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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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The Bunn-Fortworth Combine, coquetting with the idea of becoming landed proprietors, unwittingly fall among thieves, with serious results—for the thieves.
AFTER all is said and done it always comes back to one thing," said Mr.Smiler Bunn, speaking with extreme earnestness, "and that's the raw material. Mind you, I'll do Sing Song the justice of saying that he can do more with inferior raw material than any cook I ever heard of; but think for a minute of what the man can do with the best raw material. There's no comparison."
Ex-Lord Fortworth nodded gravely and thoughtfully.
"No comparison at all," he agreed, "Well, there's no doubt that either we've been had on our raw material lately or else it's not so good, generally speaking, as it used to be. More foreign stuff coming into the country, I should say. Anyway, there's only one thing for it—we've got to produce our own raw material if we're going to have proper food. That's as clear as daylight. And this little estate's our chance."
He turned again to the document he was holding, and quoted from it, with comments.
"'An elaborate range of hothouses has been built,'" he said, "You see what that means, Fortworth? The fruit is going to be right—we can watch it grow from the flower— grapes, peaches, melons, figs, and so on. They can be picked at eight-fifty-nine and served at nine o'clock breakfast, hot from the bough, so to speak. And, apart from the quality, it would be a very interesting and healthy plan to take a stroll out to the hothouse every night with a cigar and spend a few minutes selecting next day's fruit, vegetables, asparagus, and so forth."
"First-rate—go on," said Fortworth, his eyes brightening.
Smiler scanned the document— particulars of a small but very complete country estate for sale—again.
"It means that you can grow your own ducklings and chickens instead of making shift with London stuff. Mind, I haven't any complaint to make against a well-cooked Surrey capon—few men have—but I must admit I should like to see the bird brought up under my own supervision. That's only sense.... There's a bit of downland goes with the estate, and we can look to that for some very interesting Southdown, thyme-fed mutton and lamb. Hares are plentiful there, too, it says. Then there's the trout stream that intersects the estate. It's well-stocked— and Sing Song's got a very delicate touch with fish, as we know. Of course, I always considered trout more suitable for women—give me a good red mullet, speaking for myself—but still it's nice to know the trout are there if you want 'em. The cellarage is good and ample, and the dairy is well-appointed."
Mr. Bunn put the papers down gently, almost reverently.
"Well, without going through it all again, I must say that it sounds to me like the chance of a lifetime, and the sooner we see it, Fortworth, the better."
"It will probably be dear," said the ex-Baron wistfully.
"If it is, we must find the money somehow," replied Smiler firmly, "As you know, I'm not a superstitious man, but, if you understand, there's something about this estate that calls to me in a loud voice, and I've got to heed it."
"Me, too—it calls to me as well," said Fortworth, "We'd better go and see the agents. Sing Song can telephone for an appointment."
Mr. Bunn touched the bell. The telephone was on a small table across the room, but neither of the partners rose to do the ringing-up. They were not the kind of employers to keep a man-servant and do the work themselves.
Within the next half-hour they had gleaned a large amount of interesting and pleasing information about the estate from the rather garrulous agent at the other end of the wire, and—which was perhaps of more value than the information— an invitation to go down into the country and see the place for themselves. It was (said the agent) one of those chances which occur, on a careful average, once in four centuries. The owner was a banker of middle age, who had spent the fore part of his life living in town, over his bank, and at the age of fifty had been seized with the idea that he would like to taste the joys of squiredom. With that pleasure in view he had bought himself an estate some five miles from the big seaside town in which his bank was situated, improved it regardless of cost, and, after a year of the life, had grown not only to dislike it but positively to despise it. Like many a man before him, he preferred the grinding of the trams to the bleating of the lambs, and the locomotive's wail to the babbling nightingale. He had discovered that the sneezing of the taxicab, the deep groan of the motor-'bus, and the whoop of the newsboy satisfied his tastes more thoroughly than the brassy crooning of the cows, the drowsy hiccoughing of hogs, and the low hypnotic hooting of the cuckoo. In short, the agent urged the partners to lose no time in viewing the property. Mr. Levon, the banker in question, would welcome them with the utmost hospitality, and, in confidence, concluded the agent in a husky whisper, a quick sale would not be without its favourable effect on the price.
Thus it was that at about six o'clock on the same evening the big car of the Bunn-Fortworth Combine, with Sing Song at the wheel, rolled silently through the south-country village of Twitton and turned in at the gates of Lowlake Park—the estate that had so thoroughly sickened Mr. Randall Levon of country life.
Mr. Levon came out of the plain but comfortable-looking Georgian mansion to receive them. He was a short, bald man, with an acute-angled nose, and little, close-set needle-pointed green eyes. Judging by appearances, not a man one would ask to take care of one's watch and money while one went in for a bathe. He had an air of breeziness that was refreshing, if not too closely inspected. Probably fifty, he looked prosperous, but not likely to refuse a chance of adding to his prosperity. The partners were conscious of a slight feeling of depression as he greeted them with his shifty breeziness. Nor was it removed by the appearance in the hall of Mr. Levon's daughter, Catherine—a pale second edition of her father, with rather hungrier eyes, perhaps, and a quieter manner. She shook hands in a limp, reserved sort of way.
It was late evening when the Combine arrived, and dinner was to be served almost immediately—as soon as a certain Mr. Max Partrey came. Evidently Max was a gentleman who treated dinner with the respect this important function deserves, for he arrived well on time.
Mr. Levon introduced him to the partners as:
"Mr. Partrey—my right hand at the bank—in fact, my alter ego—or is it quid pro quo? I'm not any too well up in Latin."
"Nor me—nor me," said Fortworth airily.
"Not quid pro quo—you're thinking of sine qua non," corrected Mr. Bunn, who knew as much Latin as an Eskimo.
"Well, whatever it is, I want you to meet Max—one of the best and most reliable fellows in the world."
They shook hands, privately forming the opinion that if Mr. Partrey was indeed such a reliable sportsman, his appearance did not unduly advertise the fact. Levon himself was a hard-looking lot, but Partrey had him defeated from the start. He was a youngish individual, prematurely bald, with eyes that glittered metallically behind big lenses that added to the hypnotic effect of the eyes, rather than lessened it. He was big and powerfully built, and his jaws at the back were wide and bulbous—a certain sign of ruthlessness, to put it politely. He had a chin on him like the business end of a brassey. Obviously, in his way, a man with a personality.
If anything, the advent and appearance of Max added to the depression of the partners. It did not look as though there were any bargains to be picked up in the vicinity of Messrs. Levon and Partrey.
Nor, before dinner was half over, did the partners feel at all inclined to hunt for bargains. The meal was poor—inferior "raw material," cooked in an inferior manner.
The others seemed to notice very little wrong with it; but evidently they were no judges of food. Levon, in fact, appeared proud of the meal.
"Practically everything on the table is produced on the estate," he said enthusiastically, without the remotest idea that he was damning the estate beyond redemption in the eyes of the two experienced old vultures who were toying so mistrustfully with their food on either side of the table.
It was a dull meal, and the wine was not worth worrying about. And, if possible, the subsequent hour or so in the billiard-room, with what Smiler termed later "boss-eyed balls, bow-legged cues, and methylated whisky," was even duller. Partrey went off to the drawing-room to Miss Levon—to whom, stated their host, he was affiancéd—and after a strenuous but unsuccessful effort to steer the banker into a hook-beaked game of poker, the partners said "Good-night" and retired, each with what they described as "the hump."
"N.G.," observed Smiler briefly, removing his collar.
Fortworth agreed oathfully, and they parted.
Despite his inferior dinner, Mr. Bunn slept well—as usual. Or, rather, he bade fair to sleep well, had he been left alone. But about an hour after "dropping off" he woke with a start.
Someone was standing by his bed—Sing Song, his Chinese valet.
"You thundering quadruped!" he growled sullenly, "What d'ye mean "
The Chink whispered sharply:
"Not makee noise, mastel—wakee you impoltant. Stlange place this house—stlange talkee downstails. Mistel Levon talkee Algentine—takee thousands—plentee hundled thousand pound away. You coming now—please coming listen?"
He plucked anxiously at the sleeve of Smiler's pyjamas.
"All, all right—all right! don't tear the shirt off my back," snapped Mr. Bunn with drowsy irritation, "Go and wake Mr. Black for a change!"
(It may be said that for reasons known to the police and half a million or so other people Lord Fortworth had modestly abandoned his title some years before.)
Sing Song faded out of the room noiselessly, like a Chinese ghost.
It was characteristic of both of the crooks that they dressed—half-dressed would better describe it—in darkness. Most men would have instinctively struck a match and lighted a candle. Not so the partners. Like Sing Song they could see in the dark well enough to suit themselves.
Presently, flitting before them like a great soundless yellow moth, Sing Song preceded them downstairs; guided them through a ghostly-loqking, sickly-smelling conservatory, and out to the side of the house, creeping along, bent double. The partners, being a trifle too buxom, as it were, to bend very elaborately, went on all-fours—rather like big bears.
A few yards on Sing Song dropped to the ground, lying close in to the wall of the house, and the partners did the same. The manoeuvre was executed with perfect silence and precision. Indeed, it had to be—for the three were now jammed up against the wall exactly under the wide-open window of the billiard-room, listening intently to the low-voiced conversation of Messrs. Levon and Partrey, who were sitting, smoking and talking, in the cool night air which poured in from the green, quiet park outside.
The trio could not have been separated from the two inside by more than a few feet, and they heard every word distinctly.
"Yes—the first way is best. You're right, Partrey. You will be run down, and I give you six weeks off for a rest cure in Germany," came the smooth voice of Levon (no longer breezy), "To make it public, I have a sort of dinner with all the leading jackasses of the town present. You will be the guest of honour, and I hand you a presentation watch—as a token of esteem from the bank. Four weeks later I discover—by chance—that you've managed the bank so well that you've managed to make a clean bolt with practically everything realisable the bank's got. I'm ruined "—an evil little chuckle came from Levon as he spoke— "ruined but honest, and brave to the last. I'll stand by the ship, do the best I can, give up everything I've got—and face it out. Be a brave, heart-broken old man, silver hairs in sorrow, and all that. It'll take the best part of a year. Then, quietly, I'll drop out and join you and Catherine in the Argentine. We might get about eighty thousand each."
There was a pause.
Then Partrey said:
"Yes—it's easy. I'm game!"
They heard him clear his throat.
He went on:
"And now that's settled I may as well say that I've got about twenty thousand of the bank's money already stuck aside, and another twenty thousand sort of planned out "
"The devil you have!" ejaculated that "brave, heart-broken old man" Levon surprisedly, to whom this was evidently news.
Partrey laughed a little.
"I have. Did you think I was honest? Fancy you thinking you could get an honest manager and general beast of burden for four hundred a year? You surprise me, Levon—you do, indeed. Man, if you hadn't come out with your cosy little scheme to-night, in a month's time I should have been far, far away across the deep blue sea, with thirty or forty thousand of yours— or rather your depositors. But that's all knocked on the head now. Your idea is the real goods. Eighty thousand apiece and a good four weeks' start to get away in, and nobody special on your track—why, which would you choose?"
The two frauds laughed heartily but softly together.
But they did not laugh quite so heartily as the Bunn-Fortworth Combine laughed ten minutes later, when they had regained the privacy of Smiler's room. It was all so very amusing.
"IT'S up to us to grab Mr. Shifty Partrey on the hop," said Lord Fortworth as their car rolled away from Lowlake Park on the following afternoon.
Smiler Bunn nodded.
"On the hop's correct," he replied, "But we'll have to watch him from now onwards. I've got a kind of notion he'll try to land Levon in the cart. We'd better send Sing Song back to-night to do the watching."
Fortworth agreed.
There had been no business done in the matter of the estate. The partners had left as soon as they decently could, promising to "consider" the matter. They had spent the morning wandering about the place with Levon, rather listlessly listening to panegyrics of the place that were as clumsy as they were obviously untrue. The estate was a "dead one," as far as the Bunn Combine were concerned.
For some time there was silence in the interior of the big car. Then, presently, Smiler uttered the conclusion to which his somewhat protracted cogitation had brought him.
"The thing that puzzles me, Fortworth, is Catherine. What's Partrey going to burden himself with Catherine for when he hikes out for the Argentine with all that good money? He don't love her—not passionately, I mean. A baby could see that. And a man hasn't got to go fifty miles to find the reason. She's never going to win any beauty prizes, Fortworth, to put it politely, and if I'm any judge she ain't any sweeter in her disposition than she is in her features. She looks to me like one of these thirty-five-year-old spinsters that ain't above handing anyone who upsets her a pretty stiff dig to go on with. She's the sort that's catty and surly all the time— and somehow I can't see a man like Partrey breaking any devout lover records in her direction."
Fortworth grinned.
"Oh, he'll drop her overboard on the way out. What's a little thing like that to a stiff like him?" he responded airily. "I don't suppose he'll take her. And if Levon once lets him get a start for the Argentine with the money, Levon might as well put in his old age singing 'Good-bye for ever'—for he'll never hook on to Partrey or the money any more in this life."
Smiler nodded.
"Of course. But Levon knows that as well as you or me. He's got some hold over Partrey."
"Just so. But what good's a hold over a man if he's in the Argentine? That's where they go when they don't want to be held. I know about this Argentine skip trick—been on the verge of doing it myself many a time. Put it this way—Devon's going to let this Partrey grab practically all the bank's got and stroll off to South America with it. We can dismiss from our minds all that dope about Levon joining Partrey later on. There ain't going to be any 'joining later on' about it. Levon couldn't 'join' if he wanted to. Partrey wouldn't let him. See what I mean?"
Smiler nodded, his eyes gleaming.
"Yes. You're right. Levon's too sharp to think Catherine's man enough to watch Partrey all the time—in that country."
"He sure is." Fortworth lowered his voice, "Well, that means that Levon doesn't intend either Partrey or the money to go out of the country at all. But Levon intends to have the money, or at any rate his share. And to do that Partrey (and the money) have got to be in a safe place—within easy reach of Levon, while he faces the music at home. Well, we've only seen Partrey once, and we know just how safe he would be anywhere with money belonging to other people in his possession—big money, I mean."
"He'd bolt, first chance."
Fortworth nodded.
"He would. Levon knows that, too. So, if you ask my opinion, Flood, Levon means to put Partrey in the one place where he will be safe Hey, Flood?"
The ex-financier leaned closer, his face pale and hard, his little eyes glittering coldly.
"Underground!" breathed Mr. Bunn, tight-lipped.
Fortworth nodded again.
"That's how I work it out," he said.
It was Mr. Bunn's turn to nod, and he did so stiffly, his hard blue eyes fixed reflectively on his partner.
OME five weeks later there arrived at the "Royal Hart Hotel," in the busy South Coast town of Burchester, two gentlemen of prosperous appearance, who intimated to the manager that they purposed staying a week at his establishment, and this being made clear, handed him a set of seven cards, each containing a tolerably elaborate dinner menu—being one for each day of their proposed visit.
"The wine," said one of them, "is in the car outside. You'd better send someone out to help the driver in with it."
"You must understand that it is the custom of my brother and myself to take our own wine wherever we go. We can't stand the bottled colic most hotels—not yours, but the others—sell," explained the other blandly.
But Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth had not lived in the hotel more than two days before the manager, despite the substitution of meagre "corkage" profits for the usual substantial wine profits, was congratulating himself upon having them.
"I don't know who they are, and I don't care," he confided to a crony, "They're the sort of visitors a man dreams about when business is bad. They're quiet, as long as they're left alone, sensible and rich. The best of everything is good enough for them, and—as long as it is the best, and there's enough of it—they don't care what it costs. Their wine is 'It.' If I had such wine as theirs I should do the same as they do—cart it about with me. They are the goods, and that's all I've got to say about it. Any one dinner of theirs would keep me a fortnight, and I'm not a careless eater. I like 'em—they're harmless, inoffensive, and rich. I wish the hotel was plastered with 'em. They've taken a great fancy to that Japanese gent that's been about the town the last month or two. He often calls on 'em. I don't know who he is—queer chap—kind of a Japanese priest, I heard someone say. Over here studying religion, I fancy. Well, what'll you have?"
He would have been a surprised manager if he had overheard the conversation which, at that same moment, was taking place on a lonely seat out on the esplanade between the visitors and the "Japanese priest"—as some bright young Burchester visionary had innocently described Sing Song, the Chinese valet and all-round "You, there!" of Smiler Bunn.
For they were talking business— in a very business-like manner.
Sing Song had by no means been idle. He appeared to have discovered, in his own peculiarly tortuous fashion, all that was necessary to discover about that popular Burchester banker, Mr. Randall Levon, and his sine qua non,Mr. Max Partrey.
To-night was taking place the complimentary dinner to Mr. Partrey, which Levon and his manager had planned, and on the following evening Partrey was leaving for a three months' cure in Germany.
Miss Catherine Levon, curiously enough, was leaving for a few months' stay with friends in London, on the same day.
Everything was quite open and above-board, and there was many a Burchester tradesman dressing for the Partrey dinner that evening who felt inclined to envy the young bank manager whose future seemed so assured.
"Three months' holiday, then comes home and marries Miss Levon; another month's holiday, and then comes back to a partnership—yes, he's a lucky chap, Partrey," thought more than one mutton-headed old depositor in Levon's Bank to himself, scratching his whiskers and wondering vaguely why a wealthy banker never took an interest in him when he was young and handsome.
They, too, would have been interested in the conversation of the trio on the esplanade.
But the Bunn Combine were not the sort of men who permitted themselves to be overheard to any extent. So necessary did privacy appear that before their plans were completed they decided that in order to make secrecy absolutely certain it would be better to finish discussing things on the water.
"Can you row, Sing Song?" asked Smiler.
"Yes, mastel—plitty good."
"Go and hire a boat, then, and we'll row up the river a bit, and settle things there. Get a fair-sized boat with cushions. A little exercise will do you good and make you have a fine figure."
Some twenty minutes later they were sliding through the moonlight up the river, clear of the town. There, absolutely alone, they completed their plans.
It seemed from Sing Song's report that, despite the apparently smooth arrangement of Levon, Mr. Partrey was not going to find his departure so free from complication as he expected. There was another lady likely to be involved in the affair—a stranger in Burchester, who had arrived in the town only a few days before. She was a handsome, worldly-looking woman, and evidently an old friend of Partrey. Sing Song had shadowed them one evening when they had walked out into the country, and overheard things.
"She mally Paltley long time ago—and he lun away flom her. Now she findee him and folgiving him. She wanting makee home togethel again," explained the Chink softly, steadying the boat in midstream with his oars, "She velly nice to him—but I thinkee she easy angly, and velly fielce when she getting angly."
Smiler nodded thoughtfully.
"Married already, is he? What d'you think, Fortworth? We don't want any wild-cat butting in tomorrow night under the idea that Partrey's bolting because he wants to get away from her."
"No, that's true. But we've got to chance it. I don't think he ought to have much trouble in dodging her to-morrow night. He's a pretty shifty cuss anyway. And she'll probably think he will go straight to the station from his rooms—instead of going from Lowlake Park. So she'll wait for him in the town. Now we happen to know he's going to have lunch with Levon to-morrow and leave for London from there. He'll be far more likely to let Levon run him into Chestonbury Junction and take the train from there. Chestonbury is only half a mile from Lowlake, and it ain't very likely he'll come five miles back to Burchester to catch a train he could pick up at Chestonbury."
"Yes," Smiler agreed; "we can cross the lady off. She won't worry us. Probably she'll be on the train though, waiting to greet him at Chestonbury. But that'll be his funeral."
"Good! Now about getting the stuff—"
They talked in low tones for another half-hour, and then rowed back to the town.
IF it were possible for a person to be gifted with the valuable power of being able to watch the movements of half-a-dozen different people in different places at the same time, such an improbable party, had he been in the neighbourhood of Lowlake Park on the following evening, might have observed a number of interesting things. Among others he would have seen the following:—
A solitary woman, who, at about dusk, came riding a bicycle, on the road from Burchester, passed in through the Lodge gates of Lowlake Park and disappeared along the coach-drive in the direction of the house.
But she did not continue to the end of the drive; at any rate, nobody about the house saw her.
The woman had not left the main road more than ten minutes before a fast-looking touring car came sliding, with the amazing silence of a Knight-engined, well-made machine, to a standstill just beyond the gates of Lowlake. It was driven by a globular person with a fat, ruthless face—one Mr. Ferdinand Bloom, the butler and general man-of-all-work of the Bunn Combine's discreet country retreat at Purdston, on the Surrey-Hants border.
Beside Mr. Bloom sat the brass-faced "Japanese priest," Sing Song, the Chink, and in the roomy back of the car restfully reclined Smiler Bunn and ex-Lord Fortworth. But as the motor, with a curious air of secrecy, ran smoothly to a standstill close in under the fence, the Combine threw off their restfulness.
"Now, you lemon," said Mr. Bunn sharply to Sing Song, "look alive!"
Two minutes later the three of them were over the fence, and, under the guidance of Sing Song, were hurrying across the park towards the house.
They vanished silently through a belt of trees, and came out at the front of the house, taking up their positions behind a great clump of ornamental grass.
There they waited.
"We'll give him an hour," whispered Smiler Bunn, "His train leaves Chestonbury at eight-thirty. If he's going by car he'll leave here about eight-fifteen. A few minutes to eight, if he's going to walk it. If he hasn't come out by eight-thirty he'll never come out at all."
"He'll come," breathed Fortworth, "Levon's not man enough to tackle him alone! Besides, it's too risky in his own house. If he's going to try any funny business with the man, Levon'll fix up so that it'll be done well away from the neighbourhood—on board the boat probably."
They stared at the lighted windows of the house.
"Go to it, Sing Song," said Smiler, "See what's happening."
The figure of the Chinaman glided across to the house like a moving shadow.
The partners waited. The darkness was falling rapidly now. In the woods across the park an owl began hooting disconsolately, and the rising wind went hissing through the stiff blades of the pampas grass behind which the two crooks crouched, peering across at the lighted oblongs that were the windows of Levon's study. Once, for a fraction of a second, the outline of a peak-capped head was silhouetted blackly against one of the windows—that was Sing Song, craning to overhear the talk of the two men in the room. The queer, flatly-ringing, half-strangled note of a pheasant came across the drive to them—it sounded as though a hysterical contralto were choking out in the darkness.
Smiler peered at his watch.
"I give him another five minutes—if he's coming at all," he said in a hoarse whisper.
A shadow loomed silently up to his side.
"Thinkee him coming now—two men," came the low, sibilant whisper of the Chink.
A moment later the door of the house swung back and Partrey, carrying a bag, stepped out, Devon following him. No motor had appeared.
"They're going to walk it," said Fortworth tensely, "After 'em!"
The two men, smoking cigars, strolled down the wide curve of the drive before the house. They were laughing and seemed a little noisy. But to the watchers it sounded as though the mirth of neither rang very true.
Where the curve of the carriage approach straightened into the drive proper Devon turned sharply.
"We may as well take the short cut to the Junction," he said.
"Yes."
The banker disappeared along a footpath that ran in under the trees, Partrey following him.
The Bunn Combine darted across the lawn after him. But they had not traversed more than twenty yards of the footpath before Sing Song's hand went up and he stopped suddenly with a low warning hiss.
"Lady stopee them," he whispered.
Voices came filtering through the gloom to them—the shrill note of an angry woman, punctuated with the deeper sounds of man's speech. They listened.
The note of the woman grew shriller, and the Combine stole forward.
"You bolted once before—you bolted once before," cried the woman, "and now you're bolting again! Ah! you hound—you never were to be trusted, Max Partrey— never! Why, only this morning you swore that when you left to-night I should come with you. But I never trusted you—I inquired—and when I found that your luggage was sent on ahead, I knew that you were at your old tricks. You haven't altered in eight years of prosperity. But eight years of poverty have altered me, Max, and I swear that you don't leave for London alone to-night. You are going to take me. Both of us go—or neither."
She paused, and the listeners heard the rapid mutter of Levon's voice.
The high tones of the woman rose again.
"Who am I?" she said, evidently answering Levon's question, "I am his wife—his wife. That's who I am."
"Eh?" Levon's voice rose, "What's this, Partrey? What about Catherine? If you have a wife already—"
"It's a lie. The woman's crazy. I haven't any wife. You know that, Levon."
Partrey's voice sounded thick and murderous with rage.
"He's getting ugly—look out!" whispered Smiler.
"Lie!" The woman was half-screaming. "Look at this, Mr. Levon. Tell Catherine—whoever she is—about this. Strike a match and see if this marriage certificate is a lie!"
"It's a forgery!" snarled Partrey. "Settle it between you. I've a train to catch. Levon, I'll write you."
"Wait!" The woman's voice had dropped again. "Do you swear that I am not your wife—that I have lied, and that this certificate is a forgery?" she asked.
"I do," said Partrey roughly. "Out of the way!" By sheer instinct the Bunn Combine ducked—it was as though, skilled in human emotion as they were, they knew exactly what was going to happen.
And even as they ducked there was a metallic, ringing report and a sudden sharp glare of light, gone in an instant. Someone cried out thinly—it sounded like Levon, the banker—and then the report and flash again shocked the darkness.
Something fell crashing through the undergrowth, moaning.
"Oh, my God!"
The voice of Levon rose in a wail of terror.
"Back to the drive," hissed Smiler Bunn, "Quick! Quick!"
The Combine hurried down the footpath. They were just in time. As they emerged on the coach-drive the figure of the banker came flying out. He was shouting for help as he ran. He turned to the left towards the house, never seeing the three figures which had turned to the right down the coach-drive.
"The bag! The bag!" gasped Fortworth.
"Mastel—this way—quick!"
Swift and silent as a wolf Sing Song darted back into the footpath. They hurried along it after him.
Partrey had fallen back into the undergrowth, and the woman, who had shot him and then herself, lay face down across the path. The bag which Partrey had been carrying lay on the edge of the undergrowth, just as it had fallen.
Smiler Bunn seized it—hesitated—then, as a sudden clamour broke out from the direction of the house— decided.
"The car, Sing!"
Clutching the bag, he plunged after the Chink down the footpath, Fortworth following. They cleared a stile some fifty yards on, then, Sing Song still guiding, turned sharply to the left, worked quickly through a belt of trees, and so emerged again into the path, now on the left-hand side of the coach-drive.
Behind them they saw lights flickering through the trees towards the spot where the woman who claimed to be the wife of Partrey had turned the woods into a gloomy setting of tragedy.
True to a hair, the amazing Chink led them straight across the park so that they reached the enclosing fence at the exact spot where—on the other side—Ferdinand Bloom waited with the car.
A moment later they were humming Londonwards through the dark at a pace that only the vast white glare of the powerful electric lamps, suddenly switched on by Bloom, made possible.
It was a good quarter of an hour before they got their breath back.
Then Mr. Bunn spoke.
"That's the nearest shave I've ever had," he said, and wiped his face. "And as it is, I don't like it, somehow. It don't seem quite square to that woman—I don't know why "
"Better see what we've made before you begin to pamper any conscience you've got left," said Fortworth.
So, twenty miles on, they pulled up, and in the light of a side-lamp examined their haul.
The bag contained foreign "bearer" bonds to the value of twenty thousand pounds—no more, no less.
It was a good coup, but somehow Mr. Bunn did not seem enthusiastic.
"But the figure was a hundred and eighty thousand," he complained. "Heard Levon plan it with my own ears. Where's the balance, then—hundred and sixty thousand of good money? I'm no hog, but fair's fair. What's a measly twenty thousand out of a hundred and eighty?"
Lord Fortworth grinned.
"No," he said sarcastically, "you're no hog—I've noticed that about you before, old man. Hog! Certainly not. Give you the lot and you're satisfied. Not a word of complaint does anybody ever get out of you—as long as you get the lot. Nothing of the hog about you—man alive! rhinoceroses are fools to you, not to mention hogs!"
Smiler's face cleared.
"Well, well, perhaps you're right—perhaps you're right," he agreed, "Only when a man says a hundred and eighty thousand, it kind of irritates me if he don't stick to a hundred and eighty thousand. However," he sighed, "say no more—say no more." He turned to Sing Song, who had superseded Mr. Bloom at the wheel, "Hop it, Lemon!" he said.
And Lemon slipped in his gear and "hopped" it as requested.
It was not till two or three days later that the partners satisfied themselves upon several points that had slightly worried them at first.
Neither Partrey nor his unexpected wife appeared to have been fatally wounded. Levon must have had influence with the local doctor, for nothing appeared in the press about the matter, except a short paragraph of the well-known "didn't-know-it-was-loaded" accident kind. It appeared that Partrey on the eve of his travels had bought a revolver, and was showing it to Levon and a lady friend on the way to the station.
In due course Mr. Partrey took his holiday as arranged. He brought back a lady, whom he introduced as his wife—and the Bunn Combine, out of sheer curiosity, took the trouble to ascertain that she was the lady who had done the shooting. Evidently her "firmness" had cowed Partrey.
Catherine Levon, strangely enough, returned to Lowlake on the day following the "accident" in the woods. They found that out, too, and only then did they realise that unwittingly they had done Levon an injustice in their thoughts.
He had neither intended to trust Partrey with the bulk of the loot, nor to put him in that safe place— "underground." He had a simpler plan than that. Catherine was the one in whose possession the hundred and sixty thousand pounds was to remain until Levon joined them in hiding. Partrey's twenty thousand was probably just the lowest that he would agree to take and hold on to until the final settlement.
But what struck the partners as the most amazing thing about it all was that the affair seemed to scare Levon and Partrey into honesty. At any rate, when, some four or five years later, the two crooks dropped in on Burchester in the course of a motor tour, Levon's Bank was still running, appeared to be doing good business with Partrey (now a junior partner), and Levon more popular among the townfolk than ever before. Levon was still trying to sell his estate, and, they learned, the fair Catherine was still unmarried.
"Queer, ain't it?" said Smiler, as, rolling out of the town, they passed the bank, "Not a single party in the town knows what the town owes us. Practic'lly speaking, you may say, we saved half the town from bankruptcy? And nobody knows—"
"And nobody cares," added Fortworth, "Not even us. We did a kind action and got twenty thousand out of Levon for doing it."
Mr. Bunn nodded slowly; but his eyes had a far-away, wistful look in them. Perhaps he was thinking of the hundred and sixty thousand balance which ought to have been in Partrey's bag—but was not.
Fortworth laughed, guessing what Mr. Bunn was thinking of.
"Forget it, old man," he said coarsely.
"Forget what?" feigned Smiler.
"The hundred and sixty thousand we didn't get."
Smiler Bunn sighed and smiled.
"I will," he said.
But he never did.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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