was," said Fortworth.
Mr. Bunn thought for a moment.
"Well, we can take it as more or less certain that Hay was killed by somebody from next door—or connected with next door," he said presently. "We might do worse than have a quiet look round outside while we wait for Carey."
Fortworth agreed, and they moved out into the rain-sodden night. But it was pitch-black, and since to use their flashlights was equivalent to inviting attention, they decided to keep to the paths they knew. They went silently out of their grounds by the main entrance and turned into the grounds of the suspected house, keeping on the turf at the side of the drive, pausing to listen at every few yards. They crossed a small lawn and found themselves under the walls of the house. The place was absolutely silent. Working their way round, past the windows of several unlighted rooms, they were suddenly brought up by a porch, evidently that of a side entrance.
They were discussing their next move in low whispers, when they heard footsteps out on the drive, and a moment later the almost invisible form of the newcomer swung up to the porch, by which the partners crouched, stepped in and paused at the door.
They listened. The door was opened almost immediately, and a man's voice said, "Yes— What is it?" Both the listeners recognised it as the voice of that smooth individual, Mr. George Ferrilby.
The visitor's answer was low and short, but not so low that the listeners failed to recognise that he spoke in German. Then they heard a quick, fierce whisper from Ferrilby
"English, fool—use English. Where is your caution? There are Secret Service men just arrived at the next house—quite possibly prowling around even now. Have you anything? Gold? Bring it in then!"
Clearly, Mr. Ferrilby was either a little agitated or did not seriously believe that there was yet any danger of being overheard in spite of the warning to his visitor.
Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth heard the door close softly.
"Hear that?" said Mr. Bunn, his fingers closing on Fortworth's sleeve. "Gold? Supposing this place is a gold-collecting station for Germany. Hey? Come on, we've got to get outside the window of the room they do business in."
But that was more easily planned than performed. Within the next fifteen minutes they had circled the entire house, but every room on the ground floor was dark and unoccupied. There was no light even in the kitchen and back regions of the place, nor any sign or sound of servants.
"Either all the servants are out or asleep, or they're with Ferrilby and his pal," snarled Smiler presently, as they brought up again at the porch, like two wolves baulked of an entry into a sheepfold. "We'd better get back—unless we're going to break into the house. Carey'11 be here in a few minutes."
Fortworth agreed, and they returned down the drive. Looking back, they saw that there were light-streaks at one window on the first floor.
"That's where they are," said Smiler.
"We'll visit 'em there before long," muttered his partner.
As they entered their own gateway, another figure, walking quickly, came up. This also was a man. He switched on a small flash and stopped.
"I beg your pardon, gentlemen, I am seeking the house of Mr. George Ferrilby," said this one. "It is called 'The Lindens.' Can you direct me?" There was, they noted, a faint, guttural accent in the man's speech.
"Next door," said Mr. Bunn sourly, and the man, thanking them, turned in at the adjoining gateway.
"More British gold for export, I suppose, hey?" said Smiler, as they made their way to their own door. "How the devil do they get it out of the country anyway?"
But before his partner could reply a car turned in at the gate.
"Carey, for a hundred!" exclaimed Smiler.
He was right.
It was the South African in a big closed car, and with him were three men who, in spite of their plain clothes and quiet maimers, were obviously "official." Carey's first word showed them that he had, indeed, understood Mr. Bonn's cryptic message.
"Dead?" he asked, quietly, as they entered the house.
"Dead?" echoed Mr. Bunn, his face like stone; "He couldn't have lived an hour. What has been done to that poor chap couldn't have been done with anything but a hammer—in the hands of a powerful man.... Somebody came on him from behind while he was at the telephone. And he must have been expecting it too—had his automatic in his hand. But look for yourselves."
He opened the door of the library and then went in....
Carey and one of the plain-clothes men made a quick but very searching examination of the body, and from the deft way in which the plain-clothes man ran through the pockets it was evident that this was by no means the first time he had carried out similar operations.
Then he and Carey drew aside a little, and apparently compared notes. Finally, the detective signed to his assistants.
"I think that's about all you'll be wanting me for," he said to Carey, who nodded.
The other gave a curt order and they proceeded to prepare the body for removal,
"Are you taking him away?" asked Mr. Bunn. "No formalities?"
"Not here," replied Carey. "In the Secret Service we only have formalities, inquests, and so on when practicable. That's part of the risks."
The detective nodded grimly.
THE plain-clothes men worked quickly, so that within a space of minutes they and their tragic burden had departed.
The Bunn partners and Carey saw them away and then made their way to the dining-room, which, with a big gas fire turned on, electric lights going, and curtains drawn, was vastly preferable to the library.
"It will be a long time before that room looks attractive to me, speaking for myself," said Mr. Bunn, taking out a cigar. "I don't mind owning it was a shock—coming across poor young Hay like that. Why, I nearly stumbled over him."
Carey leaned forward.
"They got him off his guard—occupied at the telephone—for just a fraction of a minute," he said thoughtfully. "It was a powerful brute that struck the blow ... a strong man. I wish you'd tell me just exactly what's been doing here since you arrived."
They did so to the least little detail. The South African listened to the end without comments or change of expression.
But presently when Mr. Bunn finished he nodded slowly.
"Yes," he said, "you've got it—a gold-collecting station—gold and securities and news, but chiefly gold. Germans, naturalized and otherwise, have been bringing or sending it from all parts of the south country. And it mounts up."
"But how do they get it out of the country, anyway?" demanded Mr. Bunn.
"By submarine!" replied Carey. "We suspect that there is some quiet little loch or bay somewhere up on the Scotch coast, where, at stated times, a small submarine creeps in and waits, submerged till a pre-arranged hour, when she puts the 'takings' for the week or month or whatever it is, aboard, and gets back to Germany with it. It's just another branch—finger, if you like—of the Unseen Hand."
"Who takes the gold up?" asked Fortworth suddenly. "And how does he go?"
"Probably George Ferrilby. I and poor Hay have been making a few inquiries—before he came round to you—and we learned that Ferrilby has a bit of fishing in Scotland and is always running up to it."
"Well, he can easily be shadowed or followed, I suppose?" suggested Smiler. "And if it's done properly we shall get the submarine too."
"It's not so easy as it sounds—you don't want to under-estimate the Unseen Hand; but it's what I want, with you two and Sing Song, to do," said Carey quietly.
"Sure, Squire," said Mr. Bunn emphatically. "We're in on that, hey, old man."
"We are," responded Fortworth.
"Probably it was the submarine that cost Hay his life. I haven't much doubt that, in some way or other, last night, he found out the name of the rendezvous—overheard it, probably. He may have wormed his way into the house next door. But they—Ferrilby, say—knew he had overheard, and followed him. He must have suspected that he was in pretty grave danger, for, as we saw, he had his automatic out. It looks as though he decided to telephone someone at Headquarters—me, very likely—and give them the name of the rendezvous, in case of accidents. But Ferrilby got him just in the nick of time. It's all guess work, of course, but it's thinkable. And Hay would have got it through if possible—he was a bull-terrier at his work—in spite of his mannerisms."
The partners looked at each other, then at Carey.
"Yes, it's thinkable," said Mr. Bunn drily. "If you ask me, Carey, I should say it was damned well worked out. I can see now why you've got on in the Secret Service."
Carey laughed a little.
"It's big-game hunting," he explained. "I like it. It's a kind of leopard-hunting in a place where the leopards are plentiful and as well armed as the hunter. But it would have saved a lot of trouble if Hay could have got the message through. Half a word—even a scrap of paper—"
Mr. Bunn stood up with a sharp exclamation.
"Just a minute," he said. "Just thought of something," and he went out. He was back in less than a minute.
"Come and look at this," he said, his eyes gleaming. They followed him into the library, and he pointed to the red stain on the carpet. A little to the right of the grim soaked spot where Hay's head had lain were a few straggling smears, plain enough on the light background of the carpet,
Carey and Fortworth bent over, peering at the smears, and the South African began to spell out a word.
"C— A— L— L— A— that's it— Calk. Calla!" He stood up suddenly, his face pale.
"By God, he got it through after all!" said Mr. Bunn. "Somewhere on the map of Scotland there's a Calla Bay or a loch or something. And Hay scrawled it with his last strength—dipped his finger in his own blood, and scrawled it! And that's the man I almost mistook for a freeze-out! It's me that's the freeze-out. I noticed those straggly smears an hour ago, but it never occurred to me to see if they meant anything!"
They found an atlas, and went back to the dining-room to search the Scotch coast line. Within a minute Carey's finger pointed to a place.
"There we are," he said, "Callan Bay." They smiled grimly.
"There'll be a dead submarine in Callan Bay before long," said Smiler. "And I'd like to be there to see it scotched."
Carey shut the book.
"It's past nine o'clock," he said. "We'll have a look round before deciding what to do!"
"You won't see a lot, but we'll look for what there is," observed Mr. Bunn, and they went out into the night once more.
The partners' big Rolls-Royce limousine swung neatly into the drive as they left the house.
Mr. Bunn paused to utter a brief encouragement to Sing Song.
"That's a good lad," he said, "get unpacked as soon as you can, and put the car away."
He added a recommendation to the Blooms to "carry on" in the matter of preparing something to eat. "And you'll find one room on the ground floor locked. That's because it isn't meant to be entered, d'ye see. Understand that, and there's no reason why we shouldn't all be comfortable while we're here."
Then he faded into the darkness after Carey and Lord Fortworth. He found them a little way past the gate of "The Lindens," looking at a long, low, powerful-looking touring car, which, drawn in close to the side of the road, its side-lights very low, was unattended.
"Wonder why that's here," said Mr. Bunn, feeling three new spare tyres at the side. "Somebody's going for a long run to need this lot of tyres. Another caller for Ferrilby, perhaps."
They moved quietly along the drive of "The Lindens." Everything about the house was as quiet as before, but as Mr. Bunn took occasion to whisper, "It may be nerves or it mayn't but I've got a feeling that there's something doing behind all this damned silence!"
And even as he spoke a sharp half-muffled explosion jarred the house—as though to punctuate the remark. Somebody shouted savagely inside—then silence shut down again.
"There you are!" growled Smiler. "What are we going to do about that?"
"We're going in—it's about time!" said Carey. "Get out your guns!" Already he had one of his Colts in his hand. Before they could decide which door to tackle, they were saved the trouble, for the front door, at the side of which they were standing, opened silently. There was a momentary silence, but they could hear the breathing of the person who had opened the door.
Then, in a low, quick whisper, the newcomer spoke—in English.
"Quick, Max—bring more bags while I get these to the car. Quickly, quickly!"
Then he came forward, softly, stooping under the weight of two big canvas bags, one in each hand.
They let him get well away from the door— and then Carey tapped him from behind on the shoulder. He turned with a gasp, and as he turned a pair of hands, hard as steel, gripped each of his arms, and a low relentless voice said at his ear:
"You're wanted. Drop the bags."
A pistol muzzle pressed a chill and sinister kiss upon his neck, under the ear, and one of the gripping hands slid up to his throat.
"All right," came the voice of Fortworth, "I've got him. You look out for the others."
The man made no resistance, and Fortworth steered him into the darkness.
A moment later precisely the same thing happened with a second man. Mr. Bunn escorted this one into their own house, where Sing Song only too gladly was already standing guard over Fortworth's capture.
Then the partners hurried back.
Carey was still waiting at the open door. A minute—two minutes—three—passed, but no more issued from that darkened hail.
So, after a brief consultation, they went in guardedly. But there was, as it proved, no need for their caution. The whole of the ground floor was dark and deserted.
On the first floor they found the woman, Mrs. Ferrilby. She was sitting in a chair, gagged and bound so that she could neither move a muscle nor utter a sound. They made it less intolerable for her, and promised to return as soon as possible.
"You can't trust the women any more than the men," explained Carey. "And we may find our hands full yet."
But it proved otherwise.
They were uneasy about George Ferrilby, but when, after a swift run through the bedrooms, they descended to the cellar they realised that Ferrilby would not trouble them.
He was lying on the stone floor, shot through the chest, feebly raving about "traitors and thieves."
Mr. Bunn took a look at the wound, and shrugged his shoulders. "You're for it, Ferrilby," he said curtly. "Was it you who killed Hay?"
"Yes. He overheard," gasped the German agent.
"Well, you can't expect us to be sympathetic—but is there anything you want?"
A momentary flame flickered into the man's eyes.
"Did you—capture—two men—with—gold?" he whispered, and a bitter joy dawned on his face an instant as Smiler nodded.
"See that—they—are—executed—they are traitors—neither German—nor—British—they—brought—me—gold—a little—to spy—out—and rob me of more——" He ceased abruptly, and a red foam appeared on his lips. Mr. Bunn waited a moment, then arose.
"He's out!" he said curtly. "Where's Carey?"
"Gone to release the old lady," said Fortworth.
They stared down at the bags and packages, then glanced at each other.
"This is German money," said Mr. Bunn, and picked up and tore open one of the packages. It was made up of English bank notes of £100 each.
"See? Germany wants those—for after the war, I suppose."
There was a pause. Then Fortworth spoke very curtly.
"The thing is—this stuff belongs to Germany. Well, are we going to hand it all over to the Secret Service or are we going to deduct a commission? It's our only chance!"
Mr. Bunn's answer was brief but to the point.
He stuffed the package he held into the big pocket of his heavy motor coat, and another on top of it, and searched for more.
"I'm a crook," he said briefly. "Always was—and I'm too old to alter. I wouldn't rob England of a red cent during this war, but as for German money—I eat it alive!"
So, apparently, did Fortworth.
If they bulged at all when a few seconds later they met Carey escorting a venomous-tongued old woman out of the house to join the other captives, the South African did not appear to notice it—or if he did he said nothing. But then he had been through too much shoulder to shoulder with Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth to be hypercritical.
"We'll get these three people up to town right away, I think," said Carey. "There are one or two men at headquarters who would like a chat with them. That car outside—and your big car—will do the business nicely. Two in the limousine with Fortworth on guard and you at the wheel, and one in the touring car with Sing Song driving and me on guard, eh? I'll ring up the police station for men to guard the house and the money!"
"That'll do," agreed Mr. Bunn—and they made it so.
NOT till a fortnight later did they learn what was likely to happen to the men who had killed Ferrilby, though it was not difficult to guess. They were awaiting their trial on the capital charge, and without the remotest chance of receiving less than the full penalty. The woman, a rabid Prussian, was to be deported.
"And what about the gold?" demanded Smiler, rather aggressively.
"Confiscated," replied Carey.
"And the submarine—what about that?"
"You'd better apply to the Admiralty," said Carey with a faint grin. "The Navy took that part of the business over a fortnight ago."
"Let it," said Mr. Bunn solemnly, "go at that. Hey, Squire?" slapping Fortworth cordially on the back.
"Sure," said the "Squire."
A row of figures from his bankbook flashed into Mr. Bunn's mind and he uttered, quite unexpectedly, a short yelp of mirth.
Carey looked at him oddly.
"Why the guffaw?" he asked drily.
"Guffaw?" said Mr. Bunn, "that wasn't a guffaw. That was a sign of thirst. What will you have?" and, so saying, reached out to the bell-push.
"ELEVEN pounds ten for a simple little dinner!" said Mr. Bunn as he handed his overcoat to Sing Song. "These war prices are fierce, old man—fierce. That's what!"
Fortworth nodded complacently as, cautiously, he lowered himself into a chair that resembled a feather bed.
"Sure," he said, "they are that. But the labourer is worthy of his hire and the ox treadeth out the corn," he continued, with a dim, vague idea that he was quoting something from somewhere. "And, anyway," he concluded, "man cannot live by bread alone! You can't get away from that, can you?"
Mr. Bunn looked across through the cloud of smoke from the magnificent cigar he was lighting.
"No," he said, "man can't. And you're the man who ain't going to try to." He paused, then added: "Nor me, nor me—I had all the bread diet I could manage in Germany last year. And when you consider that our commission on that Beckenham business last month came to a pretty hefty little bunch of parsley I think that a liberal menu is more or less what we're entitled to."
Fortworth was not the sort of man to disagree with a simple, manly, candid statement of that description. He acquiesced cordially, and commanded the lurking Sing Song to bring a little of the rare and expensive Scotch stimulant which they were affecting at that time.
The two old grizzlies had been dining at their usual haunt, the Astoritz Hotel, and had just returned to their flat after as much of a frantically be-boomed revue as they could stand.
Although their keenness to "do their bit" against the Unseen Hand, so far from having worn off, was merely whetted by what they had come to speak of as "the Beckenham business," they had come to the conclusion that their undeniable success in that matter justified them in taking things easy for a week or so—particularly so, as their friend Carey of the Secret Service had been called away from London to the East Coast on special work, before he could get them in touch with a new opening against that secret but deadly organization which the Press of the country, with its customary aptness, had christened the Unseen Hand.
Thus the smooth old rascals felt themselves fully justified in making the most of things while awaiting a line from Carey. "Adapting themselves to circumstances" they called it.
They smoked in reflective silence for a moment.
Then Mr. Bunn, musing upon his evening, spoke.
"That Mrs. Fay-Lacy is a very attractive woman—very attractive indeed. That red hair of hers goes with her face. Suits her. I like the woman—she's bright. I don't mind saying that she sort of appeals to me. She's just my style. I'm glad we asked her to dine with us to-morrow night. She'll amuse us—and a good dinner isn't wasted on her. She knows how to treat it."
Fortworth agreed. Mrs. Fay-Lacy, he said, was just his style too—always had been. She was, as his partner said, a very fine woman, and there were times when he, Fortworth, felt sorry to think that such a charming woman should have to work for a living at all.
Mr. Bunn laughed.
"You're getting romantic," he said. "And you're wasting good sorrow if you're going to start being sorry for Esme Fay-Lacy. She's a fine woman, but like a lot of other fine women she's nobody's fool. She knows her alphabet, Squire!" he concluded bluntly. He spoke the truth there, if ever man spoke, for Mrs. Fay-Lacy, a copper-haired ex-society lady of uncertain age but by no means uncertain experience, still decidedly pretty, though her prettiness was no longer of the ingénue variety, earned a very tolerable living by acting as mediator between that many-aliased moneylender Mr. Craik Lazenger and those who needed his questionable assistance. She was, indeed, as Mr. Bunn once described her, "as trim a pilot-fish to as grim a shark as any man could wish to meet."
And she was rather a good friend of the Smiler Bunn Company. She believed them to be a pair of well-to-do, easy-going, rather "old buffery" men-about-town—an impression which the two carefully did nothing to remove or alter. It was a curious mistake for a lady so razor-witted as Mrs. Fay-Lacy to make, but it was mistakes of that kind which had provided Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth with a highly luxurious living for many years past.
"You're right," said Fortworth. "Still it will be pleasant to stand her a dinner and hear the news. Pass the whisky...."
So, next evening, they might have been observed sitting at a corner table in the famous Mediaeval Hall at the Astoritz entertaining the fair Mrs. Fay-Lacy right royally—an attention which the lady was not young enough to fail to appreciate. She knew a good dinner when she was confronted with one—as what middle-aged woman does not?—and though, like every other sensible woman, she, personally, would have set the Astoritz afire before paying the outrageous figure it was costing, the bill was the Bunn Co.'s affair, not hers. So there was nothing whatever to interfere with her enjoyment, and as the costly and noble wines which accompanied the meal gradually made their warm and cheering influence felt in the chilliest corners of the charming Esme's heart, she felt her somewhat repressed (for business reasons) natural instincts and emotions expand within her so that she warmed to the two rubicund and amiable old rascals who were so gorgeously entertaining her.
"And how is business, Mrs. Esme?" asked Smiler presently. She shrugged her white shoulders.
"Everybody is making so much money out of the war that nobody wants to borrow—anything big, that is," she explained. "Of course, I've got my little regiment of regular borrowers, but even they seem to be thinning out."
Mr. Bunn laughed a little.
"Well, they've come to the right man to thin 'em out. He's a great thinner-out, Craik What-d'ye-callenzer."
But Mrs. Fay-Lacy shook her head.
"He's fair enough—compared with most moneylenders," she said. "When he says he intends charging two hundred and fifty per cent., he keeps his word. He never tries to squeeze and twist it into three hundred and fifty."
The partners nodded.
"Well, even a mug knows where he stands at that," they agreed. "And there's one thing about it, Mrs. Esme," added Smiler, "a man who does."
But what or whom the man did never appeared, for at that moment a friend of Mrs. Fay-Lacy's approached the table—a tall, fair, rather chesty gentleman, very carefully and correctly dressed, who appeared to regard the lady as something beyond the dreams of avarice. He bowed so profoundly that Mr. Bunn instantly decided that he was not an Englishman.
Esme, for her part, greeted him graciously and introduced him briefly to the partners as Mr. Julian Smythe. Gracefully excusing himself to Mr. Bunn and Fortworth, he began a swift and somewhat cryptic conversation with the lady.
But it was not so cryptic that the two smooth old fish-hooks, sitting so bland and smiling opposite the fair Esme, and chatting in undertones, failed to note and understand practically every word—and file them for reference.
"And were you able, dear lady, to pilot the other little affair to a successful conclusion?"
Each of the partners read the translation of this in the other's eye. It merely meant—"And tell me, for God's sake, have you arranged for a loan from Lazenger?"
Mrs. Fay-Lacy shook her head, smiling, and the countenance of Mr. Julian Smythe darkened.
"But it is under consideration. The colour is wonderful. We have never seen anything like it. So vivid—so lustrous. I feel sure that everything will be successful."
Mr. Smythe smiled. But it was, the partners noted, a hardish smile.
"Thank you," he said. "But—meantime—things lag—for lack of—er—driving force."
"I am so sorry," cooed Esme. "But the matter will be decided by to-morrow."
"Alas!" went Mr. Smythe, "I leave to-night—in half an hour—upon an important business visit to a friend. He has a little place in Suffolk. It is urgent. Perhaps you could find a few little minutes in which to wire me. If you would be so charitable that will be my address." He placed a card upon the table, bowing. Esme glanced at it.
"Of course I will wire you," she said, and was about to pick up the card when Mr. Bunn broke in with profuse apologies. Mr. Smythe, it seemed, must have wine—champagne—to fortify himself for the journey to Suffolk. Yes, indeed. There was concern and anxiety in Smiler's voice, and Fortworth was already tilting the newly-arrived bottle.
Esme, too, must wish Mr. Smythe luck—they all would, in bumpers.
With a graceful word about "hospitality" and so forth Julian accepted, and they drank a sort of "God-speed" to him—Fortworth, meantime, very carefully indeed placing the bottle upon the card.
Presently, the chesty Julian, accompanied to the door by Esme and Smiler, departed. By the time the latter two returned the bottle was off the card again and the address upon the card was indelibly imprinted upon Fortworth's brain. To many a less experienced crook than either of the Bunn brace it may have seemed a manoeuvre wasted—to say nothing of a highly expensive bottle of wealthy water. A would-be borrower from Craik Lazenger hardly suggested a promising field of investigation; but the partners worked largely by instinct, and each of them had long ago summed the worthy Julian up as one of those smooth and shifty gentlemen who, even if they haven't got it themselves, never on any consideration whatever allow themselves to be far away from money or those who have it.
Nevertheless, the card and bottle trick was not really necessary, for, as the evening wore on, Esme, expanding more and more under the combined influences of luscious viands, skilful flattery and practically unlimited and priceless wines, told them who and what and why Mr. Smythe was.
He had acquired the secret formula of a rare and wonderful dye—Dragon-fly Green—invented by an unknown scientist whom he was backing. It was a remarkable dye, capable of infinite variation through all the ranges of green and blue—and it was Mr. Julian Smythe's ambition to exploit the dye himself. He did not wish to tell the somewhat complex formula outright—for there were a series of tints in it which promised to outdo any shade of khaki or field grey or blue ever yet discovered. Mr. Smythe's very sound idea was, briefly, to get Craik Lazenger to lend him enough money to get a factory going. After that, millions.
"Quite so:—millions," commented Mr. Bunn, rather drily, as Esme paused to take breath and wine. "A very sound scheme—very sound."
"Very sound," echoed Fortworth.
"But why does he go to a grappling-hook like Lazenger, my dear?" asked Smiler. "There are plenty of capitalists would jump at it?"
With a slight but astonishingly expressive gesture, Mrs. Fay-Lacy smilingly conveyed to the partners that Mr. Smythe came to Lazenger because he was hers, body and soul—if required. They congratulated her—and thus, with similar gossip, badinage and persiflage the dinner and the evening wore on to its end.
IT is difficult to say whether it was pure optimism or, as was more probable, sheer, highly-developed instinct, which inspired the extraordinary feeling of hopefulness with which the Bunn pair embarked upon the affair of Mr. Julian Smythe. But it is certain that within an hour of leaving Mrs. Fay-Lacy, the partners, a generous hamper of "nutriment" and a carefully selected half-dozen bottles of wine, were in their big Rolls-Royce limousine with the hardy Sing Song at the wheel, en route to Suffolk. They had no definite plans shaped out, but, like the tiger that hears a "mooing" as of buffalo in a thicket, they were out to investigate matters. There was that about Mr. Julian Smythe which attracted them.
They were not what Mr. Bunn took occasion to describe as "dye-sharps," but they were sufficiently well versed in values to be very completely aware of the fact that a man with the secret of good new dye does not need to go to a moneylender with a reputation that would shame a shark to find the capital wherewith to manufacture the same. There was something queer about Mr. Smythe. It was, they conceived, their duty towards themselves and their neighbour to find out what.
"Where did he get the secret of this dye? That's what I want to know," said Mr, Bunn, abruptly emerging from a two-hour slumber.
"If I knew that, I wouldn't be skidding down into Suffolk at this time of night—neither would you," replied Fortworth rather sourly, Smiler's voice having jarred rather discordantly upon his dreams.
"Well, well," said Mr. Bunn, good-humouredly, "perhaps not." He glanced at the clock let into the upholstery facing him.
"Half past one," he remarked, "and a damned dark night."
Fortworth nodded and, lighting cigars, they settled down in their furs to enjoy them. But the smooth, easy hum of the big car suddenly took on a deeper and descending note. Sing Song, that indestructible Chinese conjurer and Bunn-worshipper at the wheel, was slowing down. In a moment he stopped, and a second later his yellow face appeared at the window.
"Manol House allee same close to, mastel," he announced, softly, with the hungry grin upon his chamois-leather-like countenance which invariably appeared there when there seemed to be a possibility of something "doing."
"All right, my lad—you needn't look so gay about it!" responded Mr. Bunn, reluctantly preparing to abandon his cigar and the comfort of the luxurious car, in order to "reconnoitre" the place in which, implied the address on the card, the relative of the shifty-looking Julian resided. As they left the car Fortworth turned, reaching out to a button under the seat. He pressed it, and a neat little semi-circular drawer swung out. It contained a pair of big, heavy, blue-black automatic pistols—vicious-looking, hammer-headed things they seemed in the pale light from the electric bulb overhead. But Mr. Bunn shook his head.
"Leave 'em, old man. We shall get all the shooting I want in the Unseen Hand business. Let's leave 'em out of our private affairs. If we haven't got 'em we shan't be tempted to blow the block off anyone with 'em."
Fortworth understood, nodded dourly, and let the drawer shoot back into place.
"All right," he said. "But if we get it good where we live, don't blame me. Come on."
Bidding Sing Song remain with the car, unless he heard Smiler's whistle, the pair slipped out of their fur coats, and, moving softly as a brace of fat but active bears, vanished through the drive gates and into the darkness.
Sing Song, left to himself, peered wistfully through the dark after them for a long time, then, picking up and relighting the costly and but partially-smoked cigar dropped by Smiler, moved back to the car to wait and listen....
Five minutes' soft-footed prowling about the house—an ancient, ivy-hung building, with all its windows dark—convinced the experienced pair that the house was not by any means densely populated.
"It's a groggy old hutch," whispered Smiler, remembering that the carriage drive was thickly overgrown with moss.
"Sure," agreed his partner. "Let's have a look at the rabbits."
They proceeded to encircle the house, feeling with swift, inquiring fingers at each door and window.
"The rabbits are pretty quiet, anyway," muttered Fortworth.
"Quieter than those infernal pheasants," replied Smiler, as from a wood somewhere at the back of the house the ringing clamour of half a dozen startled pheasants broke out on the silence.
"Some poacher," said Fortworth, listening intently. "He's started off half the dogs in the district, too," he added, as first one dog, then another, then another, began to bark, until it seemed as though every farm dog within a five-mile radius was engaged in a barking contest.
"The thunderingest noisy place I was ever in," snarled Fortworth. Smiler was feeling with deft fingers at a window set deep back under a mass of ivy.
"Well, here we are," he said softly. The window opened stiffly. They listened for a moment. Then Smiler flashed a white beam from an electric torch into the room, Fortworth craning over his shoulder. It revealed an empty, stone-flagged chamber, its walls lined with shelves. Evidently it had once been used as a store-room. But it was stark empty and was full of a chill and fusty smell as of a place which had been for years unused.
A shadow glided up from behind as they peered in.
"Mastel, evelyting allee same making many noises. Dogs balking, pheasants clowing allee over all place," came the low voice of Sing Song.
"Let 'em crow," snapped Smiley softly, and began to clamber through the window. He was followed by Fortworth, and, since he had not been ordered back to the car, a discreet second or so later, by the Chinaman.
Softly they began to tour the ground floor of the house. There were heavy curtains at every window, they found, but the rooms were bare of furniture. The house was a shell, no more.
"Queer," murmured Smiler. "Little Julian's pal doesn't go much on comfort. Let's see what it's like upstairs," The trio backed from a musty-smelling room into the big hall.
"Stone stairs to the first floor," breathed Smiler. "Up! Get a move on!"
They went up like cats.
A knife-edge of light at the bottom of a door facing them revealed which of the rooms were occupied.
"There they are," breathed Mr. Bunn. "You two back into this side room while I listen." He indicated a room to the right of the landing, the door of which was slightly ajar. A momentary flicker of light flashed through the crack showed them that this room, too, was unfurnished. Fortworth and the Chink backed just inside the threshold while Smiler advanced noiselessly to the door of the occupied room.
Then, even as he stooped to the keyhole, the sudden thud of a heavy gun or of a bomb somewhere away to the east shook the house, and an instant later the great bulk of Mr. Bunn shot silently from the door across to his partner, with a quickness that was astonishing in a man so very amply proportioned.
"Inside!" he hissed. "They're coming."
The three of them backed into the room, quickly readjusting the partly opened door to its right position. They were not a second too soon, for immediately a man—not Mr. Julian Smythe—whirled out of the occupied room, across the landing, and literally ran up the flight of stairs leading to the second floor. He muttered as he ran—and he muttered in German!
Mr. Bunn's hand closed like hooks of steel on Sing Song's sleeve as he heard.
"He's a da—" began Smiler softly, but he never finished for another voice broke in—a low voice that came, incisive as the hiss of a snake, out from the darkness at the other side of the room.
"Stand still, you men. You're well covered and I'll shoot the first who moves."
They turned like startled cats. There was only the merest shadow visible against the faint grey patch of window—but they knew that shadow to be a man—and an armed man.
"Stand still," he warned them again.
"We are that," said Mr. Bunn. "But let's have a light on it," and recklessly slid along the button of his electric torch.
The stabbing beam of light showed them that they were indeed well covered. A tall, lean man standing with his back to the window had a brace of Colt revolvers—one in each hand—trained upon them.
It was a nerve-shaking discovery—but, oddly enough, the Bunn Trio did not appear shaken. On the other hand they seemed to brighten up extraordinarily.
They had seen that two-handed pistol-shot before, and recently—for he was none other than Carey!
"Carey—you old devil! What are you doing here?" said Smiler. "Is this an Unseen job, then?"
Carey dropped his hands.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" he said. "How did you get on to this place?"
But another crashing thud, much nearer this time, drowned his words.
"The Zepps are over," he said sharply. "Did I hear a man rush upstairs?"
Smiler grinned.
"You did—he went like a man in a hurry."
"Good! That's my man. He's signalling the Zepps. Let me pass—111 see you later on. Lend me the Chink!"
"Sure! Hop it, Sing Song," said Smiler. "Got a gun?"
"No, mastel. Only knife!" The Chink grinned and whipped out a long two-edged affair that would have eviscerated a rhinoceros.
"Who the hell gave you leave to carry swords—" began Smiler, but broke off as the South African pushed past. "Get on, my lad. I'll talk to you later."
The Chinaman leaped up the stairs after Carey silently as a yellow phantom.
Fortworth and Smiler looked at each other.
"The other room for ours, huh?" grunted Fortworth.
"Yes—come on."
They went across, opened the door, and without hesitation stepped in—to interrupt a very unexpected little séance.
THE only people in the room were Mr. Julian Smythe and—one other. And the room was a laboratory rather than an apartment. It was full of chemical appliances—a large table running down the middle was laden with bottles, retorts, and so forth, as were the shelves which ran round three sides of the place.
Mr. Smythe was sitting in an armchair before the fire with a newspaper in his hand. On a small green cloth covered card table by his side were a decanter, a siphon, a cigar-box, a heavy dog-whip with a long, tapering leather lash and a revolver. Smythe's back was to the door.
Sitting at the far end of the table was a person of extraordinary appearance—a little man, wearing such immensely powerful goggle-like glasses that he must have been half-blind. Completely hairless, save for a few sparse sandy hairs about his cheeks, and practically chinless, his head, both at the back and front, was quite abnormally developed. Literally, it bulged. This person was clad in a ragged dressing-gown, and, with test tubes and a collection of similar laboratory bric-à-brac, was writing in a notebook. Smiler Bunn noticed, in his first quick all-devouring glance, that the little man looked desperately frightened, deadly pale, and that full across his pallid face ran a thick purple weal—as though one might quite recently have struck him a merciless blow with a dog-whip, for instance.
The worthy Julian did not rise nor look round as the partners entered. Evidently he thought it was the man who had raced upstairs that opened the door.
He was speaking in a low, menacing voice to the little man with the glasses, waving a cigar to punctuate his remarks.
"Zeppelins, my little man," he was saying. "Overhead. They might blow you to pieces any moment—so mind you are good and work hard at your dyes. And if the Zepps don't hurt you I will—d'you see?"—the cigar was pointed at the dog-whip—"for you must take—"
Something in the dim blue eyes of the little hairless man startled him. He began to rise, half-turning his head as he rose. But he was too late. The partners were behind him, waiting.
"Sit down, you!" hissed a low deadly voice at his very ear, and an iron fist driven downward against his temple beat him down into his chair again with a force that half stunned him. Then Mr. Bunn's hand dropped swiftly to the revolver, closed on it, and the partners came round the chair to face the gasping Mr. Smythe.
The little hairless man stared for a second, then dropped his head, covered his face with his hands and began to cry, terribly, like a person half-demented.
Fortworth bent over him not unkindly, while Mr. Bunn addressed Julian, briefly but to the point.
"Open your face at me, you pup, and I'll smash it!" said Mr. Bunn, hanging massively over Mr. Smythe like a charged thundercloud.
Discreetly Julian kept his face closed—tightly closed.
Fortworth was shaking the little man's shoulder.
"What have they been doing to you, son?" he was asking.
But before he could answer, a fearful explosion burst out, seeming only a few hundred yards away. Mr. Bunn darted to the window dragging aside the heavy curtains. He saw straight out across the fields a mighty red glare. They were dropping incendiary bombs from the Zepp—and one had fallen on a rick of hay, setting it instantly in flames. Staring up, Mr. Bunn saw for no more than the fraction of a second a minute greyish pencil-like shadow sliding across the sky. It was lost to sight at once, sliding westwards, but Smiler knew what it was.
"By God, this is like old times!" he half shouted and turned again—just in time, for Julian was rising stealthily.
Without hesitation Mr. Bunn cut him savagely across the face with the dog-whip—it hissed as it swung—and the man went down in his chair with a shriek of pain....
"That's what they call a reprisal!" said Smiler grimly.
The little bald man turned suddenly, and gave a queer cackling laugh. The tears were not yet dry on his scarred cheeks, and he looked odd.
"They were always doing that to me!" he said thinly.
"Why?" asked Fortworth sharply.
The little man flinched at the curt voice.
"Because I wouldn't invent the dyes fast enough for them," he replied. "And because they found out that I was deceiving them."
"Deceiving them? How?"
The little man cackled again.
"The formulae I gave them were not accurate. They could only make dyes from them that faded in a few months. But the real, fadeless formulae I kept secret—here!" He tapped his abnormal head.
"Including the Dragon-fly Green?" asked Smiler.
"Oh, yes. That and the True Furnace Red, and the Rainbow Blue, and the Fixed Chameleon Grey, and the Desert Dim and—"
Mr, Bunn frowned.
"Just a minute, old man," he said, "Are those new dyes genuine new secret dyes, or is it just humorous talk?"
The hairless one flushed.
"What do you mean? They are real. Listen!" And he rattled off a string of chemical terms with the fluency of a pianist playing scales. Smiler put up his hand,
"What's he driving at, old man?" he asked Fortworth. "Click - two - chloro - four oh - slush - click - arto - two - cloro—or whatever it is!"
"That," said Fortworth with a ghost of a grin, "that's the real formula for the secret newly invented genuine True Furnace Red, I suppose!"
"Ah! Well, tell him to put it in writing and I'll give it my consideration!" replied Smiler, and turned as the door opened to admit a procession of three—the man who had raced upstairs, handcuffed, Carey and Sing Song.
The South African picked out Smythe at once.
"Over here, you—quick!" The man went over "quick," and was linked wrist to wrist with the first captive.
Then Carey turned to his old comrades.
"Those gentry are Germans," he exclaimed. "They've got a regular signalling station on the roof. Glass skylight sort of affair, with sliding sheets of different coloured glass—very ingenious. I've been out for them for a month past. Queer we should all arrive here the same night."
Smiler agreed.
Then, with a searching look at the little chemist, Carey continued:
"And who's this gentleman?"
Mr. Bunn answered very quickly indeed.
"This is Mr. Bird, a friend of ours who has been missing for months. You needn't stare, Carey, old man. We'll answer for him, see? You don't want anything better than that, do you?"
For a moment the Secret Service man hesitated, and Mr. Bunn hurried untruthfully on.
"He's a chemistry sharp and he's got some valuable ideas in that funny-shaped head of his. He was working for us when these swine kidnapped him and set him on to dye research. He's ours, is old Bird, and always has been. Ain't he?" Smiler turned to Fortworth.
"Sure he is," supported the ex-peer. "You needn't mind him, Carey. He couldn't be a spy if he wanted to. He's got a great big brain but there's only one idea in it—and that is his chemical research. And we've got an option on it. These guys tried to pinch our option and get him to invent new dyes for Germany... But we've got him back and we'll take care of him this time all right. Hey, Squire?"
"We will that," responded "Squire" Bunn very heartily indeed.
"Have they got anything out of him?" asked Carey, his steel-grey eyes running over the little chemist.
Mr. Bunn laughed.
"Nothing worth having. They've got a formula or two for new dyes—but they're such dud formulae that they couldn't raise any capital on them even from moneylenders. Still, what they've got they're welcome to. We give it to 'em—it isn't worth having, anyway. All we want now Carey, old man, is our Bird. We've got the car outside all ready."
Carey looked Mr. Bunn square in the eyes.
"This is on the level—he's nothing to do with the spy push? We've been through enough together to make your word good enough for me!"
"Nothing, old man," said Smiler flatly.
The Secret Service man nodded.
"Right—carry on," he said briskly, and glanced at his watch. "If I were you I'd have him and his gear out of it within half an hour—this house will be overrun by then. I'll dine with you to-morrow evening in town and chat things over."
The Bunn trio leaped into swift activity. They—and the valuable "Bird "—were ready in ten minutes. The little chemist wanted to take practically all the glass and china ware, but they turned that idea down without hesitation.
"All we want to get out of this house, my son," said Smiler, "are your papers and that bald belfry of yours. We'll buy you some new dishes before you know what's happened to you. If there's any mixtures you don't want seen point 'em out and Sing Song will empty 'em into the sink." And this was done.
Well within the time limit advised by Carey the partners were in their car again with "Bird" between them and Sing Song at the wheel.
"Well out of that!" said Fortworth, with a backward jerk of the head, groping for his cigar case.
"Sure, we are," replied Smiler cheerily. "Those guys are for gaol, a quick trial, and, most likely, a blank wall and firing party." He turned to the man he had christened Bird.
"We've saved you from that, Bill," he said. "So mind you're grateful. Here, have a cigar."
"Bill" declined very politely, much as a shy nephew might decline a cigar from a rather overpowering uncle.
"Well, well, as you wish, old man, as you wish." He lit one for himself. "I suppose you want to ponder out some chemical ideas for us, hey? Some dam' good dye ideas, hey, son?"
"Bill's" eyes brightened.
"Please," he said, "I am only happy when I am thinking over chemical problems and possibilities."
"Are you a married man, son? Got any ties?" inquired Fortworth.
The little man shook his head, and Mr. Bunn leaned back with a sigh of content.
"Sail right in, son. God forbid that I should stop you from thinking out some new dyes for us. Only—they got to be, good—no fading fakes, laddie, understand. They got to be the genuine chloroform, see? We'll give you a couple of rooms and as much chemical dope as you want, and plenty of pocket money and the best of food and a third share of what we get for your inventions. Hey, old man?" He appealed to Fortworth, who agreed.
"So start right in with the thinking, Bill, and leave the rest to us. That suit you?"
The little chemical maniac—or genius—nodded gratefully, and a deep, rich silence of absolute content settled down upon the luxurious interior of the great car as Sing Song headed her steadily home.
"I DON'T know why it is—and if it comes to that I don't particularly care," said Mr. Bunn across the breakfast table one morning shortly after their Suffolk nocturne, "but I must say that one thoroughly good night's work gives me a grand breakfast appetite for at least a week. And a breakfast appetite is a thing which no man, be he king or curate, can afford to despise."
"True, true," replied his partner ex-Lord Fortworth, cheerily, as Sing Song came in with the first of the dishes—a beautifully baked red mullet.
"There's many a man walking the streets of London with the seat out of his trousers and his toes trickling out of his boots through neglecting to make a good breakfast!" said Mr. Bunn, preparing to take steps to prevent any such calamity befalling him.
"No doubt, no doubt," agreed Fortworth, "but it'll never happen to you!"
"Not if I can help it, son," said Mr. Bunn, and fell to work upon the red mullet. "Ah! What a rare fish red mullet is—rare. There's nothing else like it in the sea—and never will be. What's Mr. Bidwell having for his breakfast, Sing Song?"
"Mr. Bidwell having allee same led mullet, mastel. Not callee fol bleakfast yet. Bin sittee at table allee night allee same working velly much," explained the smooth yellow tough.
"Ah, well, Sing Song, my lad, that's the way he's built. He's a worker—a fine worker. He never allows himself to get slack—never, d'ye see? Mind you don't ever get slack. It's bad for a man's character. Makes him neglectful. Just give me another cup of coffee, my son, and bear what I say in mind. Never be neglectful—as a matter of principle."
Sing Song hastened to fill full Mr. Bunn's cup, just as he would have hastened to fulfil any order of the man he worshipped.
For a long space there was a breakfasty silence. Then, as their appetites grew more languid, finally petering out, and the cigars were lighted, Mr. Bunn reverted to the topic of the hard-working Mr. Bidwell.
"There's no shadow of doubt that when we rescued that little chemical sharp from those Unseen Hand guys last week we rescued a man worth rescuing," said Smiler complacently. "He isn't much to look at and he don't seem to know anything about anything but his chemistry. But he's a hummer at that, old man—a hummer from Humville."
"He is that—when he gets well at it with his chemicals," interrupted Fortworth humorously.
"And he's going to make a fortune for us as well as himself," continued Mr. Bunn, "properly handled. For he's a hundred-horse power worker and he's got the grey stuff in his head all right. And he keeps it on the boil. Still, if he's going to do any good he'll have to keep to the ordinary decencies. What I mean is that we can't have him neglecting himself, and letting his food get cold and uneatable and all that sort of thing. I think I'll just give him a look up and see how he's wrestling along."
"All right. I'll come along, too. He promised to have those formulae for the Furnace Red and the Fixed Chameleon Grey ready to-day,"said Fortworth rising. A light grew in the eyes of the ex-financier which was not often seen there—the gleam which only comes to a money-wolf's eyes when he is near something really big. "I'll tell you what it is, Flood," he continued, as they strolled out of the dining-room—they were at their quiet country-house retreat at Purdston on the Surrey-Hants border—"I'll tell you what it is, unless I'm mistaken this Chameleon Grey dye alone is going to make a cellar-full of real money for us, not to mention the other dyes. I was asking him about a good dye for uniforms, and the little man says that if anybody wanted a tint that would be practically invisible at close range he'll never find anything better than this Chameleon Grey. And I believe the brainy little devil."
"So do I, Squire, so do I," concurred Mr. Bunn benevolently.
They went slowly up the stairs. On the landing just outside the first door they found Sing Song in close and rather anxious confabulation with Fortworth's fat, shifty-eyed butler and valet, Mr. Ferdinand Bloom, who with his wife comprised the domestic staff of the house. (In Fortworth's Park Lane days Bloom had been his butler. Only he butled not wisely but too comprehensively—to be blunt, he "pinched" things far, far too freely, was discovered, and was now bound to Forthworth's service mainly by fear of the penal servitude which, in the event of the necessity arising, the grim ex-peer could, and unhesitatingly would, swiftly procure for him. Hence, Ferdinand walked softly, very softly in the presence of his "owner.")
Something in the Chinaman's eyes caught Smiler's attention.
"What's wrong, Sing, my son?" inquired the old hawk keenly.
"Mistel Bidwell sleeping velly much long time, mastel. Allee same sleep like dead man. You coming look, mastel."
He softly opened the door, standing aside for the partners to enter.
It was at this peculiarly inopportune moment that Mr. Ferdinand Bloom felt himself called upon to offer a respectful comment on the situation.
"I am very much afraid, sir, that the poor gentleman has been dead for some considerable time, sir!"
Fortworth whirled upon his retainer with a snarl of disgust—doubtless inspired by a fear that he spoke the truth.
"And who the blue blazes asked for your opinion?" he bawled. "D'you think you know better than the Chink, hey? When you know as much about dead men as he does, you'll be a dead man yourself. Bank on that, Bloom, bank on that."
Confusedly muttering apologies, Ferdinand faded away downstairs to seek comfort from his wife or his bottle—or both.
The partners hurried into the room which they had set aside to be Mr. Bidwell's laboratory, Sing Song following them.
The little chemist was lying on the settee to which the Chink and Ferdinand Bloom had lifted him. He lay stiffly, with a certain rigidity about the lines of his pale face which was not natural. Mr. Bunn, looking extremely grave, bent down and felt over his heart. For some seconds there was a tense silence. Then Smiler looked up.
"If his heart's beating I can't feel it!" he said. "And yet he's warm!" He paused, staring at his partner and Sing Song with puzzled eyes. "He feels alive—to put it that way. But if the state of his heart is anything to go by he's as near dead as a man can be! Here, Sing, my son, jump for a doctor, see? Lively. On the motor bicycle—that'll do you quickest." The Chinaman whirled round and went, and the partners examined the little chemist again.
"He's a dying man!" said Fortworth, briefly, and jammed his thumb down on the bell push for Bloom, who came as swiftly as his somewhat downtrodden feet would permit him.
"Hot water bottles just about as fast as you can get 'em!" commanded the ex-peer harshly. "Jump!" And Ferdinand, too, became brisk.
Smiler, pending the butler's return, went across to the table at which Mr. Bidwell had been sitting and, indeed, had spent the night. Apparently the chemist had been making notes when he was taken ill, for a notebook lay open on an untidy blotting pad. Mr. Bunn picked it up and stared at a scrawl upon the open page. Fortworth, watching him, observed the curiously bitter expression which slowly dawned upon his face, and hastened across.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Everything!" snarled Smiler. "Look at that!" He pointed to a short scrawl which ran, roughly, as follows:
"The formula for the True Furnace Red——"and so finished abruptly. "See?" demanded Mr. Bunn. "He promised me he'd write the thing down fully so that a plain man could understand it. And he was just starting on it when he went wrong!" He turned sharply, indicating the still figure on the settee.
"There it is—inside that funny-shaped head of his—ideas—inventions—dyes—God knows what! And worth millions—millions! And there it all is—sealed up—locked in. And he's dying—or looks like it—and if we can't get him going again our fortune is up the flume for fair."
Fortworth nodded sullenly.
"It ain't hard luck, old man—it's a calamity!" He pulled at his heavy lower lip. "Of course, he may be in a kind of trance! God knows if there are such things. I've read about 'em!"
"Well, I don't wish him any harm—not a spot—far from it—but I hope he is," replied Smiler flatly. "There's a chance of his waking up if it is a trance. But if he's dead—"
He did not complete his sentence. But his silence was more significant than words.
Gloomily, they set about doing what they could with hot-water bottles, ammonia and so forth, but wholly without result. Nor was the versatile Sing Song, who came roaring back within ten minutes with the news that a doctor was on the way, able to do better.
So that by the time the doctor arrived—a sandy-haired, rather seedy-looking individual, who used a shabby and very badly-kept motor-bicycle—Mr. Bunn was worked up to such a pitch of sheer anxiety that his greeting to the medical man took the form of an offer, as direct as a hammer-blow, of a hundred pound bonus above and beyond the ordinary fee, if he saved the little chemist from death, or even a trance of any seriously long duration.
A glitter shot into the doctor's eyes.
"I shall do my utmost," he said, and went across to the patient so quickly that it was abundantly evident to the keen-witted watchers that the doctor, too, was a man who needed money—and needed it badly....
The examination did not take long—even to the partners it did not seem more than a few minutes before the doctor looked up.
"This man," he said, decisively, "is in a state of catalepsy. I have known a very similar case."
"Just exactly what is that, doctor?" asked Mr. Bunn bluntly.
"It is what is popularly known as a trance."
"Is it serious? He's practically bound to wake up, I take it?" said Fortworth,
The doctor's face was grave.
"Not at all, I am afraid. He may wake—or he may die in his sleep. The latter is the likelier to happen."
The partners looked at each other with a bitterness neither attempted to conceal. Then Smiler, with an effort, addressed the medical man again.
"Well, doctor, spare no expense nor trouble. Give your instructions and"—he fixed the hovering Sing Song and Bloom with grimly expressive eyes—"they will be carried out to a hair's-breadth." He raised his voice suddenly—so suddenly that everybody jumped. "They had better be!" he roared like a wounded buffalo bull.
The doctor nodded and took charge.
FOR the following three days Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth roamed the house and grounds of their "quiet" country retreat like a pair of starved wolves who on the point of pulling down the fattest caribou in the herd have suddenly seen it climb a tree and remain there!
They discussed the unfortunate Mr. Bidwell's brain from practically every point of view, sustaining themselves with expensively prepared and aged alcohol in extraordinary quantities, entirely without effect upon themselves. For the whole of one forenoon they discussed laboriously a dreadful idea which:he silence of the night had brought to Mr. Bunn—namely, was it possible for the brain of a man in a cataleptic trance to lose its natural force? That is to say, was there the least chance that Mr. Bidwell, when, if ever, he awoke, would prove to have lost his remarkable talent for chemistry?
"Y'see, old man, it's a very serious thing, his catalepsy is," said Mr. Bunn anxiously.
The man can't take care of himself in the state he's in. Anything may be happening to that brain of his—and they're delicate things, brains. And he can't tell us. He takes practically no nourishment, and he looks to me to be wasting away—that's it, wasting away. And what gets my goat is that our fortune is wasting away, too!"
"I know, I know," said Fortworth scowling.
"It's hell! Pass the whisky.... Ah, here's Traill "—this was the doctor—" and he's got someone with him."
They moved to the French window, to stare discreetly out at a distinctly chic lady who, with the doctor, was approaching the door.
"She's got style, Squire, whoever she is," said Mr. Bunn, appreciatively. "She's dressed right and her figure is very fair—very fair indeed."
Fortworth agreed.
Within the next three minutes they had a better opportunity of appraising the attractive lady.
The doctor, a little awkwardly, introduced her as Mrs. Bellayne, the novelist. She was what is known, more or less popularly, as a "fine" woman, fine meaning tolerably abundant, the abundance being distributed in proportions pleasing to the eye. Her manner, too, was abundant.
After the introduction the doctor hurried to explain what he nervously suggested the partners might regard as a distinct breach of etiquette.
Mrs. Bellayne, he said, was engaged upon a serious novel in which one of the leading characters suffered a cataleptic trance. Unfortunately the lady had never seen anyone in that condition, and "local colour" was so absolutely necessary to her that, hearing of the case of Mr. Bidwell, she had ventured to appeal to the generosity of Mr. Bidwell's friends in the hope of being permitted to see him.
Here the lady gushed a little—and very attractively.
It could only end one way.
Mrs. Bellayne saw Bidwell, viewed him very thoroughly indeed, and subsequently stayed to lunch.
She proved to be charming in the somewhat full-blown style which both partners most admired. If there had been the least possible danger of either falling in love with anyone on earth—and there was not—they might quite easily have done so with Mrs. Bellayne, who seemed by no means loath to meet either or both halfway. She was indeed such a skilful and practised man-handler and exercised her skill so effectively that the sportsman-like old rascals almost forgot their troubles for a space, vying with each other for "glad eyes" throughout the very bright and enjoyable meal.
Thus it was that, when presently the lady left, she took with her a very pressing invitation to dinner on the following evening.
She had declined the proffered escort of each of them, and consequently the partners were free to discuss her with the doctor, who, also, had stayed to lunch and was intending to make another examination of Mr. Bidwell in the afternoon.
"That's a very charming woman, doctor?" said Mr. Bunn, taking a very easy chair, as he returned from the gate. "A novelist, is she? Rather high-class sort of woman for a novelist, ain't she? What sort of books does she write, anyhow? Lively sort of literature, I suppose, hey? Got a bit of sparkle about it, hey?"
The doctor smiled vaguely but seemed uncertain.
"I'm afraid I never read any of her works," he said. "Indeed, I never met her until three days ago."
"Where does she live? What's her address? asked Fortworth abruptly.
The doctor seemed a little uncomfortable.
"Why, to be frank, my dear sir, she is at present a paying guest of my wife. Things have not been too good here, in spite of the war dearth of doctors; it is a lonely district, as you know. But my wife is so attached to it that I do not want to move. Hence, when Mrs. Bellayne called, explaining that she wished for a quiet retreat in which to finish her new novel, that she, too, had fallen in love with the district, and offered really very generous terms, we were very pleased to accept her offer."
"And very wise, too," said Mr. Bunn enthusiastically, delighted to know that the lady was to be a neighbour. "Hey, old man?" he added to Fortworth.
"Sure," said the ex-peer. "A woman like that is a godsend to a place like this."
The doctor nodded, smiling, and rose.
"I think I will take a look at our patient," he said.
"Go ahead, doctor. Stir him up a little, if you can. We'll come up with you," said Smiler.
They did so.
Contrary to the general rule neither Sing Song nor Bloom were in the patient's room when the trio entered it.
"Hello!" went Smiler, involuntarily, "where's the Chink—or Bloom? Why ain't they here?"
"Why?" said Fortworth sharply. "Why?" He pointed to the bed. "That's why."
Smiler turned to the bed.
The cataleptic Mr. Bidwell was not there, either. The bed was empty.
Mr. Bunn's jaw fell.
"He's gone!" he gasped.
"Sure!" said Fortworth sourly. "That's the idea—gone away. Woke up, got up, dressed up, and pulled his freight for fair. Oh, you can look under the blasted bed till you're black in the face—but you won't find him there, believe me!" he added, for Smiler, rather desperately, had stooped to peer under the bed.
"True," he muttered, unheeding Fortworth's acid sarcasm. "True—he certainly ain't there. But what the blankness was Sing Song and Bloom doing, hey?" he demanded in a sudden roar. "That's what I want to know." He charged at the bell-push.
For some time there was no answer. Then, just as Fortworth, raging, was about to stamp downstairs, Mrs. Ferdinand Bloom entered.
Like Ferdinand, she was of extremely generous proportions. She possessed also a light grey eye with a cold spark in it, and, further, there was a bright flush on her cheeks. There was not lacking a suggestion of determination about her chin.
"You rang, sir," she said, quietly. Mr. Bunn, wise and crafty observer that he was, allowed the angry Fortworth to reply.
"Rang? Rang?" snapped the ex-peer. "Of course we rang. Where's Bloom?"
Mrs. Bloom's hard chin hardened somewhat.
"He is a little indisposed, sir—not at all hisself. So I came up." Her eyes glittered.
"Indisposed!" bawled Fortworth, apparently shocked. "What the devil do you mean? He was supposed to be watching Mr. Bidwell. Where is he?"
"In bed, sir, ill." Mrs. Bloom's hard colour grew a little brighter.
"Bed? Without permission? Without saying a word!" began Fortworth furiously—and "right there," as Mr. Bunn put it afterwards, Mrs. Bloom practically leaped into action.
"Now, stop that at once!" she said in almost a yell. "D'ye hear? You great, fat bellowin' brewte!" (In her fiercer moments Mrs. Bloom forgot what was due to herself and the husband who had trained her from her scullery-maid days upward.) "We've had enough of your bullying, you great stuffer and gorger! Food—that's all you think about—you and your fat pal. A lot of fat, that's it—that's all you are, see? A couple of fat fatheads!" she screamed, "what don't allow nobody to be indisposed but yourselves and that dirty Japanese!" Her hair bristled, and she went swiftly through a frightful succession of colours in a manner which would have broken the heart—or the neck—of any chameleon attempting to do the same. She faced them, glaring and grinning like a cat about to fly at them. And they—who had never imagined her to be anything but the extremely meek and mild, self-effacing chattel of the shifty-eyed, alcoholic Ferdinand, were stricken, or stunned, so to speak, practically into a trance themselves.
They gazed at each other; each opened his mouth—and each shut it again. Quite what they would have said or done it is impossible to say, but they were saved any further trouble by the sudden advent of Sing Song, who tottered in with a lump on his forehead the size and colour of an underdone doughnut, with a trickle of blood issuing from it. He grinned rather ruefully at his master, then, taking in the situation at a glance, turned abruptly on the panting Mrs. Bloom.
"Hi, you gettee out, quick. Your husban' downstails allee same sousee—bin dlinkee, got dlunkee. You go puttee him to bed! Quick!"
She may not have feared the partners, but with the grim-visaged Chink evidently it was very much otherwise. She shivered and went swiftly.
Mr. Bunn drew a long breath.
"Talk about worms turning," he said, rather sheepishly—but then his eye fell on the empty space so recently occupied by their cataleptic fairy godfather-to-be—and he changed again.
"Somebody's pinched him!" he growled. "And what are we going to do about it. D'you know anything about it, Sing Song?"
"Yes, mastel!" The Chink swayed. "You give me brandy, please—and I tellee you in a minute!"
As he spoke a motor came to a standstill outside. Mr. Bunn peered through the window.
"Ha!" he trumpeted, "Of all people here's Carey!" he said. "Couldn't have come at a better time. Let's go down to him."
They trooped downstairs.
IT was with a decided access of good spirits that Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth greeted their friend and ally, Mr. Carey, and long before the whisky had made its inevitable appearance they had explained, very succinctly indeed, the circumstances and magnitude of their loss.
The Secret Service man listened attentively to the end, Dr. Traill, who had been seeing to Sing Song, entering with the Chinaman just as they finished.
"I see," said Carey, abruptly, but with a certain significance in his curt voice. "Now let's have the Chink's tale."
That did not take long.
Briefly, while Sing Song had been waiting on the partners and their visitors, Mr. Ferdinand Bloom, who was seriously believed to be watching the cataleptic chemist, doubtless feeling a little "low," had over-estimated the amount of stimulant necessary to revive his drooping spirits and had become distinctly "high"—so elevated, indeed, that he had fallen down the back stairs and had been "hushed up" and put to bed by his wife. It was while Mrs. Bloom presumably was upstairs assisting Ferdinand to undress that Sing Song, having finished his duties pro tem in the dining-room, had occasion to issue forth from the back door of the house. As he stepped out his head encountered a sandbag, deftly wielded, and he became unconscious before he realized what had happened. He "came to" in the wood-shed some minutes later and, staggering dizzily in the direction from which he fancied came the sound of a motor, was just in time to see two men hastily slide a long wooden case into the back of the car and, getting in themselves, drive hastily away.
"Our dye-sharp was in that box!" said Smiler, with conviction. Carey smiled.
"He was. And the lady was keeping you three here—deliberately—while her pals got away with Bidwell," he said shortly.
They stared.
"The lady? Why, that was Mrs. Ballayne, the well-known novelist! A friend of Dr. Traill," exclaimed Mr. Bunn. "What's she got to do with it?"
"The what novelist?" demanded Carey, acidly. "She's never written any novels—she's too busy to read, much less write. That "lady" is Fritzi Steilberg. Haven't you heard of her—two old Londoners like you? She came from America five years ago calling herself Mimi Miniton and was a success on the music halls. When war broke out she re-dyed her hair and disappeared. The C.I.D. has been wanting her for some time. She's heart, soul and body with the Unseen Hand and a great pal of certainly one, and probably both, of those two German toughs we rescued poor old Bidwell from last week! There's not the shadow of a doubt that they've got word to her about you and Bidwell, somehow—I've warned you never to under-estimate the Unseen crowd before!"
They turned to the doctor like one man.
"You introduced that she-wolf here, doctor?" said Smiler very gratingly. "What about it?"
The doctor plainly was worried.
"I did," he said, "but quite innocently. We believed her to be what she claimed to be. I—I—confess we did not make searching inquiries—to be truthful, none at all. The fact is, gentlemen, we—I—was desperately hard-up and the money she proposed to pay for her accommodation was our chief consideration! I am sorry—very sorry!"
"Sorrow," said Fortworth, most sourly, "sorrow saws no wood."
"The thing is, how're we going to get our little dye-sharp back. We've invested a lot o' money in him, one way and another, and Fritzi or her gang looks like getting it!"
Carey stood up briskly.
"We'll see about that," he said. "It's a good thing I heard that she'd been seen about here, and came right on. Come on. I've got an idea I know where to find her. Bring your guns. We'll go in my car—it's a five-seater and fast."
Ten minutes later they were away—Carey, Smiler, Fortworth and Sing Song, who begged to be allowed to come and was graciously accorded permission by his "owner-driver," Mr. Bunn.
On the edge of their departure Smiler turned to the conscience-stricken doctor.
"I reckon that you've lost anything from one to five million—cold iron, doctor. And I don't mind saying frankly that I consider you're under more or less of an obligation to us. The least you can offer to do is to invite us in to look through that man-trap's boxes."
The doctor nearly fell over himself in his anxiety to assure them that it would he a pleasure.
"Come on, then," said Mr. Bunn, and the car shot forward.
But a swift search through the lady's goods and chattels revealed nothing more than a small selection of mysterious-looking garments, and they left a more detailed examination till later. Fritzi, herself, had not been near the place since she left with the doctor in the morning. "We've got a long run in front of us," announced Carey, as they re-entered the car. "I think the Chink had better drive. I don't want a shaky hand when we get there!"
"Get where?" asked Mr. Bunn, with a gesture to Sing Song, who slid in behind the wheel.
"A place called The Haven, near Poole, on the South Coast," replied Carey.
The partners settled down.
"All right. It's a pity we haven't got the limousine—but we shall be near Bournemouth where you can get a fairish dinner," said Mr. Bunn. "Although I don't feel as though I can eat until we get Bidwell back ag—" he broke off to stare at Fortworth, who had uttered a sharp yelp of sour mirth.
"There's nothing to laugh at, old man," he remonstrated. "Chasing all over the country after our own dye-expert like this—with the job of getting him out of the grip of the hands of these Unseen stiffs when we've found him. Have you got your chain shirt on? If you haven't you've got nothing to laugh about, believe me, Squire!"
"Tell that heathen of yours to go all out," said Carey. "This is a fast car and, in spite of their start, we might overhaul them—if they're going back to Poole at all; It's worth trying,"
Smiler gave the order and Sing Song let the car out.
"If we can get there first it will make matters all the easier," added the South African, and lapsed into silence....
They passed many cars on the way down—every car they sighted, indeed—but they never sighted one that seemed to be hurrying especially nor that resembled the car Sing Song vaguely remembered seeing.
In spite of the best that the car could do it was twilight, and they were cold and hungry, before they finally dropped down a steep hill on to the road which runs along the whole length of that sandy, jutting point, crowded with summer bungalows, which is called The Haven.
At a word from Carey, Sing Song pulled up and, in the fading light, the partners looked about them as the Secret Service man requested them to do.
"I want you to get the hang of this place into your minds," he said. "There's just a chance that we shall have to do a bit of dodging about."
Mr. Bunn and Fortworth stared about them, through the fading light. The tide was out and acres of sandy mud and scummy ooze gleamed unwholesomely in the last greyish light left by a chill February sun. Somewhere, away to the left they could hear waves breaking in a half-hearted way upon the shallows at the eastern edge of the sand-banks, but nowhere, save for the occasional minor yell of an invisible sea-gull that came to them like the wail of a frightened cat, was there any sound of life. From no chimney among the whole motley collection of summer cottages came any smoke and there were not more than half a dozen lights visible, for a creeping sea-fog was billowing across the harbour, shutting out the Poole lights. The raw cold of the place chilled them to the bone.
For a few moments they surveyed it in silence. Then, with a dispirited and weary yawn, Mr. Bunn gave utterance to his sentiments.
"Well, a more God-forsaken place I don't remember seeing, Carey, old man, and that's a stone-cold fact. Does anybody live here except in the summer time?"
Fortworth merely grunted. Evidently the place disgusted him beyond speech.
"It's packed in the summer, they tell me," replied Carey, "and deserted in the winter. But Fritzi and her friends have got a place here."
As he spoke there broke upon that clinging, clammy sea-silence the thudding of a motor-boat, coming apparently from behind a houseboat that, embedded in the mud, lay on the edge of the channel on the inner or western side of the spit.
Carey stiffened, with an oath, peering across the mud-flats facing them. But a long streamer of fog floated before the houseboat, even as he stared, and he turned sharply. "I deserve sjamboking," he said. "They may be in that boat. I forgot it. And it makes a bolt hole, d—n it! Get on down the road, Sing Song, and stop when I say so."
The car glided away down the desolate road, running past empty cottages, shanties and bungalows squeezed in anyhow on the tumbled gorse and grass-grown sand-drifts. They arrived at a place where the holiday-houses improved and were bigger and better built, and it was here that Carey stopped the car.
He groped for a moment under the seat and brought out a small box containing a pair of automatic pistols. "I keep 'em by me in the car—in case I get left," he said, with a queer tinge of apology in his voice. "I don't need them when I've got my Colts—but it's as well to be on the safe side."
He gave the partners one each.
"They're Brownings—loaded," he said. "How about the Chink? He'd better come—the car will be all right on the side of the road."
"Oh, he's already armed, if I know anything about him, hey, Sing?" said Smiler.
"Yes, mastel, allee same got knife," purred the yellow man.
"That's a good lad."
Then they followed Carey down the road, for perhaps thirty yards, and stopped at a house built on a mound, with a few sparse wind-stunted firs scattered about it.
"In here!" said the South African softly, and they filed in, silent as shadows on the sand.
They paused at the foot of a few timbered steps leading up to the house.
"No smoke—no lights—no sound," muttered Mr. Bunn. "It looks to me like an empty house this."
Carey, also, did not seem confident.
"We'll take a look at the motor-house," he said, and, passing the steps, moved along the sandy track leading from the gate to a wooden motor-house built at the level of the road.
He tried the big double door and turned sharply to Mr. Bunn just behind him.
"It's ajar—not even latched!" he whispered, and very gently opened the door. There was a big touring-car inside, plastered with the mud of a long journey. Mr. Bunn went round and felt the radiator.
"Hot enough to fry an egg," he said, "nearly. This car hasn't been in long."
"No—but a few minutes too long for us," snarled Carey softly. "Let's get to the house."
He led the way openly up the steps to the front door, where they made another discovery. Like that of the motor-house, this door, too, was ajar. They looked at it—then at each other, very warily and suspiciously indeed. They were like foxes round a trap.
"This doesn't look any too healthy to me," said Mr. Bunn quietly. "One door ajar may be an accident—two doors ajar is fishy. Still, it's made to be opened, I suppose." He gently pushed it back with his foot, but did not go inside. Then he flashed his electric torch into the dark room.
Except for the ordinary rather sparse furniture which goes with the average holiday cottage the hall-lounge was empty and obviously devoid of anything in the way of traps.
"Seems all right!" muttered Smiler, and they went in, gingerly, snapping down the electric switch.
"Ah, what's this?" said Mr. Bunn sharply, and took a white card from the table where it had evidently been placed to attract attention. Printed hastily and roughly across the face of the card was this message:—
BIDWELL IS IN THE NEXT ROOM TAKE HIM AWAY QUICKLY.
FROM A FRIEND.
Mr. Bunn stared round at the puzzled faces of the crowd, smiling.
"This," he said, impressively, "is where we get our own back!" and turned abruptly to the inner door.
"Our own back? Not with the Unseen Hand," said Carey sharply. "For God's sake be careful." Something in his startled voice checked Mr. Bunn and the eager Fortworth at the threshold.
"What's wrong—more traps?" asked Smiler.
"I don't know—but I suspect it. Let me open that door!"
He took a walking stick from the umbrella stand, turned the handle and, with a revolver in his left hand, pushed open the door with the stick in his right.
Slowly it swung back. Nothing happened. Everything seen in that room seemed in order, and Mr. Bunn was on the point of going in for his "dye-sharp" when an exclamation from the South African stopped him.
"I thought so!" said Carey sharply. "Look on the floor—the carpet—about two feet inside the door."
They stared.
"Nothing there," said Fortworth shortly.
But Mr. Bunn had looked more carefully.
"Take another blink, Squire," he said indulgently. "Carey's right—as usual. What are they?" He brought his light to bear more closely. "Glass balls—half a dozen—a dozen of 'em! Put just where a man's bound to tread on some of them!"
He turned to Carey, his face paler than usual.
"What have they got inside 'em—explosive?" he asked.
"No—poison!" said the South African. "Hydrocyanic acid or some other deadly stuff that kills a man like a stroke of lightning if he gets a breath of it! There was a case of it in an affair up North I was handling some time ago. That's why I was looking for it."
The partners looked serious.
"Well, this is about the dozenth time, one way and another, you've saved our lives," said Smiler slowly. "We owe you a good deal, Carey, old man."
He brightened up.
"However, if we can once get our little dye-sharp back, fit and well, it won't take long to begin to pay you!"
They went down on their knees and, very carefully indeed, moved the deadly little poison-globes, handling them far more gingerly than eggs or even bombs. They could feel that the glass was no more than bubble-thick.
"Those are for burial at sea," said Mr. Bunn, when presently they had collected them all and put them safely by in a sandhole outside the house.
Then they entered the room, switching on the electric light as they entered. One glance showed them that their murderous-minded "friend" had spoken the truth about Mr. Bidwell. 'He was there—still in the packing case in which they had taken him from the house at Purdston. It was stood on end, leaning against the wall opposite the door so that Bidwell seemed to be facing them—staring at them.
But the little man was no longer in a state of catalepsy—he was dead.
They knew it the instant they set eyes on him—there was a sense, an atmosphere, of death in that horrible room. They had not been able to distinguish catalepsy from death; but it was with a strange and terrible ease that they found themselves able to distinguish death from catalepsy.
Their fortune had eluded them—even as it had eluded the agents of the Unseen Hand.
Mr. Bunn stared for a moment, horrified, and when he spoke it was not of himself or his loss.
"And that's the sort of show they've given him," he said, his voice thick with rage. "A poor, harmless little man who wouldn't have hurt a fly and who only wanted to be let alone with his chemicals. And with millions of money in his head—millions! If all the Unseen Handers in this country are like the crowd we're after, then the sooner they're wiped out like the vermin they are the better. And I don't want anything better than to take a hand in doing it."
He paused for a moment, then stepped forward.
"Well, let's put him into a more human position anyway. He was a grateful, good-natured little sport when you'd let him be and it jars me to see him like that...."
So they did what they could for him and, as Mr. Bunn took occasion to say, it was little enough for a man of the little chemist's mental calibre.
"And now, what about these German vipers? I suppose they got away in that motor-boat. Is there any chance of intercepting them, d'you think? You know the neighbourhood?" asked Smiler.
But Carey shook his head.
"Poole Harbour is a big place. They could land—probably have landed by now—in a thousand different places. And they had their bolt-hole ready. They're miles away by now. But next time we'll stop their bolt-hole first!"
The South African seemed worried and depressed at his failure, and Mr. Bunn tried to cheer him up.
"Well, don't break your heart over it—there'll be a next time all right. And we want to be there to see you through it—and shall be, too, if I'm any judge of a horse, hey, Squire?" He appealed to Fortworth.
"Sure," said that laconic individual.
"And as it's no good grieving over spilt milk, the only sensible thing to do is to leave this poisonous hole, and see the police about our poor little pal here—that's where you, being official, will come in, Carey—and then adjourn to the best hotel in Bournemouth and see about something cheerful in the way of dinner. For, speaking for myself, I'm not ashamed to say I'm famished! That's what! Am I right?"
He was—and they readily admitted it. And so, somewhat subdued but indomitably optimistic, he led them forth to the waiting car.
NOT without a certain reluctance—very natural in the circumstances—Mr. Smiler Bunn rose slowly from the huge leather-covered armchair which he had been occupying very tenaciously indeed for the previous two hours, and yawned.
"I like you very much indeed, old man, and we hit it off very well together," he said to his partner, "but at the same time I've got to admit that there are livelier jobs than sitting in a chair opposite you watching you doze. It's a wonder to me that you don't dislocate the back of your neck, the way you jerk your head about. However," he added with good-humoured sarcasm, "it's your neck—not mine! But I think you'd be safer in bed, Squire, and I'm sure I should be less nervous about you." He smiled down at Fortworth, none too wide-awake himself.
"So, personally speaking, I'm going to where a man can get his rest in a solid slab, not in fits and starts."
"Yes," grunted Fortworth, "yes. That comes well from a man who has spent the first half of the evening eating an eight-course dinner"—it was in the pre food-economy days—"and the second half dreaming about it. However—bed let it be."
Mr. Bunn smiled and reached for the decanter of old brandy—the First Movement in the construction of a "night-cap." He was about to pour when a soft rapping at the French window (they were at their Purdston place for a day or so, resting from their dangerous and unavailing labours in connection with the rescue of the unfortunate Mr. Bidwell) suddenly sent them rigid. They listened, staring round in the direction of the noise. There was no longer any suggestion of drowsiness or readiness for bed in their attitude.
"Hear that?" said Fortworth softly.
Mr. Bunn nodded, listening.
Presently the rapping came again, still soft but insistent.
"Well? Better see who it is, hey?" muttered Fortworth. "May be Sing Song—with a reason!" Sing had been sent to London that afternoon and had not yet returned.
"Oh yes—we'll see fast enough," agreed Mr. Bunn, "but not full face. We'll take 'em on the flank. We butted into a queer push when we butted up against these Unseeners, and I'm not opening any French windows at midnight. This way—and tread light,"
They went out by the ordinary door—pausing en route at a silently opened drawer in a desk from which each assisted himself to a business-like automatic pistol—and passing quietly through the house parted at the back door.
"You take this visitor on the left and I'll call on him from the right," whispered Smiler.
So they circled the house. There was a bright moon and they moved with the stealth and caution of two great cats. As Mr. Bunn had very truly said, they had butted up against a remarkably tough and skilful crowd when, with the aid of their Secret Service friend, Mr. Raymond Carey, they embarked upon their unofficial campaign against the Unseen Hand.
But, on this occasion, at any rate, their caution was wasted. Each turned his assigned corner of the house to discover simultaneously that the rapper upon the window was alone and, it seemed at first glance, unarmed. They closed in on him quickly—so quickly indeed that he started as he realised their presence one on each side of him.
"It's all right, gentlemen," he said, hurriedly, nervously, as he noted the dull glitter of a moon-ray upon the automatic Fortworth was holding. "It is only I, Dr. Traill."
Mr. Bunn nodded.
"So I see," he said rather grimly. "But there's nobody ill here."
"No, no—quite so. You misunderstand. I will explain. There is an item of news I have recently heard which I have come round to speak of to you," said the little doctor nervously. "I feel that I owe you something—you will understand—and when you have heard what I desire to say you will very readily appreciate my reasons for calling in this manner."
They softened somewhat. It was quite evident that the doctor was genuine.
"Oh, well, in that case, doctor, come on in," said Mr. Bunn more cordially, and led the way forthwith.
"So you feel that you owe us something, doctor?" said Mr. Bunn bluntly as they sat down. "Well, as you put it that way, I may as well say that we feel you owe us something too. There's no disguising the fact that you introduced that she-wolf who stole our dye-expert into the house, though, mind you, we both understand that you did it innocently enough. Still, innocence at that price comes high. That poor little man was worth a cold million to us one way and another, doctor—if not more. So you can't wonder that we feel sort of sour about it.... However, forget it. No good harping on it. You say you've got some news for us. Well, we can give it a good home. Just help yourself to a brandy and soda and give that a good home before you start in, however."
This was soon accomplished and, lighting cigars, the partners composed themselves to listen to the news of Dr. Traill.
It was not a long story that he told them, but it was interesting. Far more so, indeed, than either expected ever to hear from such an inoffensive, self-effacing person as this quiet, impecunious, rather ineffective little country doctor.
"I will be as brief as possible," he began. "Indeed, it is probable that you will look upon my story as mere moonshine—though I trust that it will prove to be of use to you."
He coughed slightly.
"It may not have occurred to you, gentlemen, that in the excitement and hurry of your visit, with your friend, Mr. Carey, to search the boxes of Mrs. Bellayne the other day you dropped certain remarks which led me to the conclusion that, if you are not Secret Service agents, at least you are interested in the Secret Service. Naturally, I should not have the impertinence to ask you if that is so. It is no affair of mine. I am trying to forget the whole deplorable business. But I dined to-night in town with my cousin who is also in the medical profession, though immensely more successful than myself—incomparably so. He has a very large practice, so large indeed that one is apt to wonder that he cares to find time to spend with such a comparatively insignificant person as myself. You see, gentlemen, I have no illusions as to my own importance. We have, however, the memory of a very pleasant and intimate youth to link us and also many tastes in common. I need not go into details which probably would not interest you, but I may say that it is an understood thing that we dine together at least once a month, usually on the last evening of every month—as this evening is. Naturally we are given to talking "shop" and, catalepsy being a comparatively rare condition, I spoke—purely from the medical point of view, of course—of my late patient at this house. My cousin was interested, and mentioned that oddly enough he had only this morning been called upon to attend a patient who was in a state of delirium, during which he frequently spoke of "a cataleptic man" who had been "lost," apparently, said my cousin, "at Poole." My cousin who claims often to have caught from the delirious talk of patients some knowledge which has at times been of use to him in dealing with the case, paid some attention to the talk of his patient. In a very short time he found out that the loss of the cataleptic man at Poole clearly had been the source of a keen disappointment to this patient, and that, together with what his rambling showed to have been an insane hatred of one Mr. John Burke, whom he hoped "the deaf adder" would shortly succeed in "striking," seemed to have been two of the causes of the mental breakdown, from which this person was suffering. I may add, without breaking any confidence, though I am decidedly straining medical etiquette, that this patient was a somewhat highly-placed, naturalized German. My cousin, you understand, gentlemen, revealed these things to me in the course of an interesting discussion on delirium brought on by the mention of catalepsy. I need scarcely say that nothing was further from his mind than any thought of the Secret Service or of the war at all—for the time being. Presently the conversation turned to other matters and the incoherencies of that particular patient were forgotten. But thinking over the evening in the train upon my way home those strange disconnected ramblings occurred to me again, and, connecting you, in my mind, with a cataleptic man who was "lost"—or rather "died"—at Poole, and remembering my impression that you were not entirely unconnected with the Secret Service, I decided to call and tell you these facts. As I said, I undoubtedly owe you reparation:or my stupidity in introducing into this house? A woman of whom I knew so little, and, if these things are of the least value to you, I have no regret at straining the etiquette of my profession in telling them to you."
He paused and looked at them rather hopefully.
Mr. Bunn nodded. Like his partner he seemed calm and placid enough, but those who knew him best—Sing Song, for instance—would have known otherwise. There was a hard glitter in his half-closed eyes, and that tell-tale vein on Fortworth's forehead was a little larger than usual—a certain sign that the ex-baron, also, was a trifle excited.
"I see," said Smiler quietly, selecting another cigar. "You feel like a man who owes, say, a hundred pounds that he can't pay, but has found something which, although it isn't worth anything to him, he hopes his creditor might value. Well, it's not such a bad idea, doctor. Though whether there's anything in it, I doubt. Now, let's look at things. Just help yourself to another drink, doctor, and steer the decanter over here, if you don't mind. There's nothing like having a clear head for these things." They made their simple preparations for clear heads, and then Mr. Bunn recapitulated.
"Let's see, now. There's a German in London, rich, naturalized, who has suffered a great disappointment because he, or somebody or other, has 'lost a cataleptic man at Poole.' Well, that cataleptic man certainly looks like poor old Bidwell who died at Poole. Ain't that so, Squire?" he demanded of Fortworth, who nodded.
Mr. Bunn nodded approvingly and continued:
"What we've got to find out is what Howarden knows about it. And if he doesn't know all about him you can call me no judge of a German. And if he does know all about him, how did he know it if he ain't in touch with the Unseen Gang that killed Bidwell? We've got to get into quick touch with Herr Mr. Howarden—and listen to his ravings. I'm not surprised he's had a mental breakdown. It's the kind of breakdown that a good many of the naturalized guys have got coming to 'em before long."
"But what's the cataleptic man got to do with deaf adders and John Burke any way?"
Mr. Bunn took up the telephone from a table at his elbow.
"We'll see if we can't find out," he said, and asked for a number which Fortworth recognised as that of their friend Carey.
"If you get on to Carey this time of night you'll be lucky," said Fortworth.
"Sure," he agreed, good-humouredly, and immediately after: "Hello—that you, Carey?... Good.... How are they running?... Good again. Just going to bed. All right, Squire?"—to Fortworth—"and we don't think any the worse of him, hey? It shows he's got brains and imagination—which we're rather short of, to tell the truth—no good being ashamed of it, y'know, doctor. I suppose we ought to feel sorry for this Mr. What's-his-name—this naturalized sport—what was it you called him?"
"Mr. Howarden."
"That's it—this Howarden—but I can't honestly say I'm sorry for any German, naturalized or not, rich or poor, living in—Park Lane, was it?"
Innocently enough the little doctor named a street not far from Park Lane, and Smiler continued:
"Or in Seven Dials. For I don't like Germans any way!"
"Well, well, no harm done," said the doctor, rising. "I am glad you understand."
"We do, we do. We appreciate the motive, don't we, Squire?" said Smiler cordially as they accompanied him to the door.
"Sure, sure!" purred Fortworth, steering their guest out into the moonlight. "Very kind of him."
So they said a very friendly "Good-night" and parted.
It was all so very kind and smooth and jolly and neighbourly that the little doctor thoroughly enjoyed his walk home.
BUT the doctor might have felt a little more excited if he could have seen the expression on the faces of the two grim old he-wolves he had just left, or have heard their conversation during the next few minutes.
"Well, what d'you make of it, Squire?" asked Mr. Bunn abruptly. "Who is this Howarden? Know him?"
"No," grunted Fortworth.
"Who's John Burke?"
"You can search me—never heard of the man."
"Who's this deaf adder?" pursued Mr. Bunn quietly.
"I ain't up on snakes," growled Fortworth.
Mr. Bunn nodded gently—but his hard eyes were two glittering slits.
"Well, who's the cataleptic man lost at Poole, then?" he snapped, and Fortworth flushed a blackish flush.
"Who the hell should it be but our little dye sharp?" snarled the ex-baron sullenly.
the War Office or Admiralty or Foreign Office or anywhere else I don't know—and I don't care. But I can tell you this, Squire, that Raymond Carey went straight up into the air at the bare idea of John Burke being in danger. He said"—and Mr. Bunn unconsciously dropped his voice—"that the Wilhelmstrasse would give a couple of their Army Corps to get John Burke where they want him—underground. And we've got to keep in touch with Carey accordingly—unofficially, of course."
Fortworth nodded.
"And who's the deaf adder?"
Mr. Bunn grinned a hard grin. "That's one of the things Carey didn't know—but he says there'll be a few squads of Secret Service men finding out within the next hour."
"What about Howarden?" demanded Fortworth.
"He's a German financier who is said to be nearly on the snags—financially. He isn't trusted and has been watched pretty well—but, as I told Carey, not, in my opinion, well enough."
"Well—and what have they got to do with the cataleptic man?" inquired Fortworth.
"You'll have to look that up in the Daily Mail Year Book, Squire—for I don't know and Carey couldn't tell me. We can—"
He broke off listening.
"Here's the car. That's Sing Song." He glanced at the clock.
"It's one o'clock and the yellow scoundrel ought to have been back at ten. And if you ask me I should say we've got a right to ask why."
He jammed his thumb down on the bell-push, and Mr. Ferdinand Bloom entered unto them, looking not merely a little sleepy but rather incompletely sober.
"Sir?" he said.
"Send Sing Song here as soon as he comes in."
"Thank you, sir," Ferdinand turned to go.
"And—Bloom!"
Ferdinand returned. "Sir?"
"You're drunk—practically speechless. Don't let it occur again—understand?"
"Perf'ly—thank you, sir," replied Mr. Bloom surveying them gravely.
"Bed for yours, Bloom—I'll talk to you in the morning, you besozzled blackguard," said Fortworth.
"Very goo', sir," said Bloom, and went forth.
The partners had hardly exchanged a word of disgust at Bloom's disgraceful condition and finished refilling their glasses before Sing Song slid into the room, soundless and alert as some tiger-cat sliding through its native jungle.
"You're late, you yellow tough," said Mr. Bunn. "Why?" The Chink grinned.
"I tellee you, mastel," he said, "plitty good news."
"All right. Give tongue, you highbinder," replied Mr. Bunn, indulgently, and the Chinaman "gave tongue" forthwith.
Briefly his story was to the effect that while engaged in the flat (that of Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth, whither he had been sent to make ready for the partners' return next day) he had glanced out of the window and noticed a woman who was looking up at the flat, which was on the first floor. Watching her from behind the curtains he had observed her cross the road and enter the big block in which the flat was situated. The Chink, with his hawk-vision and wolf-wits, had recognised the lady instantly as none other than Mrs. Bellayne—otherwise Fritzi Steilberg—that self-styled novelist but actually German agent, whose talent of fascination had so completely put the Bunn partners off their guard when the cataleptic man was stolen from them. True, she was dressed as, and had assumed the air, the hair, and the manner of, a middle-aged woman, but Sing Song had recognised her in spite of that and, proceeding in that tortuous Celestial way beloved by him, and for which he was unique, he had manoeuvred himself unseen and unsuspected to a coign of vantage in the close neighbourhood of the hall-porter's lair, where he had overheard most of the subtle but searching inquiries which the fascinating lady had made concerning Mr. Bunn and his once-noble partner.
This conversation the Chinaman related most faithfully, immensely to his masters' interest. They were able to perceive without difficulty that the lady and doubtless her Unseen Hand friends were what Mr. Bunn succinctly described as "well after them."
But the Chink had not finished. He proceeded to state that he had followed Fritzi when presently she left. With extraordinary skill and patience he had "shadowed" her for the next three hours from one place to another, finally running her to earth at what he thought was her present home.
"Why?" asked Mr. Bunn abruptly, "why should it be her home?"
"Because she using latch key, mastel—allee same open walkee light in."
Mr. Bunn smiled approval.
"I'd as soon have an orange-coloured bloodhound on my track," he remarked cryptically. "Go on, Sing, my son. You've done very well, indeed. What next?"
Quietly the Chink explained that he had then taken a turn at making inquiries. Here he had been fortunate. He had got in touch with a policeman who years before had done some service in Hong Kong and had left that place with quite a tolerable opinion of the Chinese. A pound note to this policeman, and a hint that it was a love affair—his mastel's—connected with a lady at the house into which Fritzi had disappeared, produced the information that the house was tenanted by a quiet little gentleman—a Belgian, the policeman believed—who had lived there "off and on" for the past three years. His daughter had just come to live with him. He was a very nice gentleman, said the policeman, but he was as deaf as a post and in the policeman's opinion it was time he had someone to look after him, although he got about wonderfully well considering his deafness. His name, concluded Sing Song, was Gerard and the house was Number 266B, Regent's Square.
For a moment neither Mr. Bunn nor Fortworth said anything. They were looking intently at each other, with corrugated brows.
When presently Mr. Bunn spoke it was briefly and to the point.
"If this deaf guy of Regent's Square is by any chance the same gent that is after Mr. John Burke, it looks to me as though We've got to keep a sharp look-out—for it's a sure thing, if what Sing says is right, that he or somebody at 266B is after us."
Fortworth nodded.
"Well, I don't know about John, but if he's going to get us he's got to get busy. I'm allowing no deaf adders to jar me—if I can help it."
Mr. Bunn agreed and dismissed Sing Song to a well-earned rest.
"I don't say you can have a whisky and soda, my son, because I know very well you'll have something whether I say so or not. But if you take my advice it'll be an honest stiff British whisky and soda, my lad. None of your opium and petrol or any cheerful Chinese dope of that kind. Be British, son. You're a good lad and you've done well, Keep it up. You can pull your freight now."
Sing Song grinned and "pulled" it.
SOMEWHAT to the surprise of the partners who had planned to have a quiet little talk over the affair of Mr. John Burke and his (and their) enemies, they had hardly finished checkmating their breakfast appetite on the following morning before a motor arrived bringing Carey, lean, brown and self-possessed as ever.
They made him cordially welcome, as always.
"Come in, Carey, old man, come right in, and Sing Song shall fix you some breakfast—horrible practice this travelling on an empty stomach," said Mr. Bunn, waving a newly-lit cigar at the Secret Service man. "How's Mr. John Burke?"
Carey smiled faintly as he sat down.
"In perfect health when I left him an hour ago," he replied.
"Great friend of yours, is he?" inquired Mr. Bunn, passing the cigars, as Carey motioned away the idea of breakfast.
"Hardly that," said Carey. "He's way up—eats men like me raw!"
"Well, he's got a pretty good digestion on him, any way, for you're a tough old bird," responded Smiler. "So the deaf adder hasn't struck him yet?"
"Not yet," said Carey, but his face was suddenly grave.
"Have you found out who the deaf sharp is?" continued Smiler.
Carey's eyes were grim.
"Not yet," he said quietly, "but we've got to. There's no doubt he's an Unseen Hander, and a crowd of the S.S. are hunting for him. Howarden's watched too. He won't say another word for a long time that isn't noted."
"Well, good luck to you all," said Mr. Bunn casually.
But perhaps Smiler was a shade too casual, at any rate Carey glanced at him keenly, a new light in his eyes.
"Do you know anything of this 'deaf adder' man?" he asked quickly.
"That sounds a humorous question from an official Secret Service man to two amateurs," said Smiler comfortably.
Carey's eyes glittered.
"No doubt—but I want to know. It's worth—worth—Lord knows what it's worth if you won't tell me for nothing. This man Burke is absolutely priceless to the country in his department, for several reasons. It would take too long to tell you why, but you can believe me."
"We do, we do, Carey, old man. And so you want us to put the Secret Service right in this little matter, do you? Well, we'll do it for you, hey, Squire?"
The "Squire" nodded.
"Can't very well help ourselves, can we, if he puts it that way?" he said.
"Right." Mr.Bunn turned again to Carey.
"Well, if we were hunting for any deaf adders the first place we should visit would be number 266B, Regent's Square, where we should try to find a nice old gentleman whose name is Gerard, who is a Belgian (he says), and who is as deaf as a waiter," said Smiler, blandly, tranquilly.
But his tranquillity was abruptly shaken at the way the Secret Service man received the news. His eyes for an instant dilated with surprise, his lips tightened and his teeth gripped so that the jaw muscles bulged.
He did not answer—but he snatched at the telephone.
"You're sure of that? How do you know?" he snapped.
"Because," replied Mr. Bunn, affably, "because we have reason to believe that the same gentleman is after us."
"In that case, then," said Carey, "my advice to you is not to lose more than a second in getting your chain mail shirts on."
"They're on," said Mr. Bunn simply, "and damned uncomfortable they are—especially sitting down."
But that particular spark of humour missed fire with Carey, who was already demanding his number.
"If you're ringing up your bloodhounds you might warn them that there's a wildcat named Fritzi Steilberg living in the same house as deaf Gerard," suggested Mr. Bunn.
Carey nodded to show that he understood the allusion, and then began to speak.
The hail of instructions that he began to pelt into the telephone rather startled the partners.
"He's certainly getting 'em on the move," said Smiler quietly, "it sounds a lot of fuss for a plain Mr. John Burke—man I never heard of in my life. Still, there's quite a lot of things we haven't heard of—so I suppose it's all right."
Presently Carey finished, and replaced the telephone with a sigh of relief.
"Just a minute," he said, and took out a notebook.
Then a curious and startling thing befell.
They were sitting inside the room, the French windows of which were wide open, and Mr. Bunn staring thoughtfully at a spot of sunlight on the verandah floor outside saw suddenly appear within an inch of the sun-spot a sudden sharp glitter of broken glass, and a wet stain. With these phenomena came a tiny soft sound as of some very minute and brittle thing cracking. At almost the same instant a kitten belonging to the house pounced down upon this stain as though it were a mouse.
Then she quivered slightly, rolled over on her side, and was very still.
"God!" went Mr. Bunn, and leaped up and swung the windows together with a bang. "Get out, you two—quick!"
They were not the sort of men who waited to be given a warning of that description twice from a man like Smiler. They leaped for the door, Mr. Bunn on their very heels.
Not till that door, too, was shut and they were through the kitchen, turning out the startled Blooms and Sing Song with them, and out at the back, in the open again, did they demand or Smiler vouchsafe any explanation.
Then pulling them out of earshot of Ferdinand Bloom and his wife, Mr. Bunn told them of the kitten.
"It must have been one of those poison fume bombs, like those we found at Poole," he said. "Somebody threw it—they were probably trying to pitch it into the room."
Carey nodded seriously and Fortworth swore. Then they went round to the front cautiously, while Sing Song slid out into the road to reconnoitre.
The kitten was lying stone dead on the verandah, though the stain had already evaporated, and only a few splinters—atoms—of fragile glass remained on the spot. They were aware of no odour of any kind. Evidently the poison fumes were as quick to disperse as they were swift to kill those who inhaled them freshly released.
"A thundering lot of good chain mail shirts would have been to us if that stuff had been let loose on us indoors!" growled Mr. Bunn. "This looks to me like some more of Fritzi's fine art!"
He glared round as the Chink appeared leading by the ear a small boy, of somewhat vacant expression.
"What's this, Sing?"
"This boy climbee ovel fence to loadway allee same velly much laughee, mastel. I blinging him plitty quick."
They cross-examined the vacant-faced youth who, without being quite of the village-idiot type, was obviously not of average intelligence.
The boy presented no difficulties whatever. He admitted quite readily that he had thrown the "little glass ball." Yes, he had tried to throw it into the room. He wished he had. He was palpably sorry he had missed, but he had done his best, just as he had promised the lady he would. Who was the lady? He didn't know—"niver seed her afore"—but she was a very nice lady. He had been out throwing stones when the lady who was standing by her motor car saw him and offered him a shilling if he would be a good boy and play a joke on some gentlemen for her. He said he would like to. She had asked him if he happened to have an addled egg in his pocket. She was very disappointed when he explained that, as luck would have it, he didn't happen to have any addled eggs on him just then. The lady had said it was a pity as she wanted him to throw an addled egg into the room where the gentlemen were sitting for a joke. The bad smell of the egg would make them angry and they would "carry on" like anything. The boy grinned appreciatively as he explained. He was evidently a youth who could enjoy a joke, and to create an infernal smell in a room where three unsuspecting gentlemen were sitting was precisely the sort of joke which appealed to him as the Perfect Jest. Besides, he was getting a shilling. Then the lady said that she supposed they'd have to put up with strong-smelling salts which she said was very annoying to people who didn't like them, though not so good as addled eggs, and so she had given him a glass ball which she said was full of strong smelling salts (here Fortworth snarled with impatient disgust) and told him just what to do. Then she had gone a little way down the road to watch. She had only driven away just as he climbed back over the fence.
Mr. Bunn completed the cross-examination which elicited the foregoing with a shrug of the shoulders.
"All right, Sing, let him go. Hook it, boy, d'ye hear, and if I catch you hanging about here again, I'll give you the thunderingest hiding you ever had. And leave the ladies alone, boy, d'ye hear? And get out!"
The boy got out—as Mr. Bunn said, "What was the use of keeping him anyway?"—and the trio moved towards the house again.
"Take the kitten away, Sing," commanded Smiler. The Chink did so. The little creature was already stiff.
As they reopened the French windows the telephone bell whirred sharply.
Carey swiftly went to the instrument, answered, and listened attentively. Presently he snapped:
"Send a party to Fairland Park—twenty or thirty men—as quick as you can. Let them join the guard party that went this morning. I shall be there!"
He replaced the receiver and turned to the others.
"The deaf man and his gang have cleared out of 266B, Regent's Square. Something alarmed them. But they'll try for Mr. Burke at once, if I know them. Come on—in my car. We're not far from his country place and he's taking a morning off there on his private links. That's where they'll try for him!"...
In less than three minutes they were away—with Sing Song driving, Carey sitting next to him, and the partners at the back.
"IT looks to me," said Mr. Bunn as they slid away, "as if Mr. Burke is in for a pretty close call."
"Like us," agreed Fortworth. "I don't like those poison bombs."
"You'd like 'em a good deal less, old man, if you'd seen that little cat stretch out at the first sniff. I don't know what they're made of, but whatever it is, it's deadly stuff."
He puffed thoughtfully at his cigar.
"I'll tell you what it is, Squire," he said presently. "We've been pretty smart one way and another—the way we've built up this case against this deaf Gerard; when you come to think of it we've only had a few remarks of a delirium to help us—yet, here we are, with the whole plot exposed and hot on the track of the 'crook'—all without moving out of our chairs, so to speak. Just built up—"
"Yes, that just it, just built up, with nothing to go on except what the sick man said, and Carey telling us who he was, and the doctor saying where he lived, and Carey explaining who Burke is, and Sing Song finding out where the deaf guy lived and a few things like that," said Fortworth sarcastically.
Mr. Bunn started, glanced sharply at his partner, and grunted a little.
"Oh well," he said.
Neither spoke much for the next ten minutes. Then Mr. Bunn, leaning forward, asked Carey what his plans were.
"You'll see in a minute," said the South African, "we're nearly there."
Five minutes more fast travelling and Carey gave Sing Song an order to stop.
They were in the middle of a long, straight road, running past a big, well-timbered park. The car had stopped opposite a small, unobtrusive door in the park fence.
"In here," said the South African, and then moved quickly to the door.
Sing Song leaned anxiously over the side of the car.
"You taking me, mastel?"
Smiler queried Carey, who nodded. Leaving the car unattended they all entered the park, to find themselves standing on a mossy footpath under heavy trees.
"There should be a lot of men beating out the undergrowth round this park," said Carey.
"D'ye think the man will risk it?" asked Smiler.
"The Unseen Hand will risk anything. They don't care about their agents' lives. They'll send a man to certain death if there's a chance that he'll do his work before he's scotched."
They had come to the edge of the timber belt and stood for a moment staring across the park. Not a single person was to be seen anywhere. Most of the park visible to them was taken up by the 9-hole golf course and a small lake, beyond which stood, on a slight rise, the house and gardens.
"Well, it's pretty lonely," commented Smiler, "and pretty wide-open, too. You'd hardly think this is the sort of place a man would choose to commit a murder in. Pretty nearly every square inch of this park is visible from every window as well as from those terraces. In fact I don't quite see where a murderer could hide unless he crouched down behind one of those bunkers or behind the trunk of one of those trees—and there are none too many of either."
Carey nodded, his keen eyes raking the empty, sunny links.
A pheasant burst out of the timber belt away to the right, with a ringing note of alarm and flew across the park. Smiler nodded.
"Some of your men working there," he said. As he spoke two little lonely figures came into sight on the brow of a slight rise going towards what was the fourth green. They were followed by two tinier figures carrying golf bags—the caddies.
"There they are," said Carey, frowning. "You wouldn't think a man would risk his life for the sake of a game of golf, would you? But Mr. Burke has been working himself to where he's got to have a taste of his favourite game or go on the sick list."
He stared at the players, scowling.
"I've got a hunch that the gang will try for him here and to-day. I warned him so this morning, but he laughed."
"Unless they hide in the undergrowth and use a rifle, Carey, they can do nothing."
"Oh, can't they!" said Mr. Bunn sharply. He stared very intently at something for a second, then turned to Carey.
"They're nearly on the green. Where's the next tee?" he demanded swiftly.
The South African pointed.
"About thirty yards to the right. There's the box—nearly under that tree—painted white. See it?"
"Yes—come on, quick!" snapped Smiler, and ran out heavily, heading for the tee.
"Get your guns," he gasped to Carey, racing beside him. "There's something wrong with that tree by the tee!"
"Good God, of course!" snarled the pistol expert, dragging out the Colts as he ran.
Mr. Bunn was shouting to the players.
"Back—keep back from the green! Back! Damn them, they can't hear!" he bawled. "Keep back! Hey, Burke—you! Keep away from that tree."
At last the players stopped, staring. Evidently the little quartette, tearing across the park, had been noticed by others, for suddenly a whistle, extraordinarily powerful, screamed piercingly and men emerged from the timber belt in all directions—the "beaters."
Smiler Bunn's party were nearing the players when one of the caddies, who was standing some yards nearer the tree than the others, suddenly collapsed and dropped in a limp heap.
Carey cursed, and stopped.
"Can't see a thing, but here goes!" he said, and firing from both hands, poured a stream of bullets into the foliage of the tree. Nothing happened.
The South African grabbed Mr. Bunn's and Fortworth's automatics and raced up to the tree.
There were three or four flashes—glitterings, like rain-drops glittering in the sun as they fell—shooting from the tree towards Carey. They were quite noiseless. Almost instantly Carey fired another half a dozen shots into the tree so swiftly that they sounded almost like one report—then leaped away towards the players. His face was purple, for he was holding his breath.
Sing Song, meantime, had lifted the caddie and was hurrying away from the place where the boy had dropped.
So they all came together in a bunch—players and all.
"Got him! By G—d, Carey's got him!" gasped Mr. Bunn, pointing to the tree.
Something was falling through the branches—slowly, as though it were holding on—seizing at twigs. Once it hung $till for a moment, then lost its hold, and fell with a heavy thud to the ground. For an instant it looked like nothing more than a huge, thick, tangled clump of foliage or grass, but only for a fraction of time.
Then they saw that it was a man, wearing a leaf-green suit, oddly black-barred, with a few green-leaved twigs bound to the arms, head and shoulders. His hands and face were dyed green and he wore a wreath of green leaves on his head.
He fell face down and never moved—for he was lying face down in the little lake of poisonous gas from the glass-bubble bombs he had tried to drop on Carey and which, had the Bunn Brigade arrived five minutes later, would certainly have killed Mr. Burke, for whom they were intended, and probably his companion.
For a moment they stared at the motionless green heap.
Then Carey turned to the little, lean, big-headed man whom the partners understood was Mr. John Burke, and, in an unusually respectful tone, said that there was no further danger. There was no risk in continuing the game now. But Mr. Burke had no longer any interest in the game.
He smiled faintly, gravely thanked them all in a few perfectly chosen words, and went slowly back to his house.
They watched him go—little, slender, bowed, like a man moving under a burden of responsibility almost too great for any one man to bear.
What those responsibilities were, or exactly why the life of this mysterious man was so immensely valuable and important to the British Empire, Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth never knew—and, indeed, never inquired.
Carey said it was so, and they had seen enough to know that probably it was so, and "that," as Mr. Bunn said, "is good enough for us!"...
They waited a little for the poison fumes to disperse and then approached the painted man.
He was wounded in four places. Although Carey could not have seen more than a green blur through the green foliage that had been enough for him.
So they turned the body over to the Secret Service men—but the body of the caddie was taken to the house.
Then the Bunn trio and Carey departed.
"How the devil did you know that green murderer was in the tree?" asked Fortworth abruptly, as they regained the car.
"I saw a speck of light about the size of a pin's head. The sun must have caught the glass of one of the bombs for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Nothing growing on that tree would have flashed like that—so I bawled to Carey and chanced it," said Mr. Bunn.
Fortworth nodded.
"Well, we got him,"
"We did—and got him good. They'd put in a lot of thought towards getting Mr. Burke. Wonder if he was the Regent's Square killer? If so that leaves Fritzi Steilberg up against us still,"
"And the Unseen Hand?" Carey reminded them.
"Sure—and the Unseen Hand," agreed Smiler, and lapsed into thoughtful silence.
Within ten minutes of their arrival home Carey had learned, per telephone, that the green man, the "deaf adder" and Gerard were one and the same man. Headquarters had got it from Howarden who was now no longer delirious—but dead.
"Well, there goes another finger of the 'Hand,'"said Smiler, reaching for a little refreshment. "We get nothing for it, but all things considered, we don't regret it.. No decent person wants a reward for killing an adder, hey, Squire?"
"Certainly not," said Fortworth, "and if you haven't got a life interest in that decanter you might steer it across to Carey. He looks as parched as I am."
With a hasty, but sincere, apology Mr. Bunn passed the decanter—and the rest was peace.
"THERE isn't the slightest doubt in my mind that the country is in for a very grave shortage of food before many months are over," said Mr. Smiler Bunn, reflectively, as he and his partner stepped out of their limousine one evening after a quiet little dinner at the Astoritz. "A very grave shortage, indeed."
Fortworth smiled a hardish smile, opened his mouth as though about to be sarcastic, then, apparently realising the seriousness of the gloomy future prophesied by Mr. Bunn, shut it with a snap.
"Yes," said Mr. Bunn for the third time, "A very grave and serious shortage of food."
"Why?" asked Fortworth.
"I don't know why—I couldn't explain why, if you searched me, Squire. It's just a presentiment. I've got a kind of instinct that these Boches have never yet stretched themselves in the submarine department. They've never really set out to soak our merchant service."
Fortworth laughed robustly, as they went up in the lift.
"There's a reason for that," he said cheerfully.
"What reason?" demanded Smiler.
"The Navy, son," explained Fortworth. "I've got every confidence in the Navy."
Smiler Bunn nodded.
"Sure," he said. "So've I. She's a Navy and a half, and she can have a reference from me any time she wants it. But what we've got to remember is that we aren't helping the Navy by just carrying on as usual, and then sitting down in an armchair and saying 'Famine? Bah! Famine be damned. The Navy'll put a stop to that!' 'Merchant ships? Pooh! The Navy'll look after them!' Or 'Transports? The Navy'll see to the Transports!' Or 'Mines! Lor' bless you, the Navy'll sweep the mines up!' That's the way half the sponge-headed stiffs in this country talk. Anything threatened? Yah, forget it-—haven't we got a Navy? That's the tone and"—Mr. Bunn raised his voice—"there's too much of it. It's 'Shove it on to the Navy!' every time. I believe there are people in this country who, if a burglar got away with the Crown Jewels, would rise up and say, 'Stole the Crown Jewels? What? Why, what on earth was the Navy doing?' It's a fact. To hear some people talk you'd think that the Navy instead of being just a human crowd of the best type of men in the country, and the best trained, with some fine ships, was a collection of wizards, magicians and soothsayers—a herd of miracle-workers in fact."
Fortworth received this in the thoughtful silence it deserved and they let themselves into their flat rather solemnly.
But as presently he settled down, Mr. Bunn threw his partner a word of cheer.
"I haven't any sort of doubt, however, that if the Boche starts any submarine caper it won't be long before the Navy gets him by the scruff of his neck and shakes the gizzard out of him, but they'll need a reasonable amount of time to get into their stride. Until then—if they decide to go all out on the submarine business—there's bound to be a shortage."
Fortworth nodded without enthusiasm and was about to speak when the telephone bell rang.
Mr. Bunn answered it, Fortworth watching him idly. But the ex-peer did not fail to remark how abruptly Mr. Bunn stiffened after the first few preliminary phrases. Fortworth removed his cigar, eyeing his partner very closely indeed and listening with all his natural force.
And, indeed, Smiler Bunn was engaged in conversation with a person of some significance—none other, in short, than that viperine female agent of the Unseen Hand, Fritzi Steilberg.
In a moment Mr. Bunn covered the receiver with his hand and turned to Fortworth.
"What's wrong?" inquired the ex-Baron.
"It's that she-rattlesnake, Fritzi," said Mr. Bunn softly. "She says she's got a proposal to put before us."
Fortworth nodded.
"Well, who's stopping her?"
"Sure—didn't you hear me asking her that?" replied Smiler. "She says that what she's got to say wouldn't sound well over a telephone wire."
"Then let her put it in a letter card," growled Fortworth.
"She says," continued Smiler thoughtfully, absently, like a man talking half to himself, "that we've got to meet her and discuss this proposal of hers.... She seems to have made arrangements, too."
He spoke again through the telephone. But he got no answer. Evidently the wary Fritzi had hung up and departed.
So Smiler turned to Fortworth and put the matter to him in generous detail.
"She's certainly got her nerve out of its scabbard, that Boche tigress has," he announced. "She rang up to tell us that she has a proposal to make—'a very acceptable proposal' she said—if it could be arranged for us all to have a private interview together."
"Yes," sneered Fortworth. "It would be a private interview—with one Prussian thug behind a screen, one under the settee, one behind the sideboard and a spare pair in the bookcase."
Smiler nodded patiently.
"Yes, yes, I said pretty much that to her myself. But she says that there are no traps—'yet,' she added. She is willing for us to go to a well-known London hotel at noon the day after to-morrow, take Room 242, have it searched first, if we want to, or search it ourselves—and wait there (with the door open and detectives within hail, if we want 'em) till 12.30. Then she will put in an appearance and will make her proposal to us. She said she'd give us full permission to arrest her if we could."
Fortworth stared.
"What hotel is it?" he inquired.
"She wouldn't say. If we agree we are to put just the one word 'Yes' in the 'personal' advertisement column of 'The Evening Telegram' to-morrow. Then we shall be told over the 'phone at five to twelve what hotel we have to take Room 242 in to-morrow."
"Huh!" was Fortworth's illuminating reply.
For a moment the partners thoughtfully smoked.
Then at last Mr. Bunn put his favourite question:
"Well, what are we going to do about it? I don't doubt that that she-cat is going to make us a fair offer to go over to the Unseen Hand crowd. And I don't doubt, either, that it'll be some offer. Now, I ain't what the newspapers would call a patriotic man no more, or you, for it's a hard job to be the newspapers' idea of patriotic at the best of times, and ten times harder when you know that the police want you (if they only knew you) for forty different things." Mr. Bunn frowned heavily,
"No," he continued, "we ain't a patriotic brace, but we've got the common sense to know that when it comes right down to rocks there ain't any other country fit to be more than what you might call a wart on England, and consequently Fritzi's idea of buying us is going to miss fire. The thing is can we pinch her and hand her over to Carey if we keep this appointment? I've got an idea that we can. And it looks to me as though the best thing we can do is to put 'Yes' in the agony column, put Carey wise to the whole scheme, and have him and a few 'helps' handy when we interview the lady."
Fortworth, as usual, agreed—and with the kind collaboration of Mr. Carey they made arrangements accordingly.
AT exactly twelve o'clock two days later Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth, having carried out the instructions of the elusive Miss Steilberg with considerable care, entered that huge building in the West End known as The Empire City Hotel and asked for Room 242 for a day.
There was no hitch. A sleek clerk of middle-age referred to certain books and intimated politely that their desire could be accommodated. He turned them over to a hireling in an elaborate "Empire City" livery who proceeded to steer them unto the room in question. As they entered the lift a brown-faced, quiet person entered behind them—Mr. Carey—and was greeted with mild surprise (for the benefit of the hireling) by the partners. The briefest of conversations revealed the fact that Carey, too, oddly enough, was staying in the hoteL—had come there only that day, in fact—his room was No. 241. Mildly, the partners expressed their surprise and pleasure—and so the little procession proceeded to their rooms.
No sooner had the hireling departed than Carey nipped into Room 242, locking the door behind him.
Within five minutes the three, working swiftly, had examined every nook and cranny of that room—a very comfortably furnished apartment of fair size.
Then Mr. Bunn sat down heavily and lit a cigar.
"And that's that," he said flatly. "Fritzi ain't hidden here—nor any of her favourite death-machines either. So the only thing to do is to wait until she puts in an appearance."
Fortworth agreed—but Carey said nothing. He sat on a chair in a corner from which he could see every part of that room, and then silently produced his beloved pair of Colt revolvers. Holding these one in each hand, he was about to speak, when quite abruptly a perfectly bare space, about a foot square, of the wall disappeared.
That is to say it swung inward, smoothly and with absolute silence, leaving as it were in its place a square hole, resembling somewhat the aperture through which on railway stations the booking clerk issues his wares.
Mr. Bunn and Fortworth started slightly, staring.
Then they rose simultaneously. A voice came through the trap, pleasant, indeed, rather musical—a voice they had heard before, for it was that of the Steilberg.
"Good-day, gentlemen," she said, "I am so glad that you have decided to keep the appointment."
She continued, speaking rapidly.
"Before we talk business, let me hasten to warn you that you will be wise to play fair. If you are hoping to play tricks, you are making a mistake. I will show you—please stand quite clear, out of the line of the hatchway through which I am speaking—so!"
They stepped clear hurriedly.
A second later they heard a low order in the woman's voice, a click, and then with a hissing so pronounced as to be almost a whistle there came stabbing through the hatchway like a spear, a lean, vicious jet of bluish flame that shot half-way across the room, hung there for an instant, a deadly, slightly quivering thing, as thick as a man's arm, throwing out an extraordinary heat, then vanished, with an odd appearance of having darted back to the place from which it came.
"That, gentlemen," came the musical voice of the Unseen Hand agent, "is to show you that I can take care of myself—I have other devices of the kind here at my hand—and that I mean to play fair. Suppose that I had thrown the flame through when you were both peering into the hatchway—into your faces!"
Fortworth snarled softly. Over in his corner Carey sat, mute and watchful, so that it was Mr. Bunn who replied.
"All right! We take notice. What do you want?"
"You and your friend to join us. You are adventurers—men of no country—we know that in spite of your exploits in Belgium last year—and we need you. Join us, and you shall be paid each a fortune. There is work that you can do. If you are willing, advertise in 'The Evening Telegram' for to-morrow the word 'Yes.' That gives you time to think. Instructions will then be sent."
There was a pause, while the partners stared at each other. Then, just as Mr. Bunn opened his mouth to answer, another voice spoke—a harsh metallic voice.
"Listen carefully," it said, and word for word, slowly and distinctly, it repeated again what Fritzi Steilberg had said. They listened.
Carey had risen and, keeping well out of the sight of anyone at the other side of the hatchway, was moving noiselessly round.
The harsher voice ceased for a second, but before either Mr. Bunn or Fortworth could answer it continued—this time more harshly, and much more indistinctly than ever:
"Listen carefully," it said again—and again repeated the offer.
Fascinated, the partners listened to the end.
It was not till the voice, now so harsh as to be scarcely intelligible, began for the third time—"Listen carefully," that the three men suddenly swore.
"Why—it's a damned gramophone!" snarled Smiler Bunn. "She's gone—been gone five minutes!"
It was even so.
In spite of the warning menace of the flame-jet and her hint of worse horrors with which she could protect herself, Fritzi evidently had not proposed to take any undue risks of capture. That was made painfully clear to the trio within the next fifteen minutes. They found that the room from which the woman had spoken was one of a big block of offices adjoining the hotel and to which block there was no private entry from the hotel. The room itself was simply an empty, practically unfurnished office. Save for a small table just under the secret hatchway (which was evidently of long standing and probably had been used for many other purposes by the Unseen Hand) upon which stood a gramophone there was nothing at all in the office. Clearly the hatchway and the office had ceased for some reason to be of value to the spies....
Mr. Bunn went across to the gramophone, which was electrically driven, with a mechanical device for lifting back the needle when the end of the record was reached. The thing was still working but it was no longer intelligible. A special "soft" record appeared to have been used and it was long since worn out. The Steilberg had simply applied the principle of vanishing ink to the record.
Smiler switched off the current and the discordant jumble of sounds ceased.
"She had us there," he said with a hard grin. "Kept us listening to a gramophone while she got away and when we capture the machine she's fixed it so that nobody can tell what it said! We must seem pretty 'easy' to her."
The others agreed, rather sheepishly, and Carey, having officially explained matters to the startled manager of the hotel, they returned home to discuss the position....
Much talk, well-moistened with whisky and soda, brought them to the conclusion that in spite of the obvious risks, Smiler and Fortworth would proceed with the business. Advertising "Yes," as advised, they would endeavour to get into close touch with the gang—when, if all went well, there was a possibility of Carey and his men making a goodly haul. If, on the other hand, all did not go well, there were evidently grim times ahead for the partners. From decoys, or as Mr. Bunn succinctly described it, "tiger-bait" they would change with some swiftness to victims.
"It'll be ticklish work," said Mr. Bunn, "very. And if it wasn't that we owe a personal grudge to Fritzi I'm not sure that we should care to waltz into the business at all, hey, Squire?"
"Squire" Fortworth fully agreed.
"If the she-cat hadn't insulted us the way she has," growled the ex-peer, "I wouldn't go within five miles of her claws. But I'm not taking from any woman what Fritzi has handed us, one way and another—so I'm with you all through!"
"And that's that," said Mr. Bunn. "And Carey can write out the advertisement for 'The Evening Telegram.' I hate pen-work anyway—always did."
So they settled it.
THE affair went smoothly—so smoothly indeed and so entirely lacking in difficulties that four days later the big limousine of Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth, with that durable Chinaman, Sing Song, at the wheel, might have been observed at early dawn to issue rather noisily forth from the partners' country retreat at Purdston, and go gliding away in a northerly direction until it arrived at a quiet village somewhere between St. Albans and Hertford. Just outside this village the car stopped at a cross roads. Upon a milestone was sitting a fresh-faced man of middle-age, who, judging by his soft, careless fishing hat, the state of his boots, and his loose, comfortable raiment, was evidently engaged upon a walking tour.
This individual rose as the car stopped, crossed over to it, and looked in at the window.
"You are for the coast, gentlemen?" he inquired, in the perfect English one naturally would have expected from so English-looking a person. He spoke rather loudly, owing to the quite unusual noise of the car.
"We are," said Mr. Bunn.
"And your names are?"
"Froude and Lenny."
"Thank you, gentlemen," said the man in the fishing hat, and moving away, stepped into the seat next to Sing Song, and pointed out the road.
The Chink, after a swift side-long glance, nodded, and the car moved on, along the road pointed out by the new passenger.
Besides the noise, there were one or two rather unusual though not noticeable features about the ordinarily luxurious car of the partners. It was fitted with a brand new set of tyres, with a curiously complicated non-skid pattern moulded upon the tread of each tyre—the pattern on the two front tyres being different from that on the two back. Also, had one been able to see it, the outside of the roof of the car seemed to have been newly painted with an odd, yellowish hued paint. But these little matters were hardly noticeable. Certainly the person in the fishing hat had not noticed them. And even if he had it is doubtful whether he would have guessed that there was any connection between the noisiness and the painted roof of the car, and two minute specks overhead at an immense height in the sky—one almost over the car, the other some distance behind the first speck. One would never have recognised these specks as aeroplanes—especially with the far, faint noise they made, entirely drowned by the roar of the car. And, this being so, naturally it would not occur to one that the ugly paint on the car-roof might conceivably be luminous paint visible from the sky at night. Further, he would have been indeed a wise, far-sighted person who would have connected the new tyres on the partners' car with two goggled motor-cyclists who, each riding a very powerful and extremely silent war-pattern Sunbeam with a side-car and passenger, arrived Some ten minutes later at the cross-roads, and slowed down for a moment while their passengers carefully picked up a certain trail in the roadway. But they were.
Mr. Bunn and Fortworth were going, they understood, from the last four days' negotiations with the Steilberg, to an important headquarters of the Unseen Hand—but they were not going alone, despite the elaborate precautions of the spy-mistress.
Somewhere up in the sky in one of those specks was Mr. Raymond Carey, with a powerful glass, and behind him were two other aeroplanes, each with its observer, in case of accidents. And, also in case of accidents, those Secret Service wolves on the Sunbeams, were there to trail the limousine wherever it went—if necessary over precipices. Behind these, too, were yet another couple.
Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth were much too wise and experienced to dive as it were into a pool of crocodiles without taking proper precautions.
They had no trouble in getting their invisible escort, for they and Carey were by no means the only people who were anxious to rim the elusive Fritzi and Co. to earth.
Precisely what the spy-woman wanted of them they did not yet know. Each of them, as well as the cautious Carey, believed she was authorised and intended to make them a genuine offer to join the Unseen Hand—and, equally, all three—four, including Sing Song—were perfectly certain that if they openly refused the offer, they were certainly doomed, provided such precautions as they had taken proved unavailing.
They had picked up the man in the fishing hat—whose name was given them as plain Smith—according to instructions, and Mr. Smith's duty was to bring them to the Steilberg forthwith.
It was, on the whole, rather a silent journey, as far as conversation between the partners was concerned, Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth had used up most of their conversation before the advent of Mr. Smith, and beyond an occasional somewhat acid criticism of that Unseen Hander's general appearance as viewed from behind, the partners devoted most of the time occupied by the run to the consumption of cigars.
They were, as they perceived from the towns through which they passed, as well as the various signposts, proceeding straight to the East Coast.
"It looks as though she means business—real, practical work," said Smiler. "If it were a question of plotting and planning I don't suppose it would have been necessary to leave London."
"Sure, sure," agreed Fortworth. "Still, if she wants practical work she can have it. I hope Carey and his crowd are winging along all right up there, though."
He raised his eyes to the roof and Mr. Bunn grinned a tight sort of grin, at the somewhat pious appearance which the action gave his partner.
"So do I," he said, and peered out of the car, as it began to slow up. "And here we are—wherever we are," he added.
The car swung through a pair of big gates into the rather steeply-banked drive of what was evidently a stylish country house. Evidently it was a place upon which much money had been lavished. The beautifully kept and expensively planted banks bordering the drive proved that at once.
But if the partners imagined that they were going to be allowed to see everything they cared to look for they were imagining a vain thing, for at that moment the car ran under a brick archway which evidently bore a roadway, spanning the rising banks, and stopped rather abruptly.
Mr. Smith stepped down and came to the window.
"It is necessary here that your driver should come in with you and—for obvious reasons—that you should have your eyes bandaged," he said smiling.
Mr. Bunn flushed.
"Your reasons, Smith, may be obvious to you—but they aren't to us," he said. "I'm not having any blind man's buff in mine, d'ye see? So, forget it and drive on—or drive back, whichever you like. But if we drive on it will have to be without any of this blind man foolery. Man, we aren't acting for the kinema. Get up on the box and talk sense."
Mr. Smith hesitated a moment, then decided.
"Very well," he said, "I shall have to suffer for this, not you."
"Sure. That's your affair, ain't it?" said Smiler. "Carry on!"
The car ran to a standstill before the front door of a big country house, to which the partners and Mr. Smith were promptly admitted by a youngish butler, while a footman was sent out to guide Sing Song to the garage—with strict instructions that he was to join his master and Fortworth immediately the car was housed.
Mr. Smith steered the partners to a large smoking-room, which, save for the unexpected fact that it was situated underground in a species of basement—a very rare phenomenon in an English country house—was quite easily one of the best and most luxurious smoking rooms the partners had encountered in a private house.
Smith went straight to a massive sideboard of beautifully-carved oak, so huge that it almost filled one end of the room, and was nobly bearing up under a prodigal array of bottles, decanters and liqueur flasks.
"What will you have, gentlemen?" he inquired.
The partners wandered across.
"What is there?" asked Mr. Bunn. "What is the whisky like?"
Mr. Smith smiled.
"I have no doubt that there is every well-known and really good brand either here or in the cellar. What is your favourite whisky?"
Mr. Bunn named it and Smith touched a bell. A few moments later a decanter of that brand was before them.
"Of course," said Mr. Bunn, very frankly, "All this is very hospitable and friendly, but we've got to remember that so far, Smith, you and we are on opposite sides of the game. That being so, you'll join us in giving a whisky and soda a home. The same whisky—and the same soda!"
"Certainly—with pleasure," said Smith. "It isn't drugged."
He proceeded to prove it by disposing of a stiffish one first, an example speedily followed by the partners.
"So far—good," said Mr. Bunn. "What's next?"
The door opened as he spoke, and the fair Fritzi glided in, extremely well-dressed in a country costume, and looking so attractive and smiling so engagingly that, if they had not known her as the dangerous traitress she was they would have, as Mr. Bunn subsequently put it, "taken a full-blown fancy to her."
Clearly her role was to be that of the Frankly Pleased Friend. She said so at once.
"Oh, I am so glad you've come," she said. "You know—honest injun—I liked you both so much when I first met you at your house at Purdston that I just loathed having to help steal your little chemist. And those poison bombs, too. I hated that part of the business, I assure you. Of course, I did it—orders, you know—but at the same time I've no doubt you know anyone can detest orders, at times, orders which they are just as anxious to carry out well. But that's all past and finished—though, for what it's worth, I'd like to say now that I am tremendously glad you were not killed—though I tried my very best."
And so consummate an actress was this woman that for an instant she almost deceived the hard-shelled old crooks into believing she meant what she said.
"But now you've decided to join us—what does it matter?" she went on. "And you heed not be afraid that you are joining a lost cause. I will show you something—look."
She stepped aside and twisted a carved knob upon the sideboard, then pushed at that massive piece of furniture. Silently and smoothly and with the ease of a well-oiled piece of machinery the whole thing slid some three feet along, revealing in the wall behind it a narrow doorway built flush with the wall. The Steilberg pressed a spring and this door opened, the woman touched a switch just inside the door and a blaze of electric light showed a narrow passage built in the wall.
"Now that you've decided to join us," repeated Fritzi, with the smile of a pleased child, "I will show you some things. Follow me—I will warn you when we come to the steps."
She stepped into the passage, smiling over her shoulder.
But Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth remained, as it were, rooted to the ground.
"There is nothing doing in dug-outs to-day, my dear," said Smiler unsmilingly.
"Certainly not," added Fortworth.
Fritzi stepped out again, laughing.
"I thought you were too intelligent to come until you had satisfied yourselves that we meant to play fair. And I have arranged for that." She took from the pocket of her coat a card.
"But this should convince—" her eyes dilated suddenly as the partners leaned forward—but before either of them could recognize that they were in instant danger, they were unconscious—rendered so by Mr. Smith, who with quite extraordinary skill and with no more complicated weapon than the butts of a brace of biggish revolvers had scientifically taken them from behind—the crash of the one butt on Mr. Bunn's head being practically simultaneous with that upon Fortworth's. They fell loosely and heavily.
"Good," said the Steilberg, coolly, and no longer smiling.
She stood clear of the entrance to the secret passage.
"Drag the brutes in," she said, and touched the bell.
"Go and see if Peter has finished the Chinaman, and bring him in by the back way," she said to the "butler" who appeared immediately.
The man went out quickly, and Fritzi stooped to help "Mr. Smith" drag the partners out of sight.
"Bah! Elephants!" she said with an acid little laugh.
But she might have curtailed even that brief indulgence had. she seen a yellow face appear silently at the door at the far end of the room, and, a second later, as silently disappear—that of Sing Song, the indestructible.
For an instant the Chinaman, his face wrung and distorted with doubt and rage—for he had seen Smiler Bunn's body—hesitated. Then he moved swiftly away—without sound.
In his hand he held the knife, for carrying which his master had so often reproved him—and it was no longer bright and polished. He went with the quick stealth of a beast of prey, following the "butler" as noiselessly as though he were in felt slippers instead of his chauffeur's boots. His face was terrible.
Not until he reached the garage—an automatic pistol ready in his hand—did the "butler" realise that Peter, the so-called footman, had been rather less successful with Sing Song than Mr. Smith with Sing Song's proprietors.
He found the man lying face down in the garage, very still.
With an oath he bent over him—and as he bent a silent Something leaped on him from behind, with a low, sibilant sound of hate that chilled his veins....
When, a moment later, the Chinaman left the garage both "butler" and "footman" lay face down upon the garage floor.
Sing Song, stealing back to the house, glanced up into the sky. High overhead two aeroplanes were circling the house. Carey, too, was pouncing on his prey....
But Sing Song did not wait. Grinning with fury he entered the house and made his way to the underground smoking-room.
There was no sound there now, and cautiously he peered round the door.
For a moment he stared, blinking. The room was empty, and the secret door had disappeared.
Then he darted into the room snarling. He worried round the end of the sideboard for a minute, like a dog round a rat-hole, then, chattering softly to himself, threw his weight against the sideboard. Nothing moved. He desisted, and ran round the room hunting for a lever. There was nothing of the least use there, and he disappeared. Almost at once he was back carrying a handful of tyre-levers and a big screw-hammer from the car tool-box. He was chattering softly to himself—but it did not sound pleasant.
As he was about to force the biggest of the levers between the back of the sideboard and the wall, the sideboard moved silently to the right. The Chinaman started, then waited, facing the wall. Almost immediately the secret door opened and Mr. Smith stepped out—straight into a vicious blow from the steel tyre-lever. He went down with a sob. Sing Song jammed his body across the threshold to keep the door open, and went into the passage, trotting with short, feverish steps like an excited terrier.
At the end of the felt-covered passage was a flight of stone steps, also felted. Down these he ran, and along a much longer passage, very low and narrow, until he came to a steel door. Fortunately this was not shut. He passed through, and some yards farther on arrived at a green baize swinging door. Very cautiously he swung back the door and peered round, to discover an apartment of considerable size. At one side of this room was a large table of telegraphic and telephonic instruments, at which the Steilberg woman was sitting working busily. At the far end of the room was a small window, of an odd shape, little larger than a port-hole, which was almost entirely obscured by a ragged bush. Faintly, and from far below, the Chink could hear the sound of breaking waves.
In the middle of the room upon the floor lay Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth, both still unconscious.
The Chink's eyes gleamed as he watched the woman. Clearly she was telegraphing someone somewhere. Sing Song thought it over, and he nodded slightly as he realized that he had come upon the traitor's end of a secret cable. As he reflected, Mr. Bunn stirred, and a slight groan caused the woman to look up from her work.
"Be quiet, pig," she said, and rose from her instrument. She took a small but effective looking revolver from a drawer and bent over the form of the reviving Smiler for an instant.
The Chink shot into the room like the yellow death that he was. The spy turned with animal swiftness, throwing up her hand.
There was a report—one only. The next instant the big knife of the Chink swung, hissing as it swung, to her wrist, half severing her hand. The revolver fell, thudding softly on the thick carpet.
She stared at the spurting blood, aghast, and then at the grim yellow face of the Chinaman. Then she began to shriek. But she had to do with a man far less chivalrous than Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth.
It was Mr. Bunn who saved her. He spoke dazedly, just as Sing Song, deliberately slow, poised to—finish it.
"For God's sake, lend a hand," groaned Smiler, and the Chink dropped on one knee beside him.
"You waitee there!" he snarled venomously at the traitress, and stooped to help Mr. Bunn to his feet.
As he did so she rushed for the door—straight into the arms of Carey, who swung back the baize door just as she reached it.
She stopped short, deadly pale and swaying. Carey caught her as she fell, unconscious. Behind him, other men poured into the room.
He passed the woman to these.
"Bind the wrist—you'll need a tourniquet," he said abruptly, and crossed to Mr. Bunn, who had risen and tottered to a chair. Fortworth, too, was coming to his senses.
"My God, we shall have to justify these dead men," said the Secret Service man to Smiler and the Chink. "They're all over the place."
"Sure," said Mr. Bunn, with a wavering grin, "if they can justify fracturing my skull! And Fortworth's!"
Sing Song, noting the gravity of Carey's face, whispered fiercely to his master.
"Certainly, son, certainly," said Mr; Bunn, less confusedly, pressing both hands to his head. "I was just going to mention it, Sing, my lad.... When that she-wolf can justify that telegraphic outfit it'll be time enough to talk about any dead rats which Sing Song may have had to kill in self-defence. Where was she wiring to—cabling to, you may say?"
Carey's face lighted up.
"That's all right, old man," he said, and went across to the instrument.
"Sure!" croaked a harsh and bitter voice—that of Fortworth. "You don't think that bunch of machinery is in direct connection with the G.O., do you?"
"You'll find the end of that cable somewhere out at sea—or oversea," said Mr. Bunn. "As for justifying—why—why, justifying be d-—d."
Carey nodded, and a murmur of approval ran round the little group of Secret Service men.
"The British Government can't use us and our Chink as tiger-bait without somebody getting it in the neck," continued Mr. Bunn, who seemed somewhat aggrieved. "I hope Sing Song wiped the whole push out. He's a good lad, is Sing, and he's going to get a bonus that will stand his hair on end. And if the Government won't pay it, we will, hey, Squire?"
"We will that," growled "Squire" Fortworth, tenderly feeling his head.
"And now," concluded Mr. Bunn, "we'll hand over to you, Carey, old man. We've finished. And if you can't find enough evidence in this snake's hole to justify a stack of dead Boche spies, call us in for consultation, and we'll find it for you."
He turned to his partner.
"Come on, Squire, if I don't get next to that sideboard right away I'm going to faint. That's what."
And so saying, he, his partner, and their yellow henchman moved to the door, through it and back to the underground smoking-room, where they spent the next hour or so in a completely futile attempt to modify the throbbing of their heads with the very cream of the contents of the cellar—and, thanks to Sing Song, of the kitchen.
But when, later in the afternoon, they, with Carey, started back to town they were undeniably brighter. So, for that matter, was the South African.
As he lost no time in telling them, he and his men had found in that place enough evidence of treachery to justify Sing Song's red half-hour a hundred times over.
"I made a mistake in letting you go there at all," said Carey. "If it had not been for just that little bit of over-confidence which reckoned it was merely a one-man job to put your Chinaman out you two would have been done for long before we could have got to you. That Boche fiend meant shipping you to Germany as soon as she could get in touch with a submarine. And I don't think that would have been long. You were wanted in Germany. That's why she didn't kill you in the hotel the other day.... That port-hole with the bush outside commanded a view of the sea and coast for miles. From the beach outside, the window is invisible—you can't even see a hole in the cliff. Only a bush."
"What about that cable?"
"I haven't any doubt but that it runs down inside the cliff; under the beach and into the sea. Where it ends we don't know yet—that's a job for the experts."
"And that she-thug, what about her?" demanded Mr. Bunn.
"She will do no more damage in this war. This time we've lopped a real finger off the Unseen Hand," said Carey.
Smiler sighed, not altogether satisfied.
"Oh, well, that's something anyway," he said grudgingly. "But don't ask us to shout about it till our heads have gone down. I'm glad it's all right, mind you, Carey—glad—but what I mean is, I don't feel like whooping about it. And I guess we'll be taking a short holiday from the Secret Service."
"Certainly—you deserve it, both of you," said Carey handsomely.
"Good... Well, have a cigar."
Carey accepted one, and from then onwards comparative silence reigned in the interior of the big car, broken only at intervals by a disgusted grant as one or other of the partners incautiously felt the region of his bruise too vigorously.
Carey was most tactful with them. When presently they parted he gently declined to lunch with them next day, pleading excessive pressure of work.
"But," he added, "if you will make it, say, five days from now, I'll come with pleasure."
A faint twinkle came into Mr. Bunn's eyes.
"You're a wise old guy, Carey," he declared. "It will take just about five days to wear down our grouch—and our bumps. Well, well, so be it. We shall all enjoy the lunch the better!"
He never said a truer thing in his life.
IT was during the dreamy cigar-scented hour following dinner one evening that Mr. Bunn, his mind hovering with affectionate reminiscence upon the rather choice lunch they had enjoyed that day at the Astoritz Hotel, recalled the lady with the bright bay hair—none other than their old friend Mrs. Fay-Lacy, who had been lunching at the next table with a gentleman who might have passed anywhere for Sing Song's uncle.
He removed his cigar for a moment.
"How did that Chink who was lunching at the Astoritz with Esme Fay-Lacy strike you, Fortworth?" he asked.
Fortworth looked up rather quickly.
"I took him for a crook, but Henri, the head waiter, told me as we came out that, as a matter of fact, he was a Prince. Prince or a mandarin, or both, if there's any difference. His name's Chi Hi, or words to that effect. What about him? He hasn't got money."
Mr. Bunn pondered.
"How d'you know?"
Fortworth smiled.
"Well, considering Esme is the Society tout for Moneylender Lazenger, it don't look rich."
"No," continued the ex-financier, "when you see a man lunching with Mrs. Fay-Lacy you see a man who wouldn't much mind hanging a sandwich board on himself with 'Broke' printed on it—if he had the price of a board."
Smiler nodded.
"Well, there hasn't been much of a boom in the Prince business in China lately. I suppose Chi is over here for what he can get and doesn't much care who knows it," he mused. "Republic over there, ain't it?"
"So-called," agreed Fortworth tersely.
Sing Song entered with the whisky and soda with which the partners were in the habit of dispelling the cloying taste of their liqueurs, and Mr. Bunn questioned him.
"Sing Song, my son, who is Prince Chi Hi when he's at home—if he's got a home?"
Sing Song's beady eyes gleamed a little.
"Velly noble plince, mastel. Velly lich powelful at one time, before Lepublic come."
"Lost his job now, I take it, hey?"
"He lost job now allee some allee Loyal Family,"
"Moneyed man, Sing?"
"Not got now—Lepublic takee. He tlying bollow money fol gettee Lepublic pullee down, cuttee up, killee Plesident. Bollow hundled thousans evelywhere—millions p'laps, bollow San Flancisco, New Yolk, all Melican cities, bollow all over Eulope, in Palis, Belin, Venna, evelywhere. Now bollow money in Londin."
The partners looked at each other, like a pair of old artillery-men that, seated outside some village inn, suddenly hear afar off an unexpected thudding of big guns.
"Pour out the whisky, Sing Song—carefully, mind—and give us the facts about this champion loan sharp," instructed Mr. Bunn.
Sing Song did so, not without a certain eagerness. He was, in his simple Chinese way, a thrifty man, and it rather depressed him to think of all the money which, in common with most of his fellow countrymen in England, he knew Chi Hi would shortly be carting back to China. The interest his employers were suddenly exhibiting in the matter cheered him up considerably, for he knew them quite sufficiently well to be aware of the fact that they rarely if ever extended their interest to a man and his money without, ultimately, taking a tolerably large fistful of that man's principal as a sort of quid pro quo.
But Sing Song knew very little more than the plain fact that Chi Hi was on the point of winding up a borrowing tour, the object of which, Sing Song believed, was the financing of an attempt to re-establish the monarchy in China.
The result of the inquiry was that the ever-ready Chink was abruptly fired down into the Chinese quarter with strict instructions to "get abreast" of the movements of Chi Hi without unnecessary and foolish delay.
For themselves the partners proposed to turn their kind attention to the bay-haired lady, Mrs. Fay-Lacy, in the morning.
FROM a casual and cursory survey—especially cursory—of the announcements of our more prominent moneylenders one would be wholly justified in surmising that they are as plentiful as pebbles upon the sea-shore; indeed, one might very easily come to the conclusion that it is a matter of some little difficulty to wend one's weary way through life to the impartial grave without succumbing, sooner or later, to the philanthropic blandishments of one or more of the swarming multitude of would-be helpers of financial lame dogs over the stile... into the field where the bull, temporarily concealed from view, is carefully sharpening his horns to gore the last golden bezant out of the aforesaid lame dog.
But though they be many in name our moneylenders be few in person—few but effective.
The Father of the Chapel, as one might say, or to put it in good plain old-fashioned French, the doyen of the many-aliased tribe of moneylenders, undoubtedly was, just then, Mr. Craik Lazenger, that sharp-set old he-wolf whose domestic den consisted of a small, ordinary, raw-looking detached villa in funereally-shrubbed grounds, outside Woking. Few borrowers ever had the privilege of meeting Mr. Lazenger personally, for few possessed, or were willing to part with, sufficient security to merit the personal attention of the elderly blood-sucker. It was usually one or more of his deputies with whom the average loan seeker dealt, while Mr. Lazenger occupied what leisure he could spare from his bigger investments in superintending the daily wool-harvest from afar off. He was one of those steely-eyed elders, with short, stiff black-and-white check whiskers and beard grown mainly for the purpose of ambushing a "Beware" mouth and chin. His income was probably as much as a hundred thousand a year, and his personal expenses might have amounted to six pounds a week. He was not a person of extravagant personal tastes, and it was a curious fact that he lived in constant terror of poverty. Occasionally, however, a borrower would come within reach whom Mr. Lazenger considered worthy of his special attention.
Such a borrower was Prince Chi Hi—introduced by the most able of Mr. Lazenger's staff of agents or (as Lord Fortworth put it) touts, Mrs. Fay-Lacy.
For Chi Hi had behind him as security practically as much of China as he could pawn—providing always that lenders were willing to pay out cold cash on the chance of Chi Hi and Co. uprooting the Republic, which, thanks to the war, was looking somewhat groggier than usual.
It was a chance upon which Mr. Craik Lazenger did not propose, at first, to spread himself very recklessly, but nevertheless, he was willing to discuss matters—via Mrs. Fay-Lacy, to begin with.
These facts represented the patiently acquired sum total of the Bunn-Fortworth Combine's knowledge of affairs two days after they first glanced into the matter.
Most of it had been gleaned by Sing Song from certain obscure friends and compatriots of his, who appeared to reside in, or at any rate frequented, a weird, old, rat-ridden, many-roomed and mysterious Chinese lodging-house, club or what-not, near the Docks.
Encouraged by this moderately fruitful preliminary canter of their saffron-hued satellite, Messrs. Bunn. and Fortworth proceeded to invite Mrs. Fay-Lacy to an elaborate dinner at the Astoritz.
It is quite possible, nevertheless, that it would have been money wasted had not a curious incident occurred just at the liqueur stage of the meal.
A red-moustached, gaunt gentleman with extremely glittering eyes, and wearing a dress suit that obviously had not been built for him, suddenly came up to their table, and, without the least preliminary, remarked staring hungrily at Mrs. Fay-Lacy:
"Esme, old girl, I'm right up against it."
And promptly proceeded to prove his words by pitching, in a dead faint, face forward across Mr. Bunn's lap.
"Why—oh, Gerald," gasped Mrs. Fay-Lacy, and sat where she was, utterly unable to stand, shocked into a bad trembling fit.
"Gerald, is it?" said Mr. Bunn, blankly, and, with the aid of Fortworth and a herd of startled waiters, got the red-moustached gentleman into a more natural position just as he opened his eyes.
A minute later he had disposed of nearly half a tumbler of costly cognac urged upon him by the partners, and was stiffening up somewhat. Mrs. Fay-Lacy, still white-lipped, introduced him to the partners.
The newcomer, it appeared, was Mr. Gerald Lazenger, son of Craik Lazenger, and it took the partners precisely thirty seconds to perceive that their presence was no longer in very urgent request. It was quite obvious that both Mr. Lazenger and Mrs. Fay-Lacy were keenly desirous of a private conversation.
And so Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth gracefully paid the bill, said farewell, and went.
They waited in the lounge to light their cigars, and as they waited saw Mrs. Fay-Lacy and Lazenger pass out, take a taxi, and depart to an address which, when they overheard it given to the driver, caused them to glance at each other a trifle uneasily.
For the address was that of Mrs. Fay-Lacy's flat—where at that moment the partners knew Sing Song should be actively employed in looking through her papers, with a view to seeing how matters stood between Lazenger senior and Prince Chi Hi.
In the ordinary way the Combine would never have taken an interest in the deal at all, but among the information that the invaluable Sing Song, in some way known only to himself, had cork-screwed from his Celestial friends in the house near the Docks, was the point that one of Prince Chi Hi's gentle Chinese idiosyncrasies was to collect all loans in cash or its equivalent in bar gold. Gold was a thing he understood—cheques not. Soldiers understand gold—cheques not. And a person who plans shortly to embark upon the enterprise of abolishing even the most rickety of Republics, above all things should carry gold in preference to paper or promises, wherewith to pay his men their salaries.
At any rate that was Chi Hi's plan—and as he purposed doing by his future warriors so he purposed being done by when drawing from the moneylenders he patronised.
But gold in bulk is heavy stuff, not too easily handled, and much can happen to it in transit—a fact appreciated at its full value by Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth. Hence their anxiety to know as much as possible of the time when Chi Hi would be taking his cash-boxes, safes, money-bags and so forth to the residence of Mr. Craik Lazenger.
"The Chink'll be all right," said Smiler, as they strolled away from the Astoritz. "The man or woman who can surprise him hasn't been born yet. He's got ears like a dog and the first click of the Fay-Lacy's key in her lock will send Sing Song under the bed or out of the window and down the ash-lift like a lamplighter. But at the same time, we might do worse than slip down to Victoria Street and have a look roundabout the flat in case we can lend him a hand."
Fortworth agreed, and they took a taxi to the top of Victoria Street. Mrs. Fay-Lacy's flat was in a huge warren described as Residential Mansions in that neighbourhood.
It was half-past ten when they arrived and they "looked round" until half-past eleven—concluding their look round with a look through the keyhole of Mrs. Fay-Lacy's door.
But, beyond the meagre knowledge that somebody in the flat was talking busily, they learned nothing, and, becoming rather uncomfortably aware of the fact that they had not enjoyed their customary period of repose after a well-thought-out dinner, they took a taxi home, leaving it to Sing Song to adapt himself to circumstances in any way that seemed to him most suitable and called for.
"Sing Song'll be all right," they said, comfortably, took a nightcap or two, and went to bed, without waiting for the arrival of the Chink—who, it may be said, was at that moment lying flat on his stomach under a luxurious Chesterfield in Mrs. Fay-Lacy's small drawing-room, listening attentively to the conversation of the red-moustached Gerald and his hostess.
In justice to Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth it should be explained that worry on behalf of their Chinaman would have been worry wasted. Sing Song had very little idea of how he was going to get out of the flat, and, at the moment, was giving the point very little consideration. Sufficient for the hour was the Chesterfield thereof might have been the carefree Chink's motto. And anyway he was there because his idol, Mr. Bunn, had instructed him to be there—and that was ample for Sing Song. He had a passion for doing his duty (when told to by Mr. Bunn), and he was perfectly willing to risk the six months or two years or whatever the award of merit would be in the case of capture. As Mr. Bunn would have said, "Sing Song always was a bit of a fatalist."
He was quite happy and tolerably comfortable where he was. It was improbable that the bay-haired lady or Lazenger junior would look under the Chesterfield unless he sneezed inadvertently—and he would have been in Dartmoor long before had that been a failing of his. He merely lay there, listening, his ears spread, as it were, like the nets of the fowler.
At one o'clock Mr. Lazenger departed. Mrs. Fay-Lacy, friendly enough, went with him down to the main door—the flat was on the first floor. Her two maids were long since in bed.
She met Sing Song coming down the stairs as she returned. He was smoking a cigarette from the open box on her table, but she did not know it. He stood aside, most politely, for her to pass. She caught a glimpse of his face and paused. The light was dim at that hour.
"Prince Chi Hi," she said, doubtfully.
Sing Song grinned.
"Excuse, madam—not Plince Chi Hi. Anothel gentleman," he explained. "Chinamen allee same look alike to English ladies."
"Oh, pardon," said Mrs. Fay-Lacy vaguely, and continued up the stairs.
It did not disturb the lady to find the door of her flat slightly ajar—she had left it so herself. Nor did she miss the cigarette—for, as Sing Song had so reasonably reflected, what was one cigarette among so many?
Nor did it occur to the Chink that he had effected his exit with rather considerable judgment and dexterity. Indeed, he thought no more of it as he slid swiftly homewards. He was too busy thinking out the details of the breakfast of his employers next morning. The knowledge he had gleaned concerning the Chi Hi-affair was quietly tucked away in the back of his head to be left until called for by his master on the following day.
WHEN, after their morning repast had been soundly defeated, Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth cheerily faced their daily task, they began by receiving the report of Sing Song.
Despite the lengthy duration of the period of his retirement under the Fay-Lacy Chesterfield, Sing Song had all the salient points boiled down to the degree of concentration which he knew the partners looked for.
He spoke, and a few minutes later Mr. Bunn summed up as follows:—
"Let's get it right, now," he said, in extremely business-like tones. "As far as we can judge from this yellow image's report old Lazenger is going to lend Chi Hi twenty thousand bones—all in gold—and Chi is going down to his place to sign the deeds and fetch away the gold at six o'clock in the evening the day after to-morrow. This Mrs. Fay-Lacy told Gerald Lazenger about it, and she and Gerald (who has just come out of gaol where he went for forging his father's name to a cheque) mean to have a dash at the gold for themselves—old Tooth-and-Claw Lazenger having treated her pretty harsh, too—and set up housekeeping on it. Well, now, where do we come in, Fortworth? We can't all have the stuff—somebody's got to stand aside."
"That gold is for us," said Fortworth bluntly. "We must live."
Smiler nodded.
"We'll cross Chi Hi out for a start," he said. "He only wants the money to start more bloodshed and war and foolery in China. Shouldn't be surprised if the Unseen Hand is at the back of this, too. I suppose they wanted a Republic over there or they wouldn't have had it. Live and let live—somebody over there put the ace on the king, and I don't see why we should be called upon to contribute twenty thousand towards the cost of a joker for Chi Hi to whang down on the ace. Cross Chi off. As for Gerald, and his red-headed Esme, cross them off too. It's only a blackguard who'll rob his father anyway."
"True," nodded Fortworth. "But who do we get the stuff from, the old man Lazenger, or Chi Hi, or young Lazenger after he's got it from Chi?"
"Well, we shan't get it off the old man—people have been trying that for years and never managed it. We might delay Chi an hour and let Sing Song impersonate him, but it's risky. And I doubt if the Chink could give what you might call a classy impersonation of a Prince, in spite of their faces growing the same shape. Could you come the Prince well enough, Sing?"
Sing Song, admirably aware of his limitations, thought not.
His employers agreed with unflattering conviction.
"You're right," said Smiler. "Just pour me out another Cognac, my son, and then get on with your work while we go into things."
And in accordance with their quaint custom of liqueuring after all meals, the two smooth old tigers took their Cognacs to the big bay window which a late autumn sun was considerately lighting up for them, and settled seriously to discuss their plan for preventing China from playing the game which would most suit Germany.
That night a 40 h.p. khaki-coloured touring car, driven by the able Sing Song and occupied by the partners, slid quietly up the drive of the comfortable house at Purdston.
Mr. Ferdinand Bloom, apprised by telephone, appeared at the door to receive them.
It was something past ten o'clock and Mr. Bloom was rather tired and a trifle overwrought, having undergone the unpleasant experience of subduing and recovering from a mild intoxication which really required from six to eight hours of tranquil slumber for effective dispersal. His face was slightly swollen on one side.
He silently took the heavy coats and sundries of his employers and, in reply to Smiler's friendly comment that he did not look very "flourishing," mentioned that he had neuralgia.
"That's all right, Bloom, my lad," Mr. Bunn assured him kindly. "Don't you worry about us. You do your best for us and you'll be looked after. You stick to your work and force yourself to forget the neuralgia. Don't think about it. It's a very painful thing is neuralgia, and we understand. You just slip out and get the whisky and soda, like a good lad, and look alive. You want to hustle round a bit, Bloomy, and it's astonishing how you'll overlook the neuralgia."
He held his hands out to the cheery glow of the fire that Mr. Bloom had lighted in readiness for them and turned to Fortworth.
"Not the man Sing Song is," he said, referring to the unhappy Ferdinand. "Too gloomy, and fat, and self-conscious, not to say selfish. The man's always thinking about himself. He never laughs—and a fat, neuralgic man that never laughs gives me the creeps."
"Who? Bloom? He's got as much neuralgia as a motor tyre and no more. May have a touch of toothache," grunted Fortworth. "He ought to shout 'Hurray' because it ain't gout."
They lighted cigars and pensively staring into the fire waited for Mr. Bloom's return with the refreshment.
Duly this arrived and was dealt with. Bloom, looking as happy as a captured missionary cutting firewood for cannibals, was bidden to remain in the room.
A moment later Sing Song came in from the motor-house, and Mr. Bunn began to announce the plan of campaign.
TWO evenings later, at seven o'clock precisely, Mr. Craik Lazenger, with well-concealed reluctance, duly separated himself from the two and three quarters hundredweights or so of bar gold for which Prince Chi Hi stipulated—a mode of payment which, though cumbersome, suited the moneylender admirably in that he had netted a moderate profit on the gold. It was not the sort of transaction that Mr. Lazenger cared for as a general rule. It savoured too much of the speculative. True, Chi Hi had been able to put up some nineteen thousand pounds worth of fairly good French securities, but the remainder of the securities were worthless unless the coup d'état of the aspiring monarch, served by Chi Hi was successful, in which case the modest Mr. Lazenger had something like two million pounds' worth of lands, docks, railway, mining, and a dozen other concessions and hefty things of that kind to keep for his very own—all duly approved, by cable, by an agent of the moneylender in Shanghai.
Blandly smiling, Prince Chi Hi supervised the carrying out of the gold—which had been weighed and packed—to the car he had brought. The work was done by two impassive Chinamen who had accompanied the Prince, and the gold was checked off by Mrs. Fay-Lacy, who was in attendance upon Craik Lazenger. The metal being stowed away, Chi Hi bade Lazenger an affable farewell and proceeded to stow himself away with it.
Old Lazenger watched the car disappear.
"That's the first Chinese prince I ever did business with," he said, adding musingly: "I wonder if he will get all that gold safely to China."
Mrs. Fay-Lacy could have told him, but she did not. She fondly hoped that within a few minutes there would be a Chinese prince on the London road twenty thousand pounds short in his accounts, and a red-moustached gentleman named Gerald speeding it homewards right merrily in a fast car that carried about two and three quarters hundredweights more cargo than it had left town with.
For, somewhere out there in the night, Mr. Lazenger, junior, the disinherited son of Craik Lazenger, with a friend, was waiting to receive the Prince.
And, although she did not know this—not far from Lazenger junior waited a quartette of peace-seekers who were determined at all costs to prevent precisely twenty thousand pounds' worth of bloodshed in China.
The house of Lazenger senior was situated in a well-wooded lane which ran off from the main road, and it was when Chi Hi's big hired limousine had travelled about half way along this lane that the glaring head-lights discovered to the driver a yellow touring car half blocking the road. The limousine pulled up.
"Can't you get past?" called a man, who appeared to be working over the engine of the touring car. "Sorry. Could you lend me a hand with this valve spring half a second, and I'll get out of the way."
The limousine driver got down, explained briefly to Chi Hi, and went over to the touring car and round to the far side of it, out of the zone of light from his own lamps.
As he did so a sudden whistling hiss from the back of the limousine announced the fact that either a valve had gone wrong or a puncture had happened—two valves, in fact, for the hiss of escaping air suddenly was redoubled.
Chi Hi felt the big car settle down on the deflating tyres and peered out. It was very dark in the lane and the man who had so swiftly unscrewed the valve caps was not visible.
Then from the off side of the yellow car came a curious, dull little noise, as of a blow, and a sort of choked groan. The two Chinese servants of the Prince were out of the limousine, like cats as Chi Hi, his eyes suddenly alive with suspicion, gave an order.
They were biggish, muscular men, but his muscle availed one of them little against the spanner of Gerald Lazenger, who, having finished with the tyres, was awaiting whoever came out of the body of the big car.
The Chinaman dropped heavily. His fellow, who had slid from the seat next to the driver's, leapt, like a wolf, for the dark figure of Lazenger. He went head down like a man butting, and Lazenger, more by luck than correct judgment, met him with that vicious artifice which, in certain circles, is described as "giving the knee." And he gave it as though he meant it. With his nose broken and his neck all but dislocated, the unfortunate Chink reeled back into the ditch unconscious.
Then the Prince Chi Hi became abruptly aware of a man at the door of the limousine, a man with eyes that gleamed wildly through the slits of a mask, who pressed a magazine pistol hard against his head and growled: "Get out quick!" At the same instant another man appeared at the other door, searching for the boxes under Chi Hi's feet.
The Prince was a strategist rather than a physical fighter. He could plan war on a large scale wonderfully well—but he was no practical exponent of the arts of attack or defence. He knew that these men wanted the gold and meant to have it, and he decided to let them have it. His life was more valuable than the money, which was a small amount in comparison with some of the sums he had borrowed. He got out, nimbly, and swiftly amalgamated himself with the darkness further down the lane, a second or so before the military arrived. The military!
A long, low, powerfully-engined khaki-coloured car, with blinding head-lights, shot silently up from the main road, stopped with a shudder two yards from the other cars, and four men in khaki—soldiers—jumped down. The dark steel barrels of their short rifles gave back a sullen reflection of the car lights as they moved. Three carried rifles—the fourth, an officer, had a big Browning pistol.
"Steady, men! Fire if they resist arrest!" barked the officer, in a voice that one would never have recognised as that of Smiler Bunn.
But neither Mr. Lazenger nor his accomplice was in the least desirous of resisting arrest. All they desired to do was to quit that place. It is much easier to knock an unprepared Chinaman on the head with a spanner than it is to outface an officer, a sergeant and two burly privates, all heavily armed.
There was something very cooling to the ardour of the two thugs in the fierce white light of the huge acetylenes on the military car, and in the sight of the business-like uniforms, brown belts, and drab puttees of the soldiers. A crook may have nerve and to spare to tackle an elderly Chinese Prince, but when the quarry is suddenly transformed into a quartette of big and beefy gentlemen of the Army, that same crook requires to make out a fresh mental balance-sheet of his nerve resources.
At any rate that is what Mr. Gerald Lazenger and his club-wielding friend did, and their figures worked out right first shot. The balance-sheet showed that "nerve in hand" was not enough by five-and-seventy per cent, to balance with "nerve required." The whole sum took about one-eighteenth of a second to work out, and so, even as the "Tommies" began to rush them, Lazenger junior and partners gave up the gold and bolted with a speed and precision beyond all praise or blame.
"Why the blazes didn't Esme drop a hint that the Chinese blackguard might have an escort arriving to see him home?" groaned Gerald, letting out another notch of speed as he fancied he heard footsteps behind him....
At the scene of the conflict the "escort" were working like demons. Sing Song had already turned the car, tearing down half a ton of bank to do it. The other "soldiers" were lugging the neat but heavy boxes from the limousine to their car.
The sergeant—ex-Lord Fortworth, no less—ran round with an electric torch examining the stunned.
"None dead—they'll be all right," he panted.
"Where's the Prince?" asked Colonel Bunn.
"Climbed a tree, or something—he ain't here," returned the sergeant, and got into the car. "Get in, Bloom—lively now!" Mr. Bloom scrambled in, and the car shot away down the lane, the "soldiers" hastily slipping on tweed caps and loud check overcoats as they got out of range of the glaring lights behind.
"Wide open, Sing!" muttered Mr. Bunn, jamming a cap on the head of Sing Song, who was driving.
The Chink opened the throttle and the car leaped forward. In two minutes she was clear of the lane and was booming home to Purdston, her false number flickering whitely, like a rabbit's tail, for all who cared about such things to see and make a note of. They were in and out of Woking by the time Mr. Lazenger and partner, tearing down the lane, stopped suddenly as they saw ahead the lights of the cab in which Mrs. Fay-Lacy was returning to Woking station.
"Over the hedge," grunted Gerald, remembering the cabman, and they left the highway for the woods, circled in the dark, and presently worked round to the main road, their masks removed and with cigars lighted, fondly hoping that they looked like two gentlemen who had merely been for a country stroll.
Without waiting for Mrs. Fay-Lacy they took the next train up to town.
"How about the car?" asked Lazenger's fellow thug anxiously. They were alone in the carriage, and Lazenger took full advantage of the fact.
"Car!" he bawled, his eyes bloodshot. "What do I care about the car? Let the man we hired it from look after his own car. All I'm worrying about is whether those military guys could identify us."...
When Mrs. Fay-Lacy arrived at the battlefield she found Prince Chi Hi, who had screwed up nerve enough to return, rather feebly trying to resuscitate the driver of the limousine—sandbagged—and his two Chinese servants—spannered and knee'd respectively.
The lady was surprised—more surprised than she cared to admit. The gold was gone, obviously, but it looked as though the thieves had forgotten their motor in their hurry. She couldn't understand it at all. But she did what she could, because she had to, and when the cabman had fetched the police, and the victims had more or less regained their senses, she kindly accompanied the still acutely confused Chi Hi to town in the limousine, leaving him at his hotel possessed mainly of a vague idea that if she had not been what she was, and if he had not been what he was, he could have loved her for her kindly aid, and positively determined that when the monarchy was re-established in China he would see that she received the greatly envied Chinese decoration of the Three Brass Balls, the Plume of Feathers, or some other souvenir of that kind.
Then Mrs. Fay-Lacy went hurriedly to her flat.
Gerald was there—and his friend. She did not understand the sudden appearance of the military—and Gerald was unable to enlighten her.
"Something went wrong, that's all I know," growled Mr. Lazenger.
Late that night, down at Purdston, Mr. Bunn handed Sing Song and Mr. Bloom their share of the plunder.
"There you are, my lads, there's a quid a piece for you to go on with. You've been good lads to-night, and if we sell the gold well I don't say but what you might get another quid—later on. We'll see how you go on."
He lay back in the armchair with a sigh of content.
"I think I can promise it to you. I'm very pleased with the way you two and Mrs. Bloom knocked up that quick dinner after we 4 got home—very pleased indeed. Now pour me out another drop of brandy, Sing Song. That's it. Put the uniforms away carefully, mind, and clean the rifles. Lord knows I hope we shall never use 'em—I'm anti-bloodshed myself—but cleanliness is next to godliness, so always keep your firearms clean, my lads. Now slip it."
They "slipped it" just as Fortworth came in—he had been locking up the specially constructed secret safe which they had had put in at Purdston.
"All right, Sergeant?" asked Smiler playfully.
Fortworth nodded.
"That's good." Smiler pondered awhile. "Well," he said at last, "it was as neat a job as we ever pulled off. We did everybody a bit of good, too—the loss of that twenty thousand will save a lot of lives in China."
"Yes," Fortworth grinned. "We've done a bit of good to everybody except Mrs. Fay-Lacy and her Gerald—and the Unseen Hand, if that was behind it all—which I doubt."
"Them! Oh, they're a couple of thieves—deserve all they get," said Smiler. "As for the Unseeners I guess they were operating from Berlin, if at all. But if the truth was known this was more likely a little private swindle on Chi Hi's part. If Germany started this China scheme she'd do the thing too thoroughly for it to be necessary for Chi to borrow from Lazenger. I guess we can count the Unseens out of this and put it down to a side shot of Chi's. In which case he's a crook and deserves to lose the money, don't he?"
"Sure, sure!" crooned Fortworth. "That's logic, ain't it?" chuckled Mr. Bunn.
"Certainly," agreed Fortworth. "Certainly it is."
"Very well, then, Squire. Pass the brandy!"
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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