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A Remarkable Novel of Sexton Blake, Detective.
Written Specially to Appeal to Readers of All Ages.
A Visitor—Tinker and Pedro Escort a Lady—Two Strange Marks.
"WHAT did you say your address was, Miss Fielding?"
"No. 175, Trinity Crescent, Acre Lane, Brixton."
"Is it a house—are you living there alone, or in lodgings?"
"It is a small flat, Mr. Blake, and I'm living alone." Blake made a note of the address.
"And now one thing more. I have a favour to ask you," he said gravely.
"A favour to ask me!" she exclaimed.
"Yes, Miss Fielding."
"I cannot conceive how you can have any favour to ask me," she answered in low tones; "you have been so good to me. I believe you are only saying that to relieve me of some of the overwhelming burden of gratitude you have already placed me under."
"No, Miss Fielding, it is a very real favour I want you to do for me."
"You know you have only to ask me," she said.
"Will you promise compliance beforehand?"
"Yes." she replied; then immediately afterwards—"at least. I'll try. I mean I am sure you would not ask me anything I could not grant you," she added, in a troubled voice.
"You will not give me an unconditional promise?"
He was very grave, very stern, and yet the sternness of his expression was lightened and softened by a look of infinite pity and sympathy for the girl.
For all in distress, whether man or woman, rich or poor, young or old, Blake had a gentle and an understanding heart. But this girl, who had endured so much, and endured so bravely, made an especial appeal to him—as how could she fail to? The peculiar and painful plight which had brought her in despair to his consulting-room; her pallor and fragile health: her beauty of face and form; her modesty of demeanour, and gracious speech; her poverty and high courage; all these things combined to excite Blake's sympathy and respect and admiration in an exceptional degree. They would have pleaded powerfully with a man of far less natural tenderness than he possessed; to him they constituted an overwhelming claim for the best help he could give her. Yet, as has been said, his kindly pity, undisguised and freely given as it was, was mingled with a sternness which was equally unconcealed, and which became more marked and pronounced as he waited for her answer.
"Well. Miss Fielding, will you not give me an unconditional promise?" he repeated.
"No, Mr. Blake," she replied, in a voice that was barely audible. "I cannot do that. I suspect what your favour is. I cannot consent to deprive myself of the means of defending myself."
"You have guessed it," he said. "I was going to ask you to do me the favour of leaving your revolver with me." He stretched out his hand to the muff in which the deadly little weapon was hidden. "Will you not give it me, Miss Fielding? Pistols are dangerous things in inexperienced hands."
She shook her head, apparently not trusting herself to speak.
"It might very easily get you into fatal trouble," he urged. Her lips quivered tremulously, but she remained steadfast in her silent refusal.
"I will see you safely home myself," he continued.
She shook her head again, her eyes slowly brimming with tears.
"Tinker and Pedro shall accompany you daily to and from your place of employment."
Once more she made the negative sign.
"You seek my help and protection, and yet you do not trust me?" he queried coldly.
"I can't—I can't; you don't know what you ask!" she cried at last.
For a moment the flood-gates of her pent-up emotion were opened, and she broke into an agony of sobbing.
The paroxysm was too severe to last.
With astonishing quickness she mastered her self-control and recovered her normal calmness.
"Mr. Blake, even if I have to forfeit your help, I can't do what you ask me. You do not know the man, you cannot judge of what he is capable, you cannot gauge my horror of him. No one can protect me at all times and everywhere. I must rely mainly on myself. I have errands to do in the daytime, and errands to go after dark. Alone at night I should not be able to sleep, but for the knowledge that I had this little weapon beneath my pillow. I must keep it—I must. I can only pray Heaven that I may never have to use it. I promise you I will never use it except in the last necessity."
"Very well," he answered gravely. "I will not urge you further." For in spite of his view that she would have been better and safer without the weapon, he could not withhold a reluctant tribute of admiration for her steadfast refusal to part with it. "To-morrow," he said, "I will call on your employers. Messrs. Manton & Traynor, and endeavour to undo the mischief which Raymond Carter's confidential communication to them may have done you. Afterwards I will endeavour to see Raymond Carter himself, and I trust to be able to convince him that he will continue his vindictive persecution of you at his peril."
"I can never thank you enough, Mr. Blake," she murmured. "I feel if I lose my present situation I shall not have the strength to take or apply for another."
"You have given me your solemn promise to do nothing rash!"
"I will not forget it," she said.
"How are you going home?"
"By bus to the Embankment, and then by train."
"Will you accept my escort?"
"No, no; I will not!"
He pressed his offer, but she firmly declined it.
"It is not necessary," she said; "I am not going to trespass on your kindness and generosity more than I must."
Then he said "Good-night!" and went.
As soon as she had turned the corner Tinker, accompanied by Pedro, started after her.
Blake's instructions to the youngster being not to come back until he had seen her safely indoors at her flat in Trinity Crescent, Acre Lane, Brixton.
Blake drew his armchair up to the fire, lighted his pipe, and sat down to review the story the girl had told him in all its bearings.
It was a story of poignant misfortune, cruel suffering, and vindictive persecution. Six months ago her father, chief cashier to a large wholesale drapery firm, after years of scrupulously honest and faithful service, had yielded to sudden temptation, and embezzled a sum of five hundred pounds entrusted to him for payment to certain of the firm's creditors. It is a question whether his malversation of these funds would have been ever discovered, unless he had made a voluntary confession, for he enjoyed the absolute confidence of his employers, and was in supreme control of the firm's books.
However that may be, he had no sooner committed the act than he made a full confession.
In consideration of his long and faithful service, and of his prompt admission of guilt, the partners were disposed to deal leniently with him, and offered to forego criminal proceedings if he would explain how and why he had come to steal the money, and what he had done with it.
Contrary to all reasonable expectation, he refused to explain anything, though he pleaded hard for forgiveness, assuring them that in a few months he would be in a position to replace the entire sum.
The partners, naturally enough, were dissatisfied with this attitude, and, as he persisted in it, felt bound to allow the law to take its course. He was arrested, charged, and in due course committed for trial, but died in prison of shame and a broken heart before his trial came on.
His only child and daughter Mary was left penniless and grief-stricken, and without a single relative or available friend in the world to comfort or help her.
The proverb that misfortunes never come singly was terribly exemplified in her case.
Within a week of her father's death in prison, the steamer on which her fiance, Mark Conway, sailed as first officer, was reported lost with all hands. It was to have been his last voyage as first officer. On his return he was to have been promoted to captain, and given a ship, and then he and Mary were to have been married.
One can only wonder that the girl did not succumb to these accumulated blows of adverse Fortune, but she did not. With splendid grit and courage she set to work to earn her own living, and presently succeeded in obtaining a post in the mantle department of one of the great West End stores.
Then Raymond Carter appeared on the scene, and her real troubles began.
She knew Raymond Carter as an occasional visitor at her father's house, but her acquaintance with him was of the slightest. Why her father tolerated his coming at all she never could tell, for he was always nervous and upset before his visits, and gloomy and depressed after them, while he made a special point—so far as he could—of preventing Mary and Carter meeting.
Carter was a man of gross habit, showy manners, and flashily dressed; and on the few occasions they did meet, his overbearing attitude to her father, and the air of coarse and condescending admiration towards herself, had inspired her with insufferable disgust of him.
Three days after she had been in her first situation Carter was waiting for her at the close of business, insisted upon walking home with her, and asked her to marry him. Her answer was an uncompromising "No." To proffer marriage to a girl who was mourning a dead father and a newly-lost lover was nothing less than an outrage on decency.
On the afternoon of the next day Mary was handed a week's wages and politely informed that her services were no longer required. She demanded the reason of her dismissal, and was told that she was not entitled to demand a reason—that the week's wages in lieu of notice covered all she could claim.
She was not long out of an engagement, her prepossessing manners and attractive appearance telling greatly in her favour.
She was hardly settled in her new place when Carter again asked her to marry him.
Her answer was the same as before.
Next day she was politely dismissed, without reason given, from her second situation.
"Is it because I am my father's daughter?"
"We decline to answer any question, Miss Fielding; you have nothing to complain of."
"Is it because my father was a—"
A request to the commissionaire to remove her interrupted her question, and summarily closed the interview.
In the course of the succeeding few months Mary Fielding obtained and lost three more situations. In every case the procedure was exactly the same—a few days to settle down in the new place, then the sudden appearance of Raymond Carter with his offer of marriage and her indignant refusal, and next day instant dismissal.
After the first he acknowledged with brutal candour his determination to keep up his vile persecution until he had bent her to his will.
"You may as well marry me first as last, my girl, because it will have to come to that in the end. There is no place in the business world for the daughter of a felon. Employers can't run risks, in these days of keen competition—they can't chance offending customers, or creating discontent amongst their staff. Girls who are daughters of honest fathers won't work with such as you. I warn you you'd better give in. I'll take care they know who you are wherever you go. You can't escape me."
But with indomitable pluck she defied him, and when her stubborn courage stung him first to threats, and then to actual attempts at violence, she went short of food to save the money to buy the deadly little weapon that nestled in her muff in the daytime, and under her pillow at night. But the strain of this terrible persecution was surely telling on her.
Her health was suffering; she was growing haggard and worn; she was losing her good looks. She felt she was on the verge of a complete physical break-down, and she felt that if she lost the situation she had just secured at Manton & Traynor's she would have to give in and yield up the struggle from sheer lack of health and strength to continue it. Things happened exactly as before.
On the third day of her employment there was the inevitable Raymond Carter waiting for her; but on this occasion he did not make his offer of marriage, nor did he walk home with her.
In the extremity of her despair at foreseeing herself once more cast adrift, she hailed a taxi, and leaving him planted on the pavement, drove straight to Baker Street to pour her story into Sexton Blake's sympathetic ears, and to implore his help and protection and advice, when, as the reader knows, her prayer was not made in vain.
Blake smoked and pondered for more than an hour. Many points of interest in her story, not immediately apparent on the face of it, gradually revealed themselves. Why had the girl's father, after making a voluntary confession of guilt, refused to explain why he had stolen the money, and what he had done with it?
What were his relations with Raymond Carter, a man who was obviously no congenial companion for him? Why did he permit Carter's occasional visits, which were plainly distasteful and odious to him? Had Carter some kind of hold over him—and, if so, what?
Was Carter's persistent persecution of Mary Fielding dictated by a passionate infatuation for her, or was his ruthless resolve to marry her actuated and influenced by some other and ulterior motive?
Blake was still pondering these points when his reflections were broken in upon by the return of Tinker and Pedro.
"Saw Miss Fielding safely home, sir," said the youngster cheerily.
"What sort of a street is Trinity Crescent?" Blake asked, when Tinker had pulled up a chair, and Pedro stretched himself at full length on the hearthrug.
"Can't say I think much of it," was Tinker's reply.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, sir, it is a street of small, two-storeyed flats most of which are empty. It is practically a new street, because the old houses have been demolished, and these small flats built in their place. One end of it—the end Miss Fielding lives—is in a shocking state of mess, because building is still going on. I shouldn't think it at all a good street for a girl to live alone in."
"Which end of the street does she live in?"
"The end farthest away from Acre Lane."
"Is her's an upstairs flat or a downstairs flat?"
"An upstairs, and the one underneath it is unoccupied. In fact, most of the flats that end are empty. It struck me as frightfully lonely. I don't wonder now she wouldn't part with her revolver!"
"She was not molested in any way?"
"Oh, no; not a soul spoke to her; there was not a soul about!"
"You saw nothing suspicious or disquieting?"
"Well, no, sir, nothing you could really call suspicious."
"Then you saw something," said Blake sharply.
"Yes, I saw something, though it didn't amount to much. It wasn't what I saw worries me, it's what Pedro heard. When I'd seen Miss Fielding enter her flat and shut the door, I walked on to the end of the road and back. As I came back Pedro stopped and pricked up his ears at the flat adjoining Miss Fielding's. I am sure he'd heard something or someone moving about in the front garden, which at present is nothing more than an accumulation of builder's rubbish, I sent him over the fence to see what it was. There was a bit of a scuffle the front door slammed, Pedro growled and scratched at it, I whistled him, and he came back with this cap in his mouth." Tinker produced the cap from his pocket. "You see, it's rather a good cap, sir, almost new. A good maker's name in it, expensive, too; probably cost seven-and-six or half-a-guinea."
Blake nodded, took the cap, glanced at it, and laid it down.
"Well, what then?"
"Really, there is nothing else, sir. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't hammer at the front door, and command the fellow to explain what he was doing in his own front garden. Besides, he might have accused me of setting Pedro at him, for no doubt the dog gave him a nasty scare. All I could do was to hang about in the hope of his coming out again, and as he didn't when I'd waited half an hour I came away."
"Was this flat finished or unfinished?"
"I should say it was just finished; just barely ready for occupation."
After a moment's silence, spent by Blake in eyeing the cap, he said:
"Very well, that's what Pedro heard; now tell me what you saw."
"Two chalk-marks, one on each of the gate-posts of Miss Fielding's flat. I noticed them when I was hanging about waiting for the fellow in the other flat. The marks were a cross inside a circle."
Tinker traced the two symbols on the back of an envelope, which he handed to Blake.
"Like that, sir," he said; "very roughly drawn. It occurred to me they were either builder's marks, or else done by one of the heaps of school kids who are so fond of scrawling on fences and railings with pieces of chalk."
"Possibly," murmured Blake, in his driest tones.
"But you don't think so, sir?"
"No, Tinker, I don't think so."
Before Tinker could ask him why he didn't think so, Blake said:
"I take it the street near Miss Fielding's flat is very dark, or else you would have seen the person who was lurking in the adjoining garden?"
"There are no lamps at all that end, sir."
"Then, for all you know to the contrary, the person lurking there might have been a woman?"
"It might, of course, but a woman—why?" stammered the youngster, in surprise.
"I am pretty certain it was a woman, Tinker."
"But why, sir? It is a man's cap, sir."
"May be, but a woman has recently worn it. Look!" Blake disengaged a long single hair from the inside of the cap, and held it up against the firelight.
"A woman's hair, Tinker; a woman with a fine head of red-gold hair."
"By jiminy, sir, I missed that!"
The youngster looked distinctly crestfallen.
"Now hold the cap up to the light," said Blake, "and tell me what you see."
Tinker did so, and exclaimed:
"Why, it's full of little holes on both sides!"
"Holes made by a woman's hatpins to pin the cap to her head, Tinker."
"By gum, sir, you're wonderful! What do you make of it?"
"Nothing, except that there is no need for me to turn out again to-night," was the smiling rejoinder. "If it had been a man's cap, you and I would have been on the way to Trinity Crescent before this. But Miss Fielding has nothing to fear from a woman, so we can stay quietly at home."
The words were hardly out of his mouth when a ring at the street bell announced a belated visitor. Mrs. Bardell had gone to bed, so Tinker ran down to open the door.
"Miss Fielding!" ejaculated the youngster, in amazement.
She came in, and he shut the door. He couldn't see her face because her veil was down, but it was manifest that she was painfully agitated. She swayed in her walk, and spoke with difficulty.
"I must see Mr. Blake at once," she panted.
"I'll take you to him."
Tinker supported her upstairs and into Blake's sitting-room. Blake came hastily forward to meet her.
"Miss Fielding, what's the matter? What has happened?"
"Oh, why," she choked—"oh, why—"
She couldn't finish. He led her to a chair and made her sit down. He took her muff from her to place it on the table, and her revolver slipped out of it. He noticed the muzzle was fouled, and opening it perceived that one chamber had been discharged.
"Oh, why didn't I take your advice, Mr. Blake?" she faltered faintly.
"Tell me what has happened?"
After three attempts she managed to articulate the words: "I've shot and—and killed Raymond—Raymond Carter."
What Mrs. Bardell Did—The Mystery Deepens.
"SHE'S coming to, sir," said Tinker, for the girl had swooned after revealing her terrible secret.
Bit by bit Blake extracted from her the details of the tragedy.
Her narrative was singularly precise and clear and free from ambiguities.
The gist of it was as follows:
When she arrived home she did not immediately take off her outdoor things, but having lit the gas in the front room, remained there thinking over the points of her interview with Blake. Her reverie lasted upwards of half an hour. She was roused to consciousness of the lateness of the hour by the little clock on the mantelpiece chiming eleven. The clock was one of the few treasures saved from the wreck of the old home. It was a most accurate and excellent timekeeper. Thus the time of the tragedy is fixed to a minute.
The clock had not done chiming when she was startled by the sound of heavy footsteps ascending the stairs to her flat. A knock and ring followed, both being subdued in tone. With her revolver in her hand, she went to the door and called out: "Who is there?" The answer was: "A police constable, miss."
Instantly relieved, she opened the door, and then, to her intense horror, realised that it was Raymond Carter. He made a step forward to come in, when she levelled her revolver and fired. He threw up his arm, as if to shield himself, at the same moment recoiling, and as the bullet struck him he tumbled backwards, and fell with a series of sickening bumps into the paved area of the forecourt.
That was all that actually happened.
Dazed and horrified at what had occurred, she stood for some minutes staring down at the dead man, whose face was upturned to hers. Then she went indoors to shut out the sight of it. She remained there till the clock, chiming the quarter, again reminded her of the flight of time, and the notion of staying alone in the flat all night, with the dead thing just below, appalled her. Her terror of loneliness overcame her terror of the thing itself. She turned out the gas, snatched up her muff, mechanically placed the revolver inside it as usual, groped her way downstairs, paused with an awful feeling of repulsion when she came to the body which almost blocked the way out, crept past it with averted eyes and skirts clutched tightly round her, gained the street, and ran.
Such was her graphic and vivid account of the tragedy.
"Was no one about? Did no one hear the shot?" was Blake's first question.
"I suppose not; no one came," she murmured, in answer.
"When you were running up the Crescent to Acre Lane did you see anyone?"
"I saw no one," she replied.
"Then the body is lying there still?"
"Probably," she whispered, with a shudder.
A long silence followed.
"What am I to do, Mr. Blake? Am I to give myself up to the police?"
He was walking up and down the room, deep in thought, and did not immediately answer.
Then he said very emphatically:
"No, not to-night."
Coming to a sudden stop beside her, he took her hand and said:
"Miss Fielding, I forbid you to distress yourself overmuch at this dreadful occurrence. It is no doubt a shocking experience to feel and know oneself responsible for the death of a fellow-creature, but there are cases where even the law lays down the rule that homicide is justifiable. I am not concerned with the fact that no jury in the world, once conversant with your story, would convict you of wilful murder. I doubt whether they would convict you of manslaughter. At the present moment I am only concerned to impress upon you, for the ease and comfort of year own conscience, that your actual guilt is small. You may believe that you have been the victim of dreadful circumstances, but you must not grieve with the bitter remorse of one who has committed a deliberate crime. One shrinks with horror from contemplating what might have happened to yourself if you had scrupled to fire the fatal shot. Heaven knows, you will have enough to bear before this matter is finally disposed of, so let me say now, for your present consolation and future sustenance in good hope and peace of mind, that I rejoice to think I did not prevail upon you to give up your revolver to me before you proceeded home to-night."
"Thank you," she murmured brokenly—"oh, thank you for saying that!"
It was as if he had assumed joint responsibility with her, and as if her burden in consequence had suddenly been lightened by one half.
"Tinker, go and awake Mrs. Bardell, and tell her to come here."
Pathos and comedy are intimately allied, and Blake had scarcely succeeded in restoring the girl to some degree of calmness, after cautioning her to preserve a rigid silence in regard to the fatality, when Mrs. Bartlett stamped into the room clad in a nightcap and patchwork dressing-gown.
"Ho!" she said sourly. "What do you mean by dragging an honest, hard-working woman out of her warm bed at this time of night? What do you want? Is it a hot supper? If so, you can go elsewhere and get it, and you needn't come back any more. When I've worked sixteen hours a day, waiting on you hand and foot, I reckon I've finished and earned me night's rest. You can take your custom elsewhere; you can take your—"
The flow of her voluble tirade paused abruptly as her sleepy eyes became aware of Mary Fielding.
"Ho! So that's it," she snorted and gasped. "Picking up wandering females in the street again, is it, and wanting me to house and bed them, I suppose? I tell you, Sexton Blake, I'll have none of such goings on here—I'll—"
"Mrs. Bardell, you are so lightly clad I'm afraid you'll catch cold; won't you come and sit near the fire?" said Blake, courteously indicating the best chair in the room.
"Oh, it's my costume you're laughing at now, is it?" she retorted indignantly. "What do you expect me to wear? One of them fancy Japanese kimono things, or one of them thin, gauzy garments that let the light through? I tell you, I'd scorn to be dead in one, having been brought up strict and modest all me days. Poking fun at me because I'm not in the fashion? Shame on you! Shame on you! Let me inform you that there's not a better dressing-gown in all Baker Street than this 'ere patchwork one. It belongs to me mother and me grandmother before me, and many a night it's been—"
"I have never seen a dressing-gown I liked half so well,". Blake answered her, "and I am convinced there is not another, not only not in Baker Street, but not in all London, to compare with it. And as for laughing at it, I would as soon laugh at the—"
"None of your soft sawder with me!" she retorted, but in a mollified tone, gradually edging towards the fire and the armchair. "Not if wild horses went down on their bended knees and begged me to put it in the rag-bag, would I do so. The night is cold, you're right, and a fire after all is not unpleasant when you've only got your dressing-gown on and nothing much besides, though thick it is and comfortable, and none could say you could not wear it with perfect propriety in the presence of the male sect. A cushion to my back I'll have, and if you've got a footstool for my feet, I should not mind a moment's talk, though midnight is not the most suitable hour to pay calls or receive them; thank you, Mr. Blake, you're much too good and kind to me, and if it's a hot supper you want or a bit of toasted cheese, or some such snack, because to go to bed or even anywhere on an empty stomach is most unwise and dangerous to the health, I'd be proud and glad to get it for you; the kitchen fire, no doubt is out, but with the bellows and a stick or two I'd soon have it going again fit to roast an ox. For when me' husband was alive—"
Blake had coaxed her into a good temper, and his cause was won; but he knew that when she started on reminiscences of her dead husband it was time to interfere firmly and decisively.
"Mrs. Bardell, I want to commit Miss Fielding to your care for to-night. She is in great trouble, an orphan without friends, and—"
"Then why couldn't you say so at once, instead of keeping me talking half the night?" she cried, jumping up like an animated sack of potatoes from the chair in which Blake had just settled her comfortably with cushions and a footstool. "Call yourself a clever and smart detective?" she scoffed. "You may be for a man, because men have no sense at all." She bustled briskly across the room to the girl. "Come along, dearie, I'll take care of you! Cruel they are, and stupid. It's a mother's loving heart you want, to rest your head upon. He isn't a mother, and so he don't know any better. Shame on him, for not taking better care of you! You'll never be without friends while I'm above ground." She put her arm round Mary Fielding, and then with a truculent—"Open the door, you heartless young ruffian!" to Tinker, marched triumphantly out of the room with her.
Mary Fielding retired with the ghost of a smile on her beautiful, grief-stricken face, and Blake was free to attend to the urgent matters which summoned him.
"We'll go on bikes," he said to Tinker. "Yes, you are to come, too"—this was in answer to the questioning look in Pedro's eyes.
In five minutes the two bicycles, with Pedro galloping between them, were spinning rapidly through London.
The streets were clear, for the theatre traffic was over.
They headed straight for Westminster Bridge, and were soon on the Surrey side. Turning sharply to the right they sped along the Albert Embankment as far as Vauxhall, then round to the left past Kennington Oval, till they struck the Clapham Road. Wheeling to the right again, they raced along this long, broad thoroughfare till just before it emerges into High Street, when they branched off to the left, past the Polytechnic, into Bedford Road, which cuts Acre Lane at right angles. Another hundred yards or so, and they were abreast of Trinity Crescent, where they dismounted, and walked their machines to No. 175.
They had done the distance in twenty minutes, and Pedro had kept up with them without turning a hair.
All was dark and very quiet; not a light to be seen in a single window.
"This is the house, sir," said Tinker in an awed, hushed tone.
Blake removed his bicycle-lamp, and taking it in his hand, passed through the gate into the forecourt, closely followed by Tinker.
An exclamation of astonishment escaped him.
"The body has gone," he whispered.
There was a slight and hardly perceptible dabble of blood at the foot of the staircase, but nothing else.
"The police must have been here and taken him away," said Tinker, under his breath.
"I think not, because, if they had, they would have left a man on guard."
"Then somebody else, sir."
"I don't fancy so—I hope not," said Blake, in a voice that was strangely excited.
"What do you mean, sir?"
"I am hoping she didn't kill him. I am hoping that he was simply stunned by the fall, and has since recovered, and gone away alone."
"But she couldn't have failed to kill him—she fired pointblank, sir."
"Yes, but the body is not here, Tinker."
Blake's expressed hope proved short-lived.
A whimper from Pedro and then one of his deep baying notes, which always heralded a find, sent them hurrying into the roadway, where they discovered the dead man lying on his back, with his arms extended wide, staring up at the stars. A bullet wound on the left side just over the heart was positive and melancholy proof that Mary Fielding had not missed her aim.
"He must have dragged himself here, sir, when he came to."
"Yes, it looks like it."
"But with that wound over the heart—one would have expected it to be instantly mortal."
"It is very queer," muttered Blake.
"Somebody else may have dragged him here. There was that woman in the adjoining flat."
"It is just possible," was the reply; "let's go and look at the other flat."
In a few moments they were face to face with a fresh perplexity, for when they had groped their way over the mounds of builder's rubbish to the front door of the adjoining flat, they found the door standing ajar. There was neither lock nor bolt to it. The flat was unfinished, not ready for habitation. The woman who had taken refuge there when scared by Pedro must have been a mere trespasser. Had she heard the shot fired? If she had been there she must have heard it. Having heard it, had she then come and dragged the body into the roadway? But why? With what motive? What had she done since! Where was she now? The situation bristled with mysterious possibilities, not the least of which was why she was lurking there at all. Was she a homeless outcast, seeking the shelter of a bare roof from the rigours of the night? Or was she woman of superior station who had come there with a definite secret purpose? The expensive quality of the cap pointed to the latter alternative as the more probable, while it increased the difficulty and complexity of the problem.
After an exhaustive search both of the upper and lower flats, Blake and Tinker returned to the body in the roadway.
"I suppose there's nothing to be done but to give information to the police, sir?"
"I don't know," said Blake—"I don't know."
Tinker never remembered seeing him so curiously hesitant and undecided.
"But, surely, sir, you can't—" began the youngster in protest.
"I don't know—I don't know," said Blake again. "Of course, I wouldn't do anything to wilfully mislead the police, but I am sorely tempted to try to keep Miss Fielding's name out of it."
"But how can you hope to do that?"
"The body being where it is gives us just the chance. It is not very near her flat. It is nearer other flats than her's If it had lain where it fell there would have been no chance at all. We should have had to inform the police at once. There is a mystery I don't understand. I want time—I want time!" And his speech—an extraordinary thing for him—trailed off into an inarticulate murmur.
Tinker gazed at him in blank wonder.
"Hadn't we better be getting home, then?" he suggested uneasily.
"Yes; no more to be done here. The constable patrolling this beat will come along and find the body presently. Let him make of it what he can."
Tinker wheeled his bicycle out into the road as a preliminary to mounting, when Blake suddenly said:
"You mentioned certain symbols, a cross inside a circle, on the gate-posts. Which gate-posts? Show me them."
"Those, sir, where you are now—the gate leading to Miss Fielding's flat."
But when the youngster went to look he discovered that all trace of the strange chalk-marks had been carefully and deliberately obliterated.
The Little Gold Medallion—Mr. Merivale's
Grief—
An Extraordinary Development.
BLAKE, and Tinker, and Mary Fielding were seated at breakfast, but not one of them was doing justice to the excellent fare provided by Mrs. Bardell.
The fish, and the bacon and eggs, and the hot buttered toast, wore growing cold, unnoticed and untested, while the three occupants of the breakfast-table were absorbed in the perusal of the morning papers.
There was only one item of intelligence that interested them, and that was the account of the finding of the body, and the views and suspicions of the police concerning it.
The report, which was headed "Murder Mystery!" in large type, ran as follows:
"At an early hour this morning, Constable P.L. Hendrie discovered the murdered body of a gentleman lying in the roadway of Trinity Crescent, a turning off Acre Lane, which in one of the best-known streets in the suburb of Brixton. From papers found on the body, the victim has been identified as Mr. Raymond Carter, a gentleman of independent means and no occupation, residing at a West End hotel. There can be no question that robbery was the motive of the murder, for the deceased gentleman's gold watch and chain are missing, as well as his money, and there is ample evidence that his pockets were systematically rifled.
"But there are many strange, and, for the moment, inexplicable elements in this latest of London's too frequent tragedies.
"One is, how the deceased gentleman came to be in this neighbourhood at so late an hour of the night—a neighbourhood in which he is not likely to have had either friends or acquaintances, or claims of business or pleasure.
"Another is, how the report of the pistol-shot which killed him was not heard by any of the neighbouring residents; or why, if it was heard, it did not immediately excite alarm and inquiry.
"A third is, how the body came to be lying where it was found, for there is reason to believe, from the footprints and other marks on the road and on the path, that the murder was actually committed some little distance away. Unfortunately, the heavy rain which began to fall soon after midnight has largely tended to confuse these marks and prints, and the difficulties of the police are thereby greatly increased.
"However, one or two facts have been definitely ascertained.
"The pads of a large-sized dog, such as a mastiff, or St. Bernard, or bloodhound, are plainly traceable, as well as the tyre-marks of two bicycle; and on these clues the police are working hopefully.
"In regard to the dog, a resident in the street has come forward, who states that he distinctly heard, at or about midnight, though he cannot fix the time with absolute accuracy, the bark of a big dog in the immediate vicinity of his own flat.
"This is important as showing that the dog probably belonged to and accompanied the cyclists, since the dog-owners in the neighbourhood only kept small dogs, mostly of the terrier breed.
"The body has been removed to the Brixton mortuary pending the inquest, which has been fixed for to-morrow morning; but probably, after a formal opening, the Coroner will adjourn for a week to allow of a post-mortem being made, and to give the police time to pursue their investigations.
"We understand that the deceased gentleman, who was of American origin, took out papers of naturalisation as a British citizen less than six months ago. He was a bachelor, and, so far as is known at present, has no near relatives either in this country or the United States. The hotel-keeper, with whom he resided, describes him as a man of quiet habits, living much alone, and seeing no visitors."
The first person to speak, after perusing these paragraphs, was Mary Fielding.
"I ought to go to Scotland Yard as early as possible, Mr. Blake," she said; "will you come with me? I can't postpone my confession any longer."
"Why can't you?" he asked her, smiling.
"For several reasons; but principally because by remaining in hiding here, I am compromising you, and making you a sharer in my guilt. You have already become an accessory after the fact, and I know enough of the law to know that you incur grave risks by so doing."
"Well, if I've already done that, the harm's done, and can't be undone by your giving yourself up now," was the laughing rejoinder.
Blake was a very different man from the undecided and hesitating being who had excited Tinker's astonishment the previous night. Then he had spoken in the troubled and puzzled tones of a person who does not know his own mind. Now he spoke not only with firmness and certainty, but brightly and gaily and laughingly; as if all his doubts were resolved and he saw his way clear.
"But the longer you afford me the shelter of your roof," she urged in reply, "the harder it will go with you when you are found out."
"Oh, I am not going to be found out—at all events, not just yet," he answered.
"But the police have actually discovered a great deal—the bicycle-tracks, and the dog's footmarks. I dare say by this time they've found the bloodstains at the bottom of the staircase, which will lead them to suspect me. Then they will hunt for me, and a reward will be offered for my apprehension, and—and—"
"I imagine the rain must have washed out the bloodstains," he interrupted her.
"Well, the bicycle-tracks, and the marks of Pedro's feet—"
"Those are of little consequence," he said; "it is one thing to find tracks and marks, and another thing to identify them as ours. I assure you, Miss Fielding, that though Tinker and Pedro and I are accessories after the fact, we are in no particular danger, and you may give Scotland Yard a wide berth as far as we are concerned."
"But what about myself? Am I not making my position worse by—"
"No." he answered, in convincing accents, "I do not think so. There is more in this than meets the eye. I believe the ends of justice will best be served by your staying quietly, where you are. If there is a hue-and-cry after you, we shall have to reconsider the matter; but in the meantime, my advice to you is to leave Scotland Yard severely alone."
"I wish I could understand why," she sighed, "for even if there is some mystery about Raymond Carter's life which it is desirable in the interests of justice to have cleared up, there is no mystery at all about his death, for it was I who killed him."
"I will tell you why," he said. "If you give yourself up, you will be arrested and tried, and will undergo the shame and horrors of publicity, and will be eventually acquitted, as I believe, on the plea of justifiable homicide. But there is no denying the fact that you will be prejudiced by being the daughter of a felon. Forgive me for reminding you of your father's dishonour. That is one good reason against your giving yourself up. Another and more urgent one is that, if you do so, the inquiry will be quickly closed, for the man's death will then have been explained, and the whole affair will be promptly relegated to oblivion. My view is that the interests of justice demand that the affair should not be quickly closed or forgotten, and therefore I ask you to refrain from making a confession or surrendering to the police, because that is the only way it can be kept open."
For some time afterwards they were all busy with the pretence of eating and drinking, and then Blake said suddenly:
"Have you ever seen that symbol, Miss Fielding?" and passed across to her the envelope on which Tinker had scrawled the rough drawing of the "cross inside a circle."
"Why," she answered, "yes! Look!" And at once detached from her dress a small gold medallion, which she wore, with other small trinkets, suspended from her watch-chain.
The medallion was an exact replica of the symbol of a cross inside a circle.
"Will you tell me how you obtained this?" he asked.
"It belonged to my father, and I kept it as a memento of him. It is the thing I associate most intimately with his memory, because I can't remember ever having seen him without it. He invariably carried it fastened to a buttonhole of his waistcoat."
"Do you know what it means at all?"
"No. I don't. It was such a familiar object to me that it never occurred to me to ask him about it. I presume it is the badge of some society of which he was a member."
"He never offered you any explanation of it?"
"No."
"Did you notice if Raymond Carter wore a similar badge?"
"No, I am afraid I didn't."
"In fact, you can't tell me anything at all about it?"
"Nothing at all, Mr. Blake."
"Would you allow me to keep it for a few days?"
"Of course, if you wish. I need not ask you to guard it carefully. You know why I value it."
"You may be quite sure," said Blake, "I shall not part with it or lose it."
It was no use adding to the girl's anxiety and distress by telling her about the chalk-marks on the gate-posts, and so to avoid being questioned, Blake abruptly rose and left the breakfast-table.
THE hotel at which Raymond Carter resided was a quasi-private hotel, in Derek Street, Mayfair, known as "Merivale's," a house of unpretentious exterior, but whose internal fittings and arrangements were of the most costly and luxurious kind.
Thither Blake directed his steps directly after breakfast, sent in his card, and asked to see the proprietor.
He was immediately admitted, and presently found himself in the latter's private room, in company with Inspector Fairley, who had been detailed by the Scotland Yard authorities to take charge of the case.
Mr. Merivale was a sleek, prosperous, decorous-looking personage, who was exceedingly annoyed at the notoriety which the murder had brought to him and his hotel, a notoriety which was likely to prejudice him with his very select clientele.
The inspector was a wizen-faced little man of middle age, with sharp features and deep-set eyes. Blake knew him well, and didn't particularly like him, although he esteemed him as a shrewd and capable officer.
Fairley was one of the few police-inspectors who still regarded Blake with feelings of professional jealousy, and Blake would have preferred to find almost any other inspector in charge of the investigations rather than the one who had actually been appointed to superintend them.
However, the inspector's greeting was quite cordial.
"Come to see how we are getting on, Mr. Blake? Well, Mr. Merivale and I are doing a little quiet confabbing together. If he doesn't mind your being present, I've, no objection to make. There have been considerable developments since the state of things described in the newspapers."
"Why should he have chosen my hotel to get murdered from?" broke out Merivale plaintively, as he nervously twined and untwined the fingers of his fat, white hands. "Weren't there dozens of other London hotels he could have gone to? The nobility and gentry who honour me with their patronage simply won't stand it, Mr. Blake. Two titled ladies have already cleared out, bag and baggage, and declared they'll never come back. Two more are going this afternoon, while three others have given me notice of their intention to leave to-morrow. The Duke of Minster, who had taken the whole of my first floor for a week, has wired cancelling the rooms. I ought never to have let Raymond Carter come here; but business was bad when he came, and his money was good, so I let him stay on. Of course; I was to blame, but how could I foresee he would go and get himself murdered in a mere suburb? If it had been Piccadilly, it wouldn't have been so awkward for me. Some men have no tact at all. It'll spell ruin unless it's quickly got out of the way and forgotten, and if you'll help to expedite matters and catch the murderer and have him promptly hanged, I'll pay you any fee in reason."
Mr. Merivale talked as if Raymond Carter had got himself killed on purpose to spite him.
"This all comes of trying to do a kindness and be obliging to people. I'll never take in another chap like him so long as I live," he wound up irritably.
Blake murmured something sympathetic, and then turned to Fairley and asked him about the considerable developments.
"Raymond Carter's rooms were ransacked within an hour of the murder, all his private papers overhauled, burnt, destroyed, or otherwise made away with. The grate in his bed-room is chock full of charred fragments of letters and documents. You never saw such a sight. You can come upstairs with me if you like, and I'll show you. Puts a different complexion on it. It was no vulgar murder for the sake of stealing a man's money and watch. He was decoyed away to this spot in Brixton primarily to get at his papers. The murder itself was an afterthought. That's my theory, and I'll bet you ten to one a woman was at the bottom of it."
"I can't see you have any room to suspect a woman," said Blake in as indifferent tone as he could assume.
"Oh, don't you? Then you don't know much about human nature. When a man is decoyed to an unfamiliar neighbourhood, it is invariably a woman who decoys him—that's my experience."
"Perhaps you're right, Fairley. Have you ascertained how the person or persons who ransacked Carter's rooms obtained access to them?"
"Mr. Fairly suspects the night-porter," burst out Merivale excitedly. "But I tell him it's preposterous. My servants are all above suspicion. I pay high wages, and I only employ men of unimpeachable character and first-class references. If it got about that my servants were not of the highest standing and of irreproachable reputation, I shouldn't keep my hotel going a month. I won't hear of it—I won't bear of it! My night-porter is as innocent as myself! It would be ruin—ruin!"
"Mr. Merivale seems to think," remarked Fairley sarcastically, "that we are only interested in keeping his hotel going, whereas it don't matter a jot what happens to his hotel if we can lay our hands on the murderer."
"That's all very well for you, but I've got to think of myself," retorted Merivale, twining and untwining his fingers with a rapidity that made Blake giddy to look at him. "I won't hear of it, I tell you! All my servants are above suspicion! The miscreants who ransacked Carter's rooms must have broken into the house from the back. They had no accomplices amongst my servants I repeat it. You are on the wrong tack, Mr. Fairley. I would prefer Mr. Blake to inquire into this. You don't inspire me with confidence at all. I want the matter settled and done with, and got out of the way. Preposterous—preposterous! I simply won't listen to any aspersions on the character of my night-porter—I repudiate them—I repudiate them with contempt."
"I think we had better leave Mr. Merivale, and give him time to get cool," said Fairley calmly. "Would you like to see the mess in Carter's rooms?"
Blake said he would, and the inspector at once conducted him upstairs.
"Nothing has been touched, altered, or misplaced," said the latter, throwing the door open.
Blake whistled softly at the spectacle presented to his gaze.
It was a self-contained suite, consisting of bed-room, sitting-room, and bath-room, and not an inch of space had been left unransacked. Not only had drawers, cupboards, bureaus, and other similar receptacles been subjected to minute and rigorous scrutiny, but carpets had been taken up, bed-clothes and pillows turned topsy-turvy and shaken, cushions and pieces of upholstered furniture slit open and investigated, and pictures displaced from their frames, while the very oilcloth in the bath-room had been ripped up for fear that anything concealed beneath it should be overlooked. The grate, as Fairley had said, was a mass of charred fragments of burnt papers and letters and documents.
"This havoc wasn't wrought in an hour, Mr. Blake, no, nor in two hours."
"It has been very exhaustively and thoroughly done," said Blake.
"It is perfectly clear to me," said Fairley, "that the ransacking of this suite began immediately Carter left the hotel. I haven't told Merivale what I think, because he's positively insane on the question of his servants' honesty. It was done before Carter was murdered; it was done in the certain knowledge that he would not return from where he had gone, and therefore it was done by somebody acting in collusion with one of the hotel servants, who knew that Carter was being decoyed away to his death."
"That seems sound reasoning, Fairley."
"It is sound reasoning, Mr. Blake; in my view it is incontestably proved that there was a deep-laid plot at the back this murder."
"I think you're right."
"No vulgar robbery, no chance killing of a man to snatch his purse and watch."
"I agree with you."
"The motive was the recovery or destruction of valuable papers—papers valuable to somebody—papers incriminating to somebody, Mr. Blake."
"I am entirely of your opinion."
Fairly locked the outer door of the suite, and pocketed the key. Blake's hearty assent to his theories had put him in a excellent temper. They walked downstairs side by side, chatting in confidential undertones.
"You, of course, do not suspect Merivale himself?"
Fairley smiled broadly.
"That remark is hardly worthy of your acumen, Mr. Blake. Suspect poor old, fat, sleek, flabby, respectable Merivale? No; I would as soon suspect you. Now, I'm going to let you into another of my secrets. When I said there was a woman at the bottom of this business, I was not speaking without the book. Read that, and, you'll see."
He handed Blake a letter.
"An anonymous communication delivered at Scotland Yard this morning," he said.
Blake took the paper, and read the following:
"If you want to know who murdered Raymond Carter, find the woman who lives at 175 Trinity Crescent."
"Ah!" murmured Blake. "Ah!"
"The woman who lives there, Mr. Blake, is a Miss Fielding, whose record is about as bad as it can be. She has held half a dozen situations in as many months, and has stayed in none more than three days. She is the daughter of a convicted forger and embezzler. I lost no time in making inquiries. She has absconded. All this, mind you, is strictly confidential. What do you think of it?"
"I congratulate you, Fairley," said Blake.
He couldn't trust himself to say more, so, alleging urgent business, he wished the inspector a cordial "good-morning," and made a hurried departure.
Blake's Energy—The Emissary of the Head
Centre—
Amazing Effect of Certain News on Merivale.
BLAKE drove to Baker Street as fast as a taxi-cab could carry him.
"Miss Fielding, you mustn't on any account leave the house—you mustn't be seen at the windows. Things have taken an extraordinarily disastrous turn. I don't know where they may lead to. If you gave yourself up now, it would be almost impossible to save you. It has come to light that-there was a conspiracy to murder Raymond carter last night. If you had not shot him, somebody else would. Consequently your account of the affair would not be believed, for you would be suspected of being implicated in the conspiracy. The worst of it is that an anonymous communication has been sent to Scotland Yard actually incriminating you. A voluntary confession and surrender would be tantamount to throwing away your life."
Blake spoke rapidly and to the point, without any attempt to soften down his tidings, rightly judging that this was no time to think of sparing the girl's feelings.
She stared at him in stark horror.
"Fetch Mrs. Bardell!" he said peremptorily to Tinker. Blake dealt with Mrs. Bardell with exactly the same full candour.
"Miss Fielding," he said, "is in dreadful danger of paying the extreme penalty for the murder of Raymond Carter. She must be securely hidden here, and safeguarded from discovery. I charge you to see to it. I charge you to comfort and console her. Those are your orders. Mind that they are implicitly obeyed. Come, Tinker."
Not a superfluous word did he utter.
Leaving the two women together, he carried Tinker off to his bed-room, where he proceeded, with the same rapidity, to don a disguise. And while he dressed he talked. In a few minutes Tinker knew what the reader knows, and a little bit more as well.
"Merivale, the hotel-proprietor, is implicated," said Blake briefly.
"But how, sir?"
"He wears the same badge attached to his buttonhole that Miss Fielding's father wore—and probably Carter also wore—the little gold medallion with the cross in the circle, the symbol chalked up on the gate-posts."
Blake was as sparing of his words to Tinker as he had been to the two women.
"I am going to present myself to Merivale, wearing the same badge."
The youngster's intellect was strung up to keenest pitch. "It's a badge of some secret society, sir!"
"No doubt."
"You are going to try to pass yourself off as a member of the society?"
"Yes."
"In the hope of unraveling the conspiracy?"
"Yes."
"Is there nothing that I can do?"
Tinker was as curt, and short, and concise of speech as Blake himself.
"Yes, take Pedro and the cap he found to Brixton, and see if, from the scent of it, he can track the woman who hid in the adjoining flat. Be careful; run no undue risks; remember the police are on the look-out for a large dog, and return here before dark. I'm going straight back to Merivale's."
A few minutes later Blake, in the guise of a foreigner, with a tawny, trimmed beard and waxed and pointed moustache, wearing a soft slouch hat and a loose cape, with Mary Fielding's medallion fastened in his buttonhole, slipped out at the back of the house and made his way to Derek Street.
It may be asked why he hadn't told Fairley about the symbols, and drawn his attention to the fact that Merivale was wearing a similar one, since they were both working for the same object—viz., the probing and sifting of the conspiracy.
But there were excellent reasons for not doing so.
They were certainly working for the same object, but with widely different motives.
Blake's motive was the saving of an innocent girl from the consequences of an excusable act which the law would call wanton, wilful, and premeditated. Fairley's motive was solely the discovery and arrest of the person who had fired the fatal shot, without regard for side-issues, or nicely balanced scruples of right and wrong.
Once Fairley was aware that Mary Fielding's was the finger that pulled the trigger, he would be compelled by sheer force of circumstances to make the case against her as black as possible, and do his utmost to get her hanged.
Besides, that was the nature of the man—he was as relentless as a sleuth-hound on the trail. He saw his duty clearly; but he saw it with narrow and circumscribed vision. A criminal to Fairley was just a criminal, in whose favour nothing could be said, nothing offered in extenuation. And so Blake, even if he had liked the man personally—which he did not—would not have dared to trust him.
Arrived at the hotel, he requested to see the proprietor on urgent private business, but declined to give his name.
The servant who took the message presently returned with the answer that Mr. Merivale was extremely busy, and, moreover, made it a rule not to see anybody who refused his name.
Blake was therefore offered the alternative of giving his name and stating his business, or of being promptly kicked out.
He selected neither alternative.
Asking for a sheet of notepaper and an envelope, he scrawled a rough diagram of the symbol, closed it, sealed it down, and handed it to the messenger.
The effect was almost instantaneous.
In ten seconds he was being ushered into Merivale's private room with every mark of deference and respect, and there was no more talk of kicking him into the street.
Sexton Blake, disguised as a Frenchman, gains an interview with
Merivale, the hotel proprietor, and then makes an important discovery.
"Mistaire Merivale?" he murmured, doffing his hat with a flourishing sweep and a bow.
"Hush, man—wait!" said Merivale, and locked the door on the inside.
"Now, what is it?"
"You speak French, sare?"
"No; not if I can help it. Talk English if you can," said Merivale, who looked as pleased to see his visitor as a rat might be at unexpectedly meeting a bull-terrier.
His sleek, smooth cheeks were the colour of parchment, and his fat, podgy fingers as restless in their twining movements as eels in a basket.
"Show me your badge! How do I know who you are?" he snapped.
Blake opened his coat, and displayed the little medallion. "Now, show me yours, sare."
"Yes, yes—here's mine. I see you are a full member of the society. Now, then, what is it? What do you want? I am not going to put you up here—I've had enough of that in Carter's case. Otherwise, I shall be glad to help you in any way I can. Understand clearly—you won't sleep or eat here, or hang about the hotel."
"I understand. I do not wish it."
"Very well. I dare say we shall get on all right together, then."
"You are not vair strong in your welcome, Mistaire Merivale."
"No, perhaps not—nor would you be if you were in my shoes. Still, I don't mean anything. This business of Carter's—you comprehend? Most worrying. You must make allowances. Losing all my best customers. Duke of Minster wired, cancelling his rooms—don't suppose he'll ever come back. Fairley poking about here and asking nasty questions all the time. He's just gone. Came before I had time to put the room straight after searching through his papers. Hope you understand English well enough to follow me. My head's fairly splitting!"
"Ah, I see—you make a choke! Fairley have made your head fairly splitting! Très bon—très bon! Vair good—vair good indeed!" And Blake laughed hilariously.
"Never felt less like making a joke in my life! Still, if it amuses you, all right. Shows you understand English, anyway. You seem a good chap. Any chap that can laugh at a feeble joke like that must be a decent chap. Fact is, I'm not used to this sort of thing—I've grown out of it. It was all very well when I was young, and struggling to get a start in business. Very glad then to make a bit anyhow. Altogether different now that I'm established and doing well. Still, of course; I realise that once a member of the society always a member, and that I've got to stick to it and obey orders. This is quite between ourselves. I'm going to be loyal—I know too well what would happen to me if I wasn't."
"Ah, then, you have long been a member, sare?" said Blake, who was only too willing to encourage the other's inclination to talk. "For myself, I have only been a member one year."
"I joined nineteen years ago," answered Merivale, apparently, finding temporary relief from his pressing anxieties in this desultory chat. "A waiter at an English hotel in Brussels I was then—as high-spirited a young fellow as you'd see anywhere. Liked the idea of the society, when it was mentioned to me, and jumped at the notion of joining it. Didn't care twopence what I did so long as got on and made money. When the London branch was started, I came over and opened a little hotel in the Euston Road. Then the Head Centre in Paris used to send me customers—commercial travellers and so on, tourists, small shopkeepers, anybody who'd saved a little money; nothing very big, but always something out of which there were pickings to be made. Some lost their purses unaccountably, some paid through the nose in their bills, some mislaid articles of jewellery which were never recovered, some were held up in quiet streets when returning late at night from places of amusement. Oh, there were all sorts of ways of making a bit! And in time I made good money, and moved to Mayfair, and started this quiet, slap-up, fashionable establishment where you find me, and where it pays to be honest and respectable—just as it paid me in the Euston Road house to be the other thing. That's how I got any start. Funny my telling you all about it, but it'll help you to understand why I'm not best pleased at being mixed up in this affair. Everything to lose and nothing to gain is about how it stands with me now being connected with the society. Still, no use grousing! I know I've got to put up with it. I don't want orders coming from the Head Centre in Paris to put my light out, same as came for Carter. Where do you come from?"
"From Paris."
"Sent over by the Head Centre?"
"Yes," said Blake. And Merivale was obviously impressed.
"On what business?"
"That, sare," said Blake, "I am not at liberty at present to tell you."
"Oh, indeed!" was Merivale's reply. "A confidential mission?"
"Yes, confidential for the moment."
"Has it anything to do with Raymond Carter's affair?"
"It has—yes."
"I dare say they thought we were a long time carrying out their orders?"
"They did—and it's part of my mission to find out who is responsible for the delay."
"Oh, indeed!" said Merivale, with a manifest increase of uneasiness, no doubt fully realising that, if he were judged to be responsible for the delay, the consequences would be exceedingly uncomfortable. "I assure you that I, personally, did everything I possibly could to get the orders promptly obeyed."
"We shall see," said Blake. "I hope it may prove so."
"Good heavens, man!" exclaimed Merivale. "You aren't hinting that I'm under suspicion of the Head Centre?"
The man's sleek cheeks seemed to become suddenly pendulous, and the twining movements of the fat finger took on feverish activity.
Blake had to be very careful how he answered, for fear of getting out of his depth, and betraying himself by displaying ignorance of facts with which he ought to b perfectly familiar if he were really what he pretended to be.
"No, not exactly under suspicion—not exactly that—but very near it," he said—a reply that was not calculated to make Merivale feel any the happier.
"Merciful Powers!" he gasped. "Why?"
"You yourself should know best why, sare," said Blake with a shrug. "Have you not yourself admit just now that you are no longer used to this sort of thing—that you are not so keen on the society's business as you once were—that you have grown out of it? That it was all vair well when you was young and struggling to get a start, but now that you are established and doing well it was different?" Blake shook his head with portentous gravity. "You will not deny Mistaire Merivale, that you have said all that?"
"But, man, that was said to you strictly between our selves!"
"Certainement—oertainement!" said Blake, with aggravating coolness. "It was said before you have known that have I been sent over here on a confidential mission."
"Then you couldn't, in honour, use it against me?" cried Merivale, in a startled, pleading tone.
"Perhaps—and also perhaps not. I shall inquire well. I shall do nothing in a hurry. You alarm yourself too much If I find you have been good and diligent in the affairs of the society, I shall report to the Head Centre. You have nothing to fear if you have been diligent. If you have not been, I shall report that too, but with much pain. It will then be for the Head Centre to award you praise, or blame and punishment, according as I have reported. For myself, my duty will then have been finished."
"I have done everything—everything," stammered Merivale, in an agony of apprehension.
"I am not accusing you, yet," the supposed delegate from the society's Head Centre reminded him coolly, for though it was Blake's cue to encourage him to blurt out the society's secrets, he was anxious to avoid making an irreconcilable enemy of him.
"In regard to the papers, I have toiled for hours searching for them. I have destroyed my own furniture. I have ripped up seats and cushions of armchairs. I have pulled up carpets. I have broken open cupboards and drawers. How could I possibly do more?"
"That is all vair good and commendable, sare, but have you found those papers?"
Blake was sorely tempted to ask what the papers were, and why they were so frantically wanted, but, of course, dared not, for that was just one of the facts he was supposed to know.
"No," said Merivale nervously; "I did not find them."
Blake shrugged his shoulders with unpleasant significance.
"And then about the delay in killing Carter," continued the other, in zealous haste to clear himself from blame. "I did all I could to hurry it up. The society couldn't expect me to kill him. I'm past that sort of thing. And it isn't so easy to kill a man safely in this country as I dare say it is in Paris."
"But he lived in your hotel, sare."
"Great heavens! The society couldn't expect me to kill him in my own hotel! Why, there'd have been no escape for me. I shouldn't only have been ruined, I should have been hinged. I did my very utmost to persuade one of the others to kill him."
"Brave fellow," said Blake. "Who did eventually kill him?"
"Marie Lopez, I believe."
"Has she told you so?"
"No, but it was she who was finally deputed to do it. Naturally she's gone into hiding for a time till the hue-and-cry has blown over. She'll turn up presently and tell us all about it. It doesn't matter who did it as long as it was done."
"Not a bit," said Blake.
"Well, I deserve the credit for that."
"You? But you said Marie Lopez—"
"Yes, but it was I who induced her to do it. I changed her passionate love for Carter into passionate hatred. I told her about his infatuation for Mary Fielding. She wouldn't have done it if I hadn't made her mad jealous. I deserve credit for that. Nobody else thought of it. You can't say I didn't do my best."
"No," said Blake, with dry curtness, "I can't."
"Then, about the girl herself, it was I who first found out Carter's determination to marry her. It was I who reported it to the Head Centre, and it was owing to my report that the order came for Carter to be killed. That ought to be remembered in my favour. I have done everything—everything a man could do—everything, loyally, to the best of my ability—to the best—everything, loyally, that a man could do," he faltered.
His terror of the consequences of having possibly incurred the displeasure of the Head Centre overcame his self-control at this point, and he wound up with a series of jerky, broken, spasmodic utterances which were barely intelligible.
A silence of several minutes' duration followed, for Merivale was in no condition to continue the conversation, and Blake was not sorry to have a little time to try to piece together the various isolated scraps of information divulged to him.
The society, whose operations he had stumbled upon, was apparently an international organisation for the perpetration of systematic robbery, with branches throughout Europe, and its head office in Paris. Of this society Fielding, Mary's father, Carter, Merivale, and the woman named Marie Lopez, were members of the London branch, no doubt with many others. Carter had offended the Head Centre by his obstinate determination to marry Mary Fielding, consequently his execution had been ordered, and after some delay, been carried out. The delay had been occasioned by the difficulty of finding anyone amongst the London members willing to undertake the task. The Head Centre had then become impatient and threatening, and at last Merivale had induced Marie Lopez to undertake it by working on her feelings of jealousy; for Carter had, apparently, once been enamoured of Marie, but had since jilted her. Then, as chance would have it, Mary Fielding's pistol had executed the society's decree, and the task undertaken by the woman Lopez had been performed for her. Thus the identity of the woman who had been hiding in the adjoining flat was definitely settled.
So far, the situation was clear enough, but there were many dark and perplexing questions arising out of it.
What was this nefarious society's interest in Mary Fielding? Why should the Head Centre have decreed Carter's death simply because of his desire to marry her?
What were the papers to the possession of which so much importance was attached?
And where were those papers now?
Blake had only just straightened out the information obtained, and adjusted it into this shape, and formulated the above questions without attempting to answer them, when the cries of the newsboys shouting the early editions of the evening papers reached him faintly from the street.
Merivale at once pricked up his ears end listened intently. "What are—what are—are they calling?" he faltered, in a panic-stricken voice.
"I can't hear yet," answered Blake.
The cries came gradually nearer, and presently it was possible to distinguish them.
"Paper! Assassination of Raymond Carter! Paper! A murderess! Paper! Search for Miss Fielding, daughter of a convicted felon! Paper. Raymond Carter murdered by a woman! Paper! Absconding of the murderess. Paper! Speshul! Paper! Raymond Carter known to have been murdered by the absconding daughter of a felon! Paper! Reward of £250 offered for the arrest of the alleged murderess. Speshul—paper—speshul!"
"Great heavens!" ejaculated Merivale, jumping to his feet like a man electrified.
"What's the matter now?" queried Blake coolly.
"D-d-don't you hear that?" was the stammering response.
"Yes, of course; Mary Fielding is wanted for the assassination of Raymond Carter."
"But it's horrible—horrible," stuttered Merivale, with every indication of emotional distress, and shocked dismay.
Blake stared at him in utter stupefaction. It was odd indeed to find a man like Merivale completely upset at the prospect of the arrest of an innocent woman on a false charge.
"What of it?" he murmured bewilderedly.
"Why, man, don't you see," choked Merivale, "it would mean ruin for us all if she were caught and tried and condemned. The body was found near where she lives. There is a case against her—a good case. The Head Centre would decree the closing of the London branch, and the removal of all its members if anything happened to her. You must know that. There are millions at stake—millions. Instant steps must be taken to find her, and convey her to a place of safety. It's awful—awful! I must go and see about it."
Without another word he unlocked the door, tore it open, and rushed out.
Blake followed, but lost him amidst the labyrinth of doors and passages; then, having waited for some time in the vestibule without seeing him—Merivale, no doubt, had left the hotel by some secret exit at the back—returned thoughtfully to Baker Street, agreeably surprised, and not ill-satisfied with the result of his morning's work.
How Tinker and Pedro Fared in Trinity Crescent.
TRINITY CRESCENT had become a point of morbid fascination for a crowd of idlers, as is usually the case with the scene of a sensational murder. A space immediately in front of No. 175 and the adjoining flat had been railed off, and was guarded by half a dozen constables, with a view to prevent the spot where the body had been found from being tramped over by the general public; and the footmarks and the tracks of the two bicycles from being further confused or obliterated.
But every coign of vantage, every hillock and mound of rubbish in the unfinished roadway, every wall and gate and tree and lamp-post from which a view of the railed-off area could be obtained, had its cluster of staring and curious spectators, agog with excitement to see anything there was to be seen.
And that was little enough.
Half a dozen policemen, soberly pacing up and down inside the ropes, and calling out, "Pass along, please—pass along!" or "Stand back, there!" when the crowd encroached too far on the protected area, was practically all it amounted to. Of the footprints and tracks they could see nothing.
Such was the condition of affairs when Tinker and Pedro arrived on the scene, the youngster keeping tight hold of Pedro's collar as they pressed through the crowd. Progress was very difficult.
By degrees they managed to worm their way through the outer fringes of the throng and to get within five or six yards of the roped-off space; but having got thus far, they were confronted by a solid phalanx of people, ten and twelve deep; so closely packed and wedged and jammed together, that further advance was out of the question.
Extricating himself at last—and it was almost as much trouble to get out as it had been to get in—Tinker withdrew to a comparatively empty spot some distance away, and stood still to think. His presence had not passed unnoticed, nor Pedro's. The dog's size and strength and tractability and air of perfect intelligence always excited comment in the street from passers-by. A number of small scattered groups, absorbed in discussing the tragedy, didn't fail to draw one another's attention to the boy and to Pedro.
"A nice-looking beast, ain't he?" said a man of the tramp type, smoking a short clay pipe, to a slatternly woman who was with him. "How'd yer like to have him jump out at yer in the dark if yer were nosing round where yer ought not to be?"
"He'd pull a man down easy, he would," was the woman's reply. "He ain't ezackly a lydy's plaything. What sort of breed do you call him?"
"He's a wolf-harnd, he is."
"Garn, yer blessed fool!" said another man, standing near. "He's no more a wolf-harnd, than your mongrel tike is! He's a blood-harnd, not a wolf-harnd. Ain't I right, governor?" he said, appealing to Tinker. "Ain't yer dawg a blood-harnd?"
Tinker said it was and moved farther away. But the comments and remarks of this particular group still pursued him.
"He'd be just the kind of dawg what came with the murderers on their bikes."
The woman said this, and the man replied:
"I reckon you're right, Sal; it were a large dawg what came."
"Why don't you go and collar him and the bloke wiv him, and hand 'em over to the cops, and claim the two hundred and fifty quid reward? I guess I'd be able to borrow a bit then to pay me tailor for me last noo suit of hevening togs," said the other man, amidst a roar of sniggering merriment.
"Strike me lucky! I could do wiv two hundred and fifty of the best," said the woman. "Fust thing I'd do would be to have my grand pianner tooned. Ain't 'ad it tooned since the ball-party the day we planted dear old Uncle 'Enery beneath the daisies."
When the mirth caused by this sally had subsided, the woman's companion said:
"It would be a little bit of orlright if we was to nab that reward."
"Ho, yus!" said the other man. "And don't yer wish yer might get it?"
"Well, yer never can tell; that might be one of the blokes on the bikes."
"And that might be the very dawg hisself."
"Yer blamed idiot, why don't yer go and seize the dawg then, instead of gassin'?"
"Yus, George go and do it," said the woman, "and we'll all come to yer funeral."
Not at all relishing the turn the conversation had taken, Tinker edged farther and farther away; and fortunately for him the attention of the group was at that moment distracted elsewhere by a movement in the closely-packed throng round the railed-off area, and by the police shouting peremptorily:
"Make way there! Stand back! Stand back! Make way!"
A taxi-cab slowly emerged from the crowd from the Acre Lane end of the road, and out of it stepped Inspector Fairley. The scattered groups immediately rushed off to join the main throng to see what he'd come for, and Tinker found himself standing absolutely deserted and alone.
Now was his chance of fulfilling Blake's commands. Producing the cap from his pocket, he held it for Pedro to smell and catch the scent of it, then pointed to the forecourt of the flat in which the woman had secreted herself.
Pedro, after one puzzled glance at Tinker's face and one more sniff at the cap, realised what was required of him, and sped away. He reached the flat next to Mary Fielding's by jumping the intervening fences; and there for a time Tinker lost sight of him. The youngster, climbing to the top of a lofty mound of rubbish, was able to see into the railed-off space over the heads of the crowd, and awaited the result of the experiment with thrilling suspense.
Inspector Fairley was the centre of admiring interest. Foot-rule in hand, he was taking measurements of tracks and prints and marks with the utmost exactitude, and jotting them down in his notebook. The six constables and the crowd watched him with breathless awe. Being a conscientious and painstaking worker, the inspector took every measurement three times before making a note of the result. It was a back-aching, fatiguing, worrying, finicking business, and more than once he spoke sharply to a constable for getting in his way, or for not doing something he wanted done smartly enough, or for stupidity, or for some trivial failure or omission which, if his temper had not been greatly tried, he wouldn't have taken the slightest notice of.
"Take your clumsy hoofs out of the way," Tinker heard him say to a constable, who by no possible stretch of the imagination could have been incommoding him.
Then to another, who had not moved an inch:
"Now, numskull, how am I to take accurate measurements with your confounded shadow dancing all over the place?"
A little later to a third, whom he'd ordered to check his measurements:
"Blockhead, can't you read figures? You ought to be back in an infants' school."
It was constant outbursts of nagging, irascible temper like this, that made Peter Fairley the most unpopular inspector in the Force.
These three trifling incidents had just occurred when Pedro came loping over the fence, and with his nose to the ground, intent on the trail, made straight for Fairley.
The inspector was standing straggle-legged, bending low, and at the moment was actually engaged in measuring one of Pedro's own footprints.
The only person who didn't see the dog was the inspector, whose back was turned to him.
The six constables saw him right enough, but they had been so repeatedly reprimanded for things they hadn't done, that they thought it safer to say nothing.
The crowd saw him, but inasmuch as they were all agog with wonder, and jumped to the conclusion that the dog was in some way connected with the inspector's experiments, they said nothing either, simply waiting in a state of extreme and absorbed expectancy for the upshot.
The upshot was as follows:
The inspector standing straddlewise, and bending low over his foot-rule, suddenly became aware of some large animal passing between his legs.
Of course, everything happened very quickly; but the phenomenon was so extraordinary that the inspector, apparently paralysed by it, remained rooted to the ground, without altering his attitude by a hair's breadth, for what seemed to the onlookers an interminable period.
Pedro came steadily on, his nose to the ground, until he perceived an obstacle in his path, the obstacle being an inverted human face staring at him in a way that he had never been stared at before.
Probably he was a little startled.
The phenomenon was just as queer to him as his sudden and silent approach was queer to the inspector.
He bared his teeth, uttered an angry, rumbling growl, and snapped at the inverted face.
The inspector, leaping backwards, turned a complete somersault, and landed on his head.
Pedro, finding the obstacle removed from his path, took no further notice of it, resumed his scent of the trail, pushed through the crowd, who quickly made room for him to pass., and pursued his way at a steady gait towards the unfinished end of the road, utterly unconscious of the excitement he had left behind him.
Tinker, followed him, and caught him up, and the pair of them were soon out of sight.
But for the rival and superior attraction of the inspector's performance, it is quite certain the youngster and the dog wouldn't have been allowed to get away without being instantly pursued; but the inspector's masterly acrobatic exhibition was so enthralling and so much to their taste, that the crowd waited to see what he would do next.
"Bravo!" they shouted and jeered. "Do it again! Do it again!"
The plaudits were loud, prolonged, enthusiastic, and deafening.
"Bet you half-a-dollar you can't do it twice running!"
"Where did you learn the trick, guv'ner?"
"Which was the 'arder, your 'ead or the road?"
"It was a lot cleverer than many turns you've got to pay to see."
"You carn't expeck him to do it for nothing—send round the 'at for him!"
"Bravo, governor! Bravo! Do it again! Do it again!"
Amidst a continuous fire of such cheap witticisms as these, the unfortunate inspector picked himself up, and, purple with passion, glared at the crowd. It really looked for a moment as if he were going to take some desperate step to chastise and disperse them, such as ordering a baton charge. But he thought better of it, preferring to vent his fury on the six constables under his command.
"Why didn't one of you fools speak?" he shouted, and the crowd were instantly hushed to silence in order that they might not lose a word of the dialogue.
"It wasn't for us to speak," replied one of the constables, bolder than his comrades; "we didn't know you were going to do it."
"Do you think I did it on purpose?" was the infuriated retort.
"I don't know why you done it," said the man; "it was only a dog—it was nothing to be afraid of. There was no call for you to turn a back-somersault if you didn't want to."
"Idiot! Idiot!" spluttered Fairley. "Idiot! I'll reduce you for this!"
"It wasn't my fault any more than anybody else's," rejoined the other sullenly. "You can't reduce me for what you've done yourself. It wasn't me that turned the back-somersault. You told me not to dance all over the place, and I haven't budged."
The crowd crying "Hear, hear!" took sides with the constable, and egged him on.
"Don't you be put upon, cop; he can't reduce you for obeying his orders."
"Stick up to him! Sauce him! Get a bit of your own back!"
"Tell 'im you'll report him to the Commissioner, and get 'im reduced!"
"Yah! Tyrant! Acrobat! Do it again, governor! Do it again! Bet you five to two in half-dollars you can't do it twice running!"
The inspector, gradually cooling, perceived the folly of persisting in an altercation with a subordinate in the hearing of a jeering multitude, and, putting aside the question of responsibility and blame for subsequent consideration, demanded a prompt explanation of what exactly had occurred.
"You say it was a dog. Where did the dog come from?"
"From over there," they said again—"over there!"
"Fools! Where did it come from before that?"
"From its kennel!" sang out a voice from the crowd.
The constables said they couldn't possibly tell where it had come from before that.
"What was it—a mastiff?"
"No, a bloodhound!"
"Ha! A bloodhound! And you hadn't the sense to stop it and read the owner's name on its collar?"
The crowd said that the inspector had had a better chance of stopping it than anybody else, and if he'd wanted the dog stopped, why hadn't he done it himself?
"Your eyes were precious near his collar when you jumped. Why didn't you read the owner's name then?" sang out the same voice as before.
The inspector, seeing he was getting the worst of it, whatever form his questions took, wisely resolved to forget the incident, and resume his interrupted labours.
In a moment or two he was busy again with foot-rule and notebook.
The constables, fearful of offending or getting in the way, stood as motionless as statues. And the crowd, who had hoped for a free fight, disappointed at the tame ending of the incident, settled down to find what solace they could in watching him.
But soon their hopes rose again.
They were not slow to remark that the inspector, as he measured and fussed and remeasured, began to exhibit symptoms of rising excitement, ejaculations of "Bless my soul!" "Amazing!" "Incredible!" and the like, escaped his lips in rapid succession.
The crowd saw him speak in a whisper first to one constable then to another, and observed that the constables were made to measure and remeasure; and that, having done so, the excitement which already possessed the inspector, was communicated to each of them in turn.
The air became full of muttered exclamations of "Amazing!" "Incredible!" and "Bless my soul!"
"What's up, governor? What you found?" sang out the voice from the crowd.
The inspector replied in tones tremulous with excitement: "Just as the foot and fingerprints of no two human beings are alike, so the pad-prints and marks of no two dogs are alike. We have incontestable proof here that the dog who threw me down is the same dog that accompanied the cyclists to the scene of the murder last night. Find that dog, and you've found the—"
The crowd didn't wait to hear any more.
With a wild yell they broke and ran in pursuit of Tinker and Pedro.
"What did I tell yer?" said the slatternly woman to her two companions.
"Oh, garn!" they replied savagely. "It's too blessed sickening! To 'ave 'ad two hundred and fifty quid in our 'ands, as you might say, and then to have missed it!"
They joined in the mad rush with the rest, but they were soon hopelessly tailed off; and, expressing their disgust at their evil luck in a string of bitter curses, abandoned the race for the police reward to those who were fleeter-footed; and stronger and abler to compete for it.
The Chase.
TINKER and Pedro had about a quarter of an hour's start.
The dog worked methodically and thoroughly. It was impossible to hurry him.
The only occasion when you couldn't hurry Pedro was when he was on the trail. Nor did the youngster see any necessity for trying to hasten his pace, for by this time they were well away from Trinity Crescent and the mob of morbid sightseers.
Every now and again the dog was at fault where the scent failed or grew faint, such as at busy corners, or at points of congested traffic; but by dint of casting forward and backwards, he always picked it up again, so that, if there were momentary checks and halts, and their progress was comparatively slow, they were continually moving forward, and, as Tinker was aware from the dog's confident manner, undoubtedly on the right track.
In this way they reached the main Brixton Road, coming into it almost opposite Electric Avenue, by the turning that led past the Empress Theatre.
Here one of the longest checks occurred, the dog's perplexity being clearly demonstrated by his running round and round in what appeared to be aimless circles.
At this point Tinker endured many bad moments, his heart being continually in his mouth, for Pedro was so completely absorbed in rediscovering the trail as to be utterly oblivious of the traffic, and narrowly escaped being run over by some heavy vehicle or other half a dozen times every minute. The youngster's relief was intense when the dog, with a glad whimper, made a sudden dart into Stockwell Avenue, and the danger point was left behind.
Thereafter it was all plain, straightforward going.
From Stockwell Avenue into the long Stockwell Road, and from there into Mansfield Terrace. At No. 102 in the latter street Pedro threw up his head and gave vent to the loud, joyous bark with which he always announced his having run his quarry to earth.
"Hush, Pedro—hush! Dear old doggie!"
Tinker fondled and patted him, and drew him away. "Empty," he murmured—"to let!" and smiled.
How often had he and Blake discovered the house they were looking for adorned with a lying notice-board proclaiming that it was "To let?"
Such seemed to be the commonest device resorted to by criminals to conceal their whereabouts. The notice-board, the drawn blinds, the weed-grown garden, the battered, tumble-down gate, the atmosphere of neglect and decay pervading the place, did not disturb or deceive Tinker for a moment. He knew that be had fulfilled Blake's commands, and that No. 102, Mansfield Terrace was the secret retreat of the mysterious woman who had been lurking in Trinity Crescent on the night of the murder.
"Home, old chap—home!" he said to Pedro, and Pedro signified by the energetic wagging of his tail that, for his part, he didn't care how soon they got there. Hard, plain dog-biscuits were his ordinary fare, but he knew from long experience, that bones and gravy and other special delights awaited him after the successful accomplishment of a quest.
Clearly the dog was laughing, and the youngster laughed in sympathy.
"Bones and gravy, Pedro, eh? Bones and gravy!" Pedro, usually the staidest of dogs, began to gambol and frisk like a puppy.
"Shall we run?"
"Run! Yes," intimated Pedro. "Let's get home!"
"We'll run till we meet a taxi—cab—what do you think of the idea?"
Pedro wagged his tail.
So boy and dog started off together, the boy, as he was so fond of doing, keeping up an imaginary conversation with the dog as they ran, and the dog responding with joyous leaps and barkings, until they reached Stockwell Road again, while the boy hesitated whether to turn to the right or left.
The right would take him back to the main Brixton Road, the left would take him into the Clapham Road.
In which direction would he be likely sooner to meet a taxi?
"Which?" he inquired gaily of Pedro.
Pedro replied that he didn't care a red cent which, so long as they didn't waste time in loitering.
"Come on!" he as good as said, and began caracolling sideways first in one direction then in another, inviting Tinker to make up his mind and decide quickly.
Then all of a sudden he dropped his sportive caperings. and stood tensely still, his ears cocked, his head on one side, his tail stiff and straight, and stared down the long road to the right.
"What is it, old boy—what do you hear?"
With a faint whimper the dog moved a step or two forward, and again stopped and listened.
"What's the matter? What's the danger?"
Pedro returned to Tinker, faced round again, and growled uneasily, the hair along his back standing up in a ridge of bristles. Glancing up into Tinker's face, he said, as unmistakably as if he had been gifted with the faculty of human speech:
"Surely you hear something yourself?"
"Yes, think I do," said Tinker.
The sound that reached him was faint, far-off, and vague, not unlike the hum of distant traffic, but somehow different and infinitely more sinister.
"Can't make anything of it," said the boy.
"Never mind," said the dog, "you trust to me. I happen to know that we shall be well advised in making speedy tracks from here."
Pedro said this by the resolute manner in which be walked away to the left, pausing every other yard to see if Tinker were following him; and when the youngster refused to stir, by nipping his coat-sleeve firmly between his teeth, and trying gently to drag him away.
"No, don't, Pedro—don't!"
Tinker released his coat-sleeve, and stood very still.
The sounds which had been so vague and formless were beginning to take definite shape and clearness, gradually resolving themselves into the angry roar of an excited mob thirsting for vengeance, which is the most formidable and dread of all human sounds. The bellow of a cataract, the rumble of an earthquake, the snarling rage of a wounded tiger, the hiss of a venomous serpent, are all less terrifying, for there are possibilities of harm about a mass of men whose passions have broken loose and got beyond control that transcend every other form of evil upon earth.
"Yes, I think it's time we were going—come along," he said.
But he had left it just a little late, for as he turned to run the foremost stragglers, the advanced guard of the oncoming multitude, caught a glimpse of him and gave tongue, as huntsmen cry their "View, hallo!" at the sight of the fox they are chasing.
"There he is! There they are! There he is!"
Hundreds of throats instantly took up the cry.
The mob had swelled and grown as the pursuit developed. It had been a hundred or two when it started from Trinity Crescent, but the news that the murderer of Raymond Carter had been found spread like wildfire, and in proportion as it spread the numbers of the tearing, rushing throng were added to. By the time that it reached the Stockwell Road, it had increased to over a thousand.
It was a motley throng, too—composed of men, women, and children, loafers, clerks, business-men, tramps, navvies, and road-scavengers; soldiers in uniform and police; milk-boys, bakers'-boys, messenger-boys; postmen, cabmen, railway-men; fruit-sellers, flower-sellers, match-sellers; anybody and everybody who chanced to be in the street when the throng swept past them abandoned their own particular errand and joined in the chase.
The youngster was quick to realise his danger, and, it is safe to say, ran as he had never run before.
The danger lay not so much in being caught, as being caught by the infuriated mob, which is apt to tear its victims to pieces first and make inquiries afterwards.
But Tinker had no wish to be caught at all, because of the inevitably-resulting exposure of Blake as the shelterer and protector and shielder of Mary Fielding, the girl who, on her own confession, had done Raymond Carter to death.
Had this not been the case, he would have sought refuge in one of the houses, claiming the protection of its occupants, or else made a dash for the nearest police-station and given himself up.
Under the circumstances neither course was open to him, and he had to depend solely upon his own efforts, his own legs, and his own wit and intelligence to pull him through.
But if he ran as he had never run before, he ran with his head, as well as his heels.
Speed was essential, but not speed alone.
Speed of itself could not save him, for in that howling mob at his back were men in cabs and carts, men in cars and on bicycles, whom he couldn't hope to out-distance if they once got out of the ruck and had a clear road ahead to chase him. The actual size and disorder of the pursuing mob told to that extent in his favour, since the motors and other vehicles which could have so easily overtaken him were unable to force their way to the front, and the runners in front refused to give way.
The £250 reward was the prize these runners sought, and they were as jealous of somebody else getting it as they were greedily keen to get it themselves.
So Tinker ran as hard as he could at the start, and when he had got so far ahead as to be for the time being out of sight of his pursuers, slowed down.
The pace was too hot to last. There was a long way still to go.
He settled down to a steady jog-trot, which he judged sufficient to enable him to retain the advantage he had already secured, and which, since he was in first-class trim he felt he could keep up indefinitely. And as he ran he glanced searchingly down each side-turning as he passed it seeking a likely hiding-place. Except for the motors and carts and bicycles, which at any moment might get clear of the throng and either overtake him, or, by making a wide detour, cut him off in front, he would have been comparatively sanguine of making good his escape.
Suddenly he descried a furniture-van.
It was in a side-street to the left, and there was seemingly no one in charge of it.
It might afford him a safe refuge until the mob had dispersed.
Walking rapidly up to it, but not so rapidly as to excite suspicion, he saw a man emerge from the house at which it was drawn up, carrying an armchair. He therefore knew that the van was being packed, not unpacked. It was a departure, not an arrival. He also noticed that the van was about half-full. He passed it, and when the man had stowed away the armchair and returned to the house, he turned sharply, watched his opportunity, and stepped quietly into it.
Pedro followed him—very reluctantly, for Pedro's thoughts were still running on bones and gravy—and a moment later he and the dog were safely ensconced behind a large chest of drawers at the further end of the van.
He had not been there a minute when the howling mob made itself heard, and the removal-men—a foreman and three assistants—came running out of the house to find out the meaning of the uproar.
"Good gracious!" said one. "Is it a fire?"
"Gosh!" exclaimed the foreman. "What a collection of rag-tag and bob-tail scum!" For the mob were then streaming past the end of the road.
"Seen a boy and a dog?" was shrieked at them.
"Boy, and a dog? No!" the foreman shouted back "What do you mean? What's the matter?"
"A boy and a dog—the Trinity Crescent murderer!"
"What! Are you after him? Is he hereabouts?"
"Yes, yes, yes!" they screeched.
"I seen him!" shouted Jim, suddenly gesticulating in frantic excitement. "I seen him!"
Jim was the man who had stowed the armchair away in the van.
"I seen him! He passed here not two minutes ago!" he yelled.
The mob swarmed down the road, and the chase swept past.
"No, you don't!" said the foreman, collaring Jim round the neck. "You don't chase no murderers until this job's finished!" And the visions which Jim had momentarily cherished of winning £250 instantly vanished.
"Gosh! What a mob—what a mob!" he continued to exclaim.
"The poor beggar won't have no chance at all," said another man.
"Look at them motors! They're rushing on! They're going to cut him off!"
What Tinker had feared would happen had happened at last.
The cars and the cycles, and the carts and the cabs had extricated themselves from the ruck, and were scouring the neighbourhood in independent pursuit of him.
He had discovered his place of retreat only just in time.
The foreman and his assistants resumed their labours.
Jim came out, and thrust a bundle of mattresses on the top of the chest of drawers, blocking out Tinker's light and air. When he'd gone for another load, Tinker pushed them away.
The foreman brought out a small box, and laid it down.
One of the other men came out with a heavy table.
"Why can't you stow the things properly?" said the foreman. "Look at that bundle of mattresses! It's taking up twice as much room as it ought!"
"It wasn't me that brought that out, it was Jim," said the man.
"Oh, was it? All right, you can leave the table; I'll stay and speak to him."
Jim presently appeared, with a big oak-chest on his back.
"Now, look here, Jim, don't you know your job better than this?" said the foreman. "Is that your notion of packing a van? Call that ship-shape? Them mattresses, I mean!"
"It warn't me as put 'em like that!" said Jim.
"Now, now, now! Don't lie about it! It was you! Shove 'em well back!"
The foreman returned to the house.
Jim shoved the mattresses well back, and went off.
Tinker immediately shoved them away.
The foreman came out, carrying a poker and a basket.
The foreman didn't burden himself with anything that wasn't very light and easy to carry. His assistants carried the heavy articles.
"Well, I'm jiggered!" he muttered. "Well, I'm jiggered! Send Jim here, sharp!" he said, to one of the others.
Jim came staggering out with the larger portion of an enormous brass bedstead.
"Did I, or did I not tell you to shove that bundle of mattresses well back?"
The foreman was a big, lusty fellow, with a huge breadth of shoulders, while Jim was rather under-sized, but tough, and slim, and wiry.
"You did tell me, and I done it!" said Jim hotly.
"Now, now, now! Don't lie, don't lie, don't lie!"
"I am about fed up with being called a liar. Liar yourself!" retorted, Jim.
"I'm doing all the work, and you do nothing but bully-rag me! Liar yourself! Come on!" said Jim, striking a fighting attitude. "Any chap, blinkin' foreman or not, that calls me a liar twice takes the consequences!" And again he invited the foreman to come on.
"Before I knock your blanky head off," said the foreman, very deliberately, "use your eyes, and tell me whether them mattresses are shoved well back or not."
Jim looked, and was very much astonished at the position of the mattresses.
"I tell you I done it," he repeated surlily.
"Are they right, or are they not right?" continued the foreman, in truculent tones.
"They are not right, but I shoved 'em right, same as you told me. Somebody else must have been and shoved 'em wrong afterwards."
"That for a blessed yarn, Jim!"
"Well, shove 'em better yourself if you want 'em shoved!"
Jim was by this time spoiling for the fray, but the foreman, at heart a good-natured, easy-going giant, was loth to proceed to extremities. Moreover, Jim's persistent denial of responsibility began to make an impression on him, so he decided, before polishing Jim off, to prove to him, by ocular demonstration, that the bundle of mattresses, if properly stowed at the beginning, would have been properly stowed still.
"Now, my lad, I'll just show you how it ought to be done," he said, "and if you don't apologise afterwards and own up you're in the wrong, you'll know what to expect."
Jim snorted defiantly, and the foreman climbed into the van.
"There, my lad," he said, when he'd shoved with all his might and compressed the bundle of mattresses into the smallest possible compass, "what do you think of that? What you got to say now?"
"Ha, ha, ha!" Jeered Jim, as the mattress suddenly broke loose again and spread bulgingly over the top of the chest of drawers.
The next instant the foreman reeled backwards.
Pedro, who had been three times nearly smothered, couldn't stand any more of it. Up he came, with a spring and a growl, and launched himself straight at the foreman face. Tinker was out after him in a jiffy. In his backward reeling the foreman had tumbled over the tailboard, and lay partially stunned on the pavement. Jim, who was peering into the van in scared wonder at the commotion going on inside it, was struck full in the chest by Pedro, and sent flying.
Boy and dog were in rapid flight before either of them could recover themselves.
But Jim had plenty of pluck.
He didn't shout or yell, or raise a hue-and-cry.
He didn't shout: "Stop him! Stop him! The Trinity' Crescent murderer!"
He was bent on gaining the reward, so he kept his knowledge to himself.
He was on his feet and after them in half-a-minute, and the fugitives and their solitary pursuer raced silently down the street.
Voluntary Surrender Impossible—Alphonse Roget—Behind the Blinds.
IT was late in the afternoon, and Blake had not been out of the house since his second visit to Merivale's hotel in the guise of the secret society's emissary from the Head Centre in Paris.
He had spent the intervening hours in the company of Mary Fielding, cheering and comforting her, and at the same time trying to obtain from her some information which might throw light upon the dark and perplexing problems which had arisen out of his interview with Merivale.
The girl could give him no help at all.
When he asked her if she could suggest any reason for the society's extraordinary interest in her, her answer was a forlorn and despairing negative.
"Can you form any theory as to why this society should have decreed Raymond Carter's death because of his desire to marry you? It looks as if they were determined to prevent you from marrying anybody. Why should they?"
The girl didn't know.
"Have you ever heard mention of any valuable papers in connection with yourself?"
No; she hadn't.
"Have you ever met or heard of a woman named Marie Lopez?"
No;she never had.
"Can you explain Merivale's amazing remark, 'There are millions and millions at stake,' or account for his intense anxiety to save you from arrest?"
She couldn't.
Questioned about her early life, she said she had always been treated with the most devoted kindness by her father. She had never known her mother, who, she understood, had died at her birth. Her home had been quiet, well ordered, and substantially comfortable. The only hint of mystery in her father's life had been the occasional visits of Raymond' Carter, and his studied averseness to discuss them with her. She had had a happy childhood, and no anxieties or troubles of any description until the shock of her father's tragic imprisonment and sudden death.
As the reader will see there was nothing in all this that would be of the slightest service to Blake in elucidating the problems that harassed and perplexed him.
Externally, she was calm and composed, having conquered the worst of her nervous horror and agitation, but keenly alive to the painful and perilous situation in which she was placed, again and again returning to the question whether she ought not to make a voluntary surrender to the police.
Blake's unvarying reply was a peremptory veto.
It would be too dangerous, and there was nothing to be gained by it, he said. They must wait until they had more information in regard to the conspiracy. In any event, they must wait until after the inquest. Voluntary surrender to the police was the last alternative to be tried, and only to be resorted to if the worst came to the worst.
She accepted his arguments as conclusive, and promised to abide by his wishes and advice.
He was growing rather anxious about Tinker's prolonged absence, and soon after five 'o'clock decided to pay another visit to Merivale, actuated by a desire for active occupation rather than anticipating that any special advantage would accrue from it.
"Refuse admittance to all callers while I'm away," were his final instructions to Mrs. Bardell.
He found Merivale tramping up and down the hotel vestibule in a simmer of excitement.
"I hoped you would come. I have been expecting you ever so long. I thought you were never coming back," was the proprietor's jerky and impulsive greeting.
"By the way, you haven't told me your name," he said, when they were once more duly installed in the private room.
"Alphonse Roget," said Blake.
"Well. Mr. Roget, things are not quite so bad as I anticipated. The girl has disappeared, without leaving a trace of her whereabouts. Of course, that's awkward for us in a way, because we shall be put to the trouble of finding her; but it's better than if the police had got her. You'll agree to that, I suppose?"
"Yes," replied Blake dubiously.
"I have had an uncommonly busy time since I left you this morning. I have inquired for the girl in Trinity Crescent and at the shops of all her recent employers. She's disappeared, right enough. Not a soul has the remotest notion where she's gone to. Then I looked up one or two of the members of the London branch, and after a lot of trouble found a man who'd been in communication with Marie Lopez. She's lying very low, as I guessed she would, but I've arranged for you to see her to-night. I hope that will suit you?"
"Very well, sare. It is most important that I should see her. Where is she?"
"I don't know myself, but the man who does has promised to be here at nine to escort us to the place where she's hiding. I have ordered all the principal members of the branch also to be there, in order that you might have an opportunity of meeting them. I can tell you, your arrival from Paris has created no little stir. There'll be a full meeting. I trust you approve of these arrangements."
"They seem satisfactory," said Blake. "Anything else? What about the papers?"
"The papers, I regret to say, have not been found. I am half hoping that Carter carried them about on his person, and that Marie will have got them."
"You think she may have taken them from his pocket after shooting him?"
"That is what I hope," said Merivale complacently. "It will relieve me of an immense load of anxiety if it should turn out to be the case. I can't make out why the Head Centre didn't entrust them to my keeping instead of Carter's after Pickling's death. There wouldn't have been this fuss if they had."
"Do you dare to impugn the wisdom of the Head Centre, sare?" demanded Blake sternly.
"No, no, no, no! How you do take a fellow up!" said Merivale, in nervous haste. "I wouldn't dream of doing such a thing. I only meant that if they had entrusted them to me it would have been better for everybody concerned, as things have turned out."
"Be careful what you say, then. You are yourself under suspicion. There has been blunder after blunder committed here in London. The girl has disappeared. The papers are missing. I warn you the Head Centre will take drastic action unless the consequences of all this neglect and blundering are speedily made good." A remark which had the effect of reducing Merivale to a condition of shivering and gasping silence.
Blake could terrorise the sleek proprietor, but in other respects he was powerless.
He could not do what it was vital to do. He could not say, "Tell me what these papers are about. Tell me why this confounded society of yours is so deeply interested in Mary Fielding," for had he done so it would have been equivalent to the exposure of his own imposture. A strange and tantalising position for him, to know so much and yet so little, to be at once so powerful and so helpless.
"Well, I have one really good piece of news," ventured Merivale, after a long interval.
"What is it?" queried Blake curtly.
"I do not think the police will proceed with their search for the girl."
"Why not? Have you seen Fairley again? Did he tell you so?"
"No; he did not tell me. I have seen him, but not to speak to. I do not think the police will proceed with their search, because their suspicions have been diverted elsewhere. It was most entertaining."
"What was most entertaining? You are trifling with me. Speak plainly."
"After we parted I went, as I told you, to Trinity Crescent. Fairley was there with his constables—measuring, investigating, and all the rest of it. I arrived just in time to witness the denouement. A large dog ran across the road and knocked Fairley down, and—"
"A bloodhound, I believe, but it doesn't matter what kind of a dog it was. And when he picked himself up, he found, the dog's footprints exactly corresponded with those of the dog that had accompanied the cyclists. My word, there was a clamouring and a howling!"
Blake breathed hard. This was the most disconcerting piece of news he had had yet.
"Well, what happened?"
"Oh, a rare rumpus and hulabulloo! The crowd rushed off in pursuit, shrieking 'The Trinity Crescent murderer!' and all and sundry joined in. Fairley was as mad as any of 'em, and led the chase. I reckon the excitement will have put the girl clean out of his head."
"But he can't think the dog murdered Carter?"
"Of course not. There was a boy with him. Didn't I mention it? It was the boy he was after?"
"Was the boy caught?"
"Oh, I didn't wait to the end! I had plenty of other business to attend to."
"Was he identified or recognised?"
"I can't say, but I expect they've got him. It is sure to be in all the evening editions. Don't you think the diversion of suspicion from the girl to this boy is very good for us?"
"Oh, vair—vair good!" said Blake drily, wondering what was likely to happen next; for, so surely as Tinker was caught, so surely would the identification of himself and Tinker as the two cyclists follow. But then—what then?
It must be admitted that for a moment or two Blake felt an acute twinge of regret for interfering to save the girl from the consequences of her act.
But the feeling soon passed.
The girl was worth it. The unravelling of the tortuous operations of the criminal secret society was worth it.
His anxieties quickly centred on what had ultimately happened to Tinker.
"Well, Mistaire Merivale," he said, rising to go, "I come back at nine o'clock, when you will take me to where we shall see Marie Lopez and the other members of the branch."
"Yes, that's the arrangement. But why are you in such a hurry?"
Before Blake could reply, there was a knock at the door, and a servant announced that Inspector Fairley desired to see Merivale on a matter of pressing urgency. Fairley himself followed close on the servant's heels, so there was no escape for Blake if he had wished to avoid him.
"I want a private interview, Merivale," said the inspector brusquely.
"This is my particular! friend, M. Roget, from Paris. You can speak freely before him. He is intimately acquainted with all my affairs," replied Merivale.
"Oh, very well, then, if you can rely on his discretion!"
"As on my own," said Merivale.
Fairley nodded to Blake, and Blake responded with an elaborate bow.
"I am honoured, sare, to be presented to one of the most distinguished ornaments of the great English Criminal Investigation Department," he said.
But Fairley, who was in no mood for flowery compliments, turned abruptly to Merivale.
"Has it occurred to you that it was rather odd Sexton Blake dropping in here as casually as he did this morning?"
"No, it hasn't," answered Merivale, with unfeigned surprise.
"It has to me, especially in the light of later events."
"Oh, indeed!" said Merivale, completely at a loss. "Why?"
Fairley answered the question by asking another.
"Do you remember his ever having been here before?"
"No; I can't say that I do."
"He wasn't in the habit of visiting Raymond Carter?"
"Certainly not!" said Merivale, with growing astonishment.
"You would have known it if he had been in the habit of visiting him?"
"Oh, yes; I should have known it!"
"Humph!" said Fairley. "It's a very queer business. I'll stake my professional reputation that Blake knows a lot more about Raymond Carter's murder than he lets on to. I fancy he's put his foot into it this time; and, by Heaven, if he has he shall suffer for it! I've always said I'd get even with him, and I believe my chance has come. If I'm right, he has sneered his last sneer at Scotland Yard!"
"Ah, sare, and was he in the habit of sneering at Scotland Yard?" inquired Blake courteously. "I was not aware of it."
Fairley promptly snubbed him, with: "What do you know about it, anyway?" And continued to Merivale:
"I am convinced, from putting two and two together, that the cyclists, who were either accomplices in the murder, or the actual perpetrators of it, or were on the scene directly afterwards and before the body was found, were Sexton Blake and that kid of an assistant of his, accompanied by that ugly and clumsy beast of a bloodhound Pedro."
"Bless my soul! You don't say so!" exclaimed Merivale, his sleek countenance turning a distinct shade of green.
It was the intimation that Blake knew more than he pretended to that disconcerted and scared him. For if Blake knew more, he might even know that he, Merivale, was implicated. That Blake should have been on the scene of the murder, and not have mentioned the fact, was in the highest degree disturbing. Why did he conceal it? What did he suspect? A vista of the most appalling possibilities suddenly opened up before Merivale's mental vision as he put these questions to himself.
"The news seems to have-knocked you silly," said Fairley, instantly noting his distress.
"I—no!—I—no!—I—no!" stammered the proprietor. "Nothing—nothing whatever to do with me; but Sexton Blake, astounding—simply astounding!"
"Of course, I don't say he did it, mind."
"No, no; of course! Still—still, astounding—quite astounding!"
"But what I do say is, that he's hiding something, and it looks precious like as if he were an accessory after the fact."
"Ah! Yes—yes, it does; and, I hope, if he is, he'll be properly punished."
"You can bet your life he will, Merivale—you can safely leave that to me."
"And proof—you have proof?"
"Not yet; but strong suspicions which will be corroborated sometime to-night."
Fairley gave a brief sketch of the incidents connected with the flight and pursuit of Tinker and Pedro, and then said:
"I'm having the Baker Street house watched by plainclothes men, so the moment the boy and the dog return they'll be arrested. The dog I should know myself, and the boy will be identified by a dozen witnesses I've got waiting at the Yard."
"Then you did not catch the boy, sare?"
"No, I didn't," was the curt rejoinder.
Fairley resented the Frenchman's presence at the interview as a nuisance, and was at no pains to conceal the fact.
"Are you sure the boy and the dog haven't got home?" asked Merivale.
"Oh, there's no doubt about that! I've been in the house to see."
"Did you see anybody?"
"Yes, a silly old woman, who opened the door on the chain, and told me that Blake was out, and Tinker was out, and the dog was out, which was all I wanted to know."
Blake heaved a sigh of relief.
Tinker had not been caught yet, and he had too much confidence in the youngster's sharpness and mother-wit to be afraid he'd walk into the trap Fairley had set for him.
"Well, well, well," said Fairley, "you've disappointed me. I was in hopes you'd be able to tell use something which would connect Blake with Raymond Carter. However, I've got him in a nasty fix whatever happens. Now I must be off to Baker Street."
He paused at the door to add:
"Mind your French friend don't blab, and remember, I'm still keeping an eye on your hotel."
And then he went.
"You seem upset, sare, by what Fairley told you," said Blake, when they were alone.
The perspiration was standing in beads on Merivale's forehead.
"My stars! Yes," he faltered' "that brute is bad enough, but Blake on the top of him! Oh, goodness! Blake's a thousand times worse than a dozen Fairleys!"
"You fear Blake so much?"
"So would you if you knew him!"
"Let me tell you, sare, that if Blake is worse than a dozen Fairleys, there is something which you have to fear worse than a dozen Blakes."
"Oh, yes, I know what you mean!" stammered the wretched proprietor.
"I mean the Head Centre."
"I knew it—I knew it!" he groaned. "Blake and Fairley, and the Head Centre all on the top of me at once! Oh, gracious me, it's enough to break any man!"
"You are suffering the consequences of your own supreme folly"—with which cold comfort, coupled with a reminder of his intention to return at nine o'clock, Blake left him.
But Blake was far less easy in regard to his own plight than he cared to admit.
Fairley had been preternaturally sharp in putting two and two together, and identifying him and Tinker with the two cyclists, and extraordinarily prompt in putting on men to watch his house. He was admittedly animated by vindictiveness, and would spare no effort to ruin his reputation.
Where was Tinker hiding? How long would it be before Mary Fielding was discovered? Was his house in any sense, a safe refuge for her? Was it a safe refuge for himself? He dared not enter it except surreptitiously and by the back way. Oh, yes, Blake realised he had plenty of worries of his own to think about.
Reaching Baker Street he cautiously reconnoitred.
Two plain-clothes men were hovering near the front door. Two more were on the opposite pavement. Fairley was talking to these two, and they were all continually glancing up at the first-floor window—the window of Blake's sitting-room. What were they looking at? What were they so much interested in? Why were they staring so fixedly?
In a trice he perceived the reason of their concentrated gaze.
The electric light was on in the room, and the blinds were down, but the window was wide open, with the result that the blinds were constantly being blown aside by the evening breeze, and every time they were so blown, the watchers on the opposite pavement could see into the room.
Blake saw Mary Fielding quite distinctly.
And if he could, so could Fairley and his men!
The Holding of the Fort at Baker Street, and the Flight of the Fugitives.
IN two minutes Blake had gained entrance to the house from the back, which involved the scaling of a high wall, crossing the yard of a mews, and passing through Mrs. Bardell's kitchen.
Accustomed as she was to his abrupt comings and goings, his sudden appearance startled her, for her nerves were on edge from her recent conflict with Fairley. She was engaged in cooking the dinner, and whipped round at the sound of his step, waving a big iron ladle at him, with which she was stirring a cauldron of boiling soup.
"Oh, what a shock you gave me, I thought you was Fairley," she gasped, and at once lowered the ladle. "He's been here, but I kep' him out," she went on triumphantly.
"He's outside now, Mrs. Bardell."
"Is he? Then he can stay out. He didn't get any change out of me before, and he won't get none now. He'll get this ladle about his head if he gives me any more of his sauce. He called me a silly old woman, and if he dare show his face—"
"He'll show it in a minute or two. He's seen Mary Fielding from the street. Why didn't you shut the window when you drew down the blinds?"
"Why? Oh, oh, oh, oh!" wailed Mrs. Bardell, instantly realising the consequences of her negligence. "I'll go and—He shan't get in, sir. He shan't get to that poor, dear lamb except over my dead body! Oh, oh, oh! If he'd take me instead, I'd go and welcome! Oh, oh, oh! I'll never forgive myself. Not a hair of her head shall he—"
"Listen!" said Blake, summarily interrupting the stream of remorse. "The mischief's done now; Miss Fielding is no longer safe here, nor am I. I'm going to get her away. We must both go, and it will largely depend on you whether we can get away safely."
"I'll do anything—anything—"
"Keep Fairley and his men out as long as possible they'll try to force their way in."
"I'll do it, sir—I'll do it."
"Very well, I am going upstairs to warn Miss Fielding."
"You go, sir, I'll settle Fairley."
Blake did not care to inquire too closely how she proposed to do it, but he noticed as he left the kitchen that she tucked up her apron and lifted the cauldron of hot soup off the fire.
Ho ran upstairs and reached his sitting-room, just as a loud and peremptory knocking and ringing at the front door resounded through the house.
The girl rose at his entrance, pale with alarm.
"Come away from that window," were his first words to her. Then: "Put on your hat and coat and veil, for we must be off."
She ventured one trembling protest:
"Mr. Blake, I implore you to take no more trouble on my behalf, you are only implicating yourself deeper and deeper in my guilt."
"I am implicated past praying for now," he said smiling, and the answer silenced her.
"Be quick," he added, and she ran away to prepare. The knocking and ringing continued uninterruptedly for two minutes, and then Mrs Bardell condescended to attend to it. Opening the door cautiously on the chain, she said, as she thrust a milk-jug through the narrow aperture:
"Drat you I Couldn't you give me time to put my dress on? I'll have half a pint, and no more, and you can tell your master for the future we'll get our milk from someone else, who employs men with decent manners. He'll have our custom never no more, you can tell him. Now, then, young feller, don't keep me waiting!"
"I'm Inspector Fairley, and I demand admittance—"
"None of your impertinence—you give me that milk, and get along!"
"I tell you I'm Inspec—"
"I don't care what kind of inseck you are—are you going to give me that milk, or aren't you?"
"I tell you I'm Inspector Fair—"
"I don't want to hear about any fair you inspected. I want half a pint."
"I tell you, you silly old woman, I'm—"
"Now you done it! Be off with your ugly mug and your nasty milk! I'd rather die of thirst than take it of you, and in the morning, I'll call round and see your master."
She drew in the jug, and slammed the door to.
Mary Fielding, cloaked and veiled, and Blake crept noiselessly downstairs.
The girl bore herself bravely, but it is doubtful whether she could have put one foot before the other without the support of Blake's arm. The sudden emergency of instant flight, following upon a long day of agonising suspense, had unnerved her almost to the point of collapse.
Mrs. Bardell made a reassuring sign to them as they reached the hall. Blake replied with a nod and smile. He had a momentary glimpse of her buxom, substantial figure, firmly planted on the door-mat, her arms bare to the elbows, her apron rolled up and pinned behind, grasping the big ladle, and the cauldron of steaming soup beside her conveniently within reach. Evidently she was valiantly determined to hold the fort, to the last extremity.
Blake and the girl proceeded towards the kitchen, and quietly passed from view.
After a brief respite the pounding and hammering at the front door broke out afresh in an aggravated form. Mrs. Bardell again opened it on the chain, in time to hear Fairley say: "The woman is a deaf old idiot."
"What do you want?" she demanded. "Oh, it's you again, is it? If you don't go away sharp, I'll call the perlice and give you in charge."
"Why, you silly old fool, I am the police!" retorted the exasperated Fairley.
"You're what?" she asked him.
"I am the police!" bawled the inspector.
"'Am?" said Mrs. Bardell. "I haven't ordered any 'am! There's a mistake. You've brought it to the wrong number. Try Mrs. Watson next door."
"I tell you," vociferated the other, "I am Inspector Fairley, and I demand admittance in the name of the Law."
"Lor'! What a one you are! You'll catch it from your wife when you get home!"
"Will—you—open—the door?"
"Why can't you speak so as I can understand? Will I what?"
"Will—you—open—the door?"
"What? You are going to open a store? Do you mean a ham-and-beef shop?"
"No, I didn't say I was going to open a ham-and-beef store; I said—will you open the door?"
"Then why couldn't you say so at once?"
"I've been saying it all the time!" shouted the inspector, who was hoarse and husky from the prolonged strain on his voice.
"Very well, then, go away, and don't do it again," said Mrs. Bardell. "You take my advice and go straight home and sign the pledge."
"I tell you I'm the police, and I insist upon—"
"That's what I'm telling you. I'll send for the police, if you don't hook it."
"I—am—the—police!"
"Once more I tell you—no ham—to-day!" shrilled Mrs. Bardell, and for the second time slammed the door to.
Out through the kitchen and across the yard sped Blake with the half-fainting girl. It was a formidable task, getting her over the wall, but with the help of a step-ladder and a coil of rope he managed it! The step-ladder enabled him to carry her to the top of the wall, and the rope to lower her to the ground on the other side. From there, through the mews to the open street was a matter of little difficulty. The mews were invariably deserted at this hour. No one challenged them. No one saw them. They were swallowed up in the crowd thronging the pavement.
Blake's raised hand brought a passing taxi to the edge of the kerb, and he put the girl into it.
"Where to?" said the man.
Yes, where to? That was the problem.
Blake hadn't given it a thought till that moment, being solely engrossed with the business of escape. To what place could he take her where she would be safe and secure, and received without questions being asked? Somewhere out of London? Yes, but he couldn't leave London himself, nor allow her to go away alone. She must remain in London—that was inevitable—but where in London, with every street ringing with the crime, and every newspaper placarding the reward for the discovery of the absconding murderess, could he hope to find suitable accommodation for her without immediately exciting doubt and suspicion?
Then he had an inspiration, and without appreciable pause replied to the man's query, "Merivale's Hotel in Derek Street."
He stepped into the cab, and away they went.
Grimly and gallantly Mrs. Bardell maintained her post at the front door.
The frenzied tattoo which Fairley and his men played with knocker and bell and sticks and knuckles when she had closed the door for the second time, left her entirely unmoved and indifferent, until she judged, sufficient time had elapsed for the fugitives to have made good their escape.
Then calmly and deliberately she opened the door—on the chain—and demanded to know what the row was about.
Fairley, at last realising that threats and bluster were of no avail, decided to adopt a coaxing tone, and replied, with the utmost courtesy:
"I am an inspector from Scotland Yard, and I am most anxious to see Mr. Sexton Blake. Will you kindly let me in?"
"If you're the milkman—" began Mrs. Bardell.
"I am not the milkman."
"Are you the man from the new ham and beef shop?"
"I am not a man from any ham and beef shop."
"Your voice sounds the same; the only difference is that you're speaking so as I can understand you, and you weren't before."
The inspector moistened his parched lips, and tried again.
"I assure you I have no connection with any ham and beef shop. My business is of a private and urgent nature, and I must see Mr. Blake at once."
"I am extremely sorry to say." replied Mrs. Bardell, with a sudden access of politeness, "that Mr. Sexton Blake is not at home. Would you like to leave a message?"
"I would much prefer to come in and wait."
"You cannot come in and wait, because you would have to wait a week, Mr. Blake being out of town. He left this afternoon for Brighton."
"Then in his absence I should like to sea Miss Fielding," the inspector persevered.
"Miss who?"
"Miss Fielding, the lady who is staying in the house as his guest."
"I presume you know what you are talking about, for I don't." said Mrs. Bardell. "There's no lady staying here as his guest."
"Pardon me, there is. I saw her myself just now at the window."
"Pardon me, you didn't. If you saw any lady at all I expect you saw me."
"No, I assure you, no! I couldn't possibly have mistaken the lady I saw for you."
"Is that impudence?"
"Not at all, madam. The lady I saw wasn't half as good-looking as you are."
"Get along with you, you saucy kipper!"
This remark was the last straw that broke the inspector's patience.
Thrusting his foot into the aperture to prevent the door being shut, he hissed:
"You mad old fool! Do you think I'm going to let you get the better of me?" and began shoving and straining, shouting the while to his men to help him. "Come on! We've got her now! Come on! Shove!" he cried, but, of course, he knew nothing of the big ladle and the cauldron of hot soup.
His men, promptly responding to the call, shoved with desperate energy, for their tempers had been rendered savage by the delay and all the futile talk, and they were disgusted and incensed at being foiled and held at bay by an old woman. The door creaked and groaned, the chain rattled and jingled and clicked, but that was the sum total of the result of their efforts. Neither one nor the other gave. The door was a solid bulwark of sound and seasoned oak, and the chain was the finest Bessemer steel.
"Put your backs into it—put your backs into it!" panted Fairley, whose face was purple with the tremendous strain on his body-muscles.
"We are putting our backs into it!" gasped the men, as, indeed, they were.
The sweat was pouring off them in streams, and they were expending their strength to the last ounce.
But Mrs. Bardell was far from idle.
Diligently, methodically, and painstakingly she was ladling soup over the inspector's leg and into his boot.
His trousers were thick and his boots were stout and strong, so that some little time necessarily elapsed before there was any apparent result. But there is no liquid that retains its heat so well and so long as a good, rich, boiling soup, and presently he became aware of a pleasant warmth in the region of his ankle and his instep. The soup was beginning to penetrate.
"Another effort," he cried—"another effort! Shove—shove! Put your backs into it! The door can't hold much longer! We are nearly there!"
But the soup was already there.
The pleasant warmth in the region of his ankle and his instep changed in a twinkling to a hot, tingling sensation, and from that into a sudden fiery, scalding pang of excruciating torment, and with a yell of pain he withdrew his foot from the doorway, and, to the utter amazement of his men, sat down on the pavement and began tearing off his boot with frenzied haste.
"Is there anything the matter?" asked one of them anxiously.
"Matter!" he shrieked. "My foot's burning! The skin's peeling off it!"
"Do you mean she done it?"
"Idiot! Who else could have done it? Do you think I did it myself?"
Having got his boot off, Fairley proceeded to hop about the pavement on one foot, while his men, unable to make anything of his strange antics, and not having received orders to desist from their own efforts, continued to push and shove and strain at the door.
But enlightenment in regard to their chief's strange behaviour was not long in coming to them.
Three times the big ladle was protruded through the aperture.
The first time its contents fell with comparative harmlessness on their hats and clothing.
The second time spurts of the soup hit them on the head and hands.
But the third time, while they were wondering what on earth it could be that stung and smarted so, a well-aimed ladleful went swishing over their faces and necks, and then they knew.
With a series of unprintable remarks they tumbled pell-mell down the porch steps and out of range, and Mrs. Bardell closed the door and locked it.
The cab containing Mary Fielding and Blake duly arrived at Merivale's Hotel, and Blake, leaving the girl in it, entered to inform Merivale and prepare him for her coming.
"You tell we you've got the girl?" exclaimed the aghast proprietor.
"Yes, she's outside."
"But its wonderful—wonderful! You're a magician! How did you find her?"
"Never mind how I found her—the point is, she's here; and the question is, can you put her up?"
"Of course I can put her up! Bring her in."
"One moment, my friend. Before I commit her to your care I must have your solemn undertaking that she will be well and honourably treated."
"I give it—I give it!" replied the elated Merivale, who saw that the girl's recovery relieved him from all apprehensions of the wrath of the Head Centre—or, at all events, from the worst of them. "She shall have my best suite. She shall do as she likes. She shall be treated like a royal princess."
"That's what I mean," said Blake. "No one must intrude into her presence unless permission to see her has first been asked and obtained."
"I tell you she shall be treated like a royal princess. I'll provide her with a doorkeeper and special servants to wait on her."
"What about Fairley?"
"Oh, Fairley is sure to turn up some time or other, but he's searched the premises thoroughly once, and is not likely to search them again. She'll be safe enough from Fairley."
"That's what I hoped. And what about your servants?"
"There's not one that doesn't belong to our society," grinned Merivale.
"Then it seems plain sailing."
"It is, unless the girl herself gives us away."
"She won't. You'll find her perfectly quiet and tractable."
"But how did you manage it? It's amazing! You're a magician. You're a genius!" In his excitement and delight Merivale was twining and untwining his fat fingers at lightning speed.
"I am the special envoy of the Head Centre from Paris, and I forbid you to answer irrelevant questions," was Blakes authoritative reply. And Merivale perceived the unwisdom of indulging his curiosity too far.
Ten minutes later Mary Fielding was escorted to a sumptuous suite of apartments, and a special staff of servants were appointed to guard and wait on her. She acquiesced in all Blake's arrangements, glad to have found a temporary haven of rest, and comforted by Blake's assurance that in case of need he would be always close at hand and within call.
Blake was as much relieved to have found her secure shelter as Merivale was grateful to have her under his roof.
But it escaped the recollection of both of them that Fairley's myrmidons were still watching the hotel.
Pedro and Jim—
Tinker Makes a New
Acquaintance—
In the Back Room of No. 101.
WE must return to Tinker.
Tinker ran and Jim ran.
The roads they traversed were lined with small suburban villas, and were exceedingly quiet and peaceful. The men who occupied the villas were busy in the City, and their womenfolk were engaged in household duties. The mob had long since swept onward to Clapham and Battersea. No one took any particular notice of the two solitary runners and the dog, and those who did glance at them probably thought they were training for some kind of Marathon Race, and passed on uninterested. The public have grown tired of Marathon Races.
But Jim was gaining on Tinker.
Jim was fresher, and his legs were longer.
His pursuit was as relentless as it was unobtrusive. He was determined to win the two hundred pounds reward.
Tinker speedily perceived that he was in greater danger from this solitary pursuer than he had at any time been when the tearing mob were howling at his heels.
Looking over his shoulder, he saw that Jim was less than a dozen yards behind him, and drawing nearer at every stride. Something must be done to shake him off without further delay.
He spoke to Pedro, and Pedro understood.
Pedro remained behind, and Tinker ran on at an easier pace, but he shouted once to Jim.
"The dog won't hurt you if you stop and stand perfectly still, but he is certain to tear you to pieces if you continuo to follow me."
Jim heard this, but he didn't believe it.
That is to say, he didn't believe it at first, for he ran on for several yards after he'd been cautioned to stop, but he believed it afterwards.
He believed it when he saw something coming at him with blazing eyes, and bristling hair, and gleaming fangs. Fortunately, he believed it just in time, and halted abruptly, and shrank in terror against the palings, where he stood perfectly still, trying his utmost to reduce himself to a size that scarcely represented one-half of his normal bulk, and achieving a very considerable degree of success in his endeavour.
Jim a halted abruptly, and shrank in terror against the railings.
The material fact is that he believed it, and found the advice to be good, end acted on it, and stood as motionless as a stone image.
Then Pedro's coat became suddenly smooth, and his fangs disappeared from view, and his eyes became liquid and kindly, and he sat down on his haunches very close to Jim, and laughed at him.
After about ten minutes of this, and without the least warning, Pedro shot away down the road like a rocket in the direction in which Tinker had gone, astounding Jim by the rapidity and suddenness of his departure. But when he'd gone it was a long time Wore Jim could persuade himself it was safe to move; and when he did move, he decided that he would rather not continue the pursuit, so returned sorrowfully to the foreman, and, without attempting to explain his absence, quietly resumed his task of helping to load the furniture-van. He had discovered that, after all, he didn't really want the reward.
"Hi, hi! Stop, stop!"
Tinker had no sooner disembarrassed himself of Jim than he found himself challenged by a second pursuer. This happened less than two minutes after he had parted from Pedro.
It was utterly disheartening. He was all but done.
Still, he pulled himself together, and struggled valiantly on for another hundred yards or so and only stopped when he was on the brink of dropping from sheer exhaustion.
His one hope now lay in the possibility of Pedro arriving on the scene in time to rescue him.
"I say, you know, what's it all about?"
The voice that addressed Tinker was a brisk, pleasant, cheery voice, but it was a pained voice, too. There was a subtle note of anxiety in it, as if its owner was much more concerned with some personal trouble of his own than with any desire to molest Tinker. It was the voice of one who tries to present a cheerful appearance to the world at large in spite of some dreadful burden of secret care. The only thing that Tinker noticed about it was that it was not a hostile voice. In fact, he was so near fainting, and his eyesight, in consequence, was so dim, that it was some moments before he could see the speaker clearly.
"I say," continued the latter, "I wish you'd tell me all about it. I started with the pack that hunted you, but I wanted to speak to you—that's all I wanted. I dropped out when they lost you, because I'd a pretty good notion you'd doubled on your tracks and given them the slip. I've been walking up and down these roads ever since, hoping I should have the luck to run against you." Then, attempting a smile, he added in a tone in which the note of pain was plainly dominant: "Not much luck has come my way lately."
"I'm not the murderer really!" gasped Tinker, which was all he could think of to say on the spur of the moment. But his eyes had cleared, and his breath was coming back to him, and he scanned the other keenly.
What he caw was a handsome, well-sat-up, young fellow, with frank and fearless eyes, and that indefinable breeziness of mien and manner which tells of a life spent on the open sea.
The man was obviously a sailor.
Yet the trouble that had found unconscious, expression in his voice was no less apparent than his calling. Handsome he was, but gaunt and thin. The hollowness of his cheeks implied severe privations recently undergone. In the depth of his fearless eyes was a glint of terrible suffering.
"No, I don't suppose you were. You don't look like a murderer, I've seen some rough work at sea myself. What's become of that jolly beast of a dog of yours?"
"He'll be here presently," said Tinker.
"A good friend in need, I should say."
"You're right there."
"Well, I'm glad I've found you. There are heaps of things I want to ask you when you're ready to talk. You've had a rare gruelling."
"I'm ready to talk now," said Tinker, "though I'm not sure that it's safe for me to hang about in this neighbourhood. I don't want to be chivied again."
"You have nothing to fear from me."
"Oh, I know that! I'm not afraid of you!" laughed the youngster. "But there are other folks hereabouts with whom I'm not exactly popular."
"Why not come to my diggings, and talk?"
"Where are they?"
"Close here:"
"I don't see why I shouldn't."
"Nor I. A rest and some food won't do you any harm. I dare say the landlady can scrape up something for tea. I've only had the rooms a few hours. Landed at Plymouth last night, and came on to London this morning."
There was something about his new acquaintance that inspired Tinker with confidence; and somewhere to rest until after dark was exactly what he required. Late in the evening it would be safe to return to Baker Street, but hardly before. Moreover, his eager curiosity to know more of the stranger was an added incentive to accept his offer.
"This way, then," said the other.
"Where are your rooms?" asked Tinker, as they strolled on together.
"In Mansfield Terrace."
"What number?"
"One hundred and one."
Tinker stopped dead with a gasp of astonishment.
"Hallo, what's the matter now?"
"Oh, nothing—nothing! Here's the dog!"
Pedro came bounding up to them, and quickly made friends with the sailor. The youngster's suspicions of his new acquaintance subsided as instantly as they had arisen. Pedro's instinct in such cases was unerring. If the sailor had meant Tinker harm, the dog would surely have known it, and behaved accordingly. But to be going to No. 101, the house next to the empty house to which he had tracked the woman lurking in the flat adjoining Mary Fielding's, was so extraordinary a coincidence that the youngster may be forgiven that uncontrollable gasp of astonishment.
In a quarter of an hour from then, he and the sailor were seated at a table in the back room on the ground floor of No. 101. There was a generous spread set out, and Tinker Was doing ample justice to it. The sailor was principally occupied in feeding Pedro with chunks of cake and Osborne biscuits. Pedro highly approved of the sailor.
"Now, then, I'm ready to talk," said Tinker. "Ask your questions."
"Tell me what you know of the murder of the man Carter."
"That's rather a large order, ain't it?" returned the youngster cautiously.
"But you know more about it than most people. I've read the papers. I've seen that two cyclists and a dog were on the scene of the murder either just before or just after. I know that your dog is the dog in question, and I can guess that you were one of the cyclists. I am justified in supposing that you can tell me many things I don't know."
"Perhaps I can, but I think you ought to tell me first why you seek the information."
"That's fair," replied the sailor. "I was hoping you might be able to give me some information about Miss Fielding."
"The girl who has absconded?"
"Yes, the girl who is suspected of the murder."
"What interest have you in Miss Fielding—is it a friend's interest?"
"You can judge for yourself when I tell you she and I are engaged to be married."
"Then you must be Mark Conway."
"That is my name."
Utter astonishment held Tinker and the sailor silent for time.
"You were supposed to have been lost at sea?"
"Yes; the ship foundered, but I and two others were picked up by a sailing vessel."
"Miss Fielding believes you dead."
"I know; and I came home and find her—I was going to say worse than dead: I find her fled, and charged with the guilt of a horrible murder."
"There is no guilt."
"Who are you?"
"My name is Tinker. If you've ever heard of Sexton Blake—"
"I've heard of him, I know now—the dog is Pedro."
"Yes. I can reassure you about Miss Fielding's safety."
"Where is she?"
"Mr. Blake is sheltering her."
"Then he believes her innocent?"
"Yes, and no. He holds her guiltless, though she confesses to have fired the shot that killed the man. It's a long story."
"Tell me everything," whispered the sailor brokenly; and so, in the phrases of this disjointed dialogue, the pair came to a knowledge of each other's identity, and the way was cleared for Tinker's narrative.
We need not dwell on it, but a word may be said of what Mark Conway told Tinker in reply.
Saved from the sea by what seemed the miraculous intervention of Providence, after enduring terrible hardships: he was actually planning, on his way up in the train from Plymouth, how he could best break the news of his safety to the girl who was the whole world to him, when he read in the newspapers the account of the Trinity Crescent murder, and Mary Fielding's alleged complicity in it.
The news came to him with the force of a stunning shock.
For half an hour after his arrival at Waterloo Station, he wandered about in a dazed fashion, unable to act or think, conscious only that the joy of his return to life and to England had changed to the ashes of bitter disappointment and irretrievable calamity.
Then he shook off his paralysing apathy, and resolved with grim tenacity of purpose to devote himself to the task of finding the girl, and freeing her front the stain of a guilt in which he refused to believe.
The first step was to obtain rooms in the neighbourhood. He found them by pure accident at No. 101, Mansfield Terrace; his next was to visit the scene of the murder. He did so by pure accident, just as Fairley started the hue-and-cry after Tinker and Pedro; his third was to endeavour to obtain private speech with Tinker. He managed it by pure accident, in the manner already described.
Pure accident hadn't failed to help him at each successive stage, and if he interpreted pure accident as the direct intervention of some higher power cheering and aiding him, there will be few people bold enough to assert he was wrong.
The effect of Tinker's narrative was to brace him as a tonic. He knew the girl was temporarily safe. He knew that in Blake's actual sympathy and help she had the most powerful backing that human agency could give her. By a very natural reaction and revulsion of feeling, he passed from the abyss of misery and despair to the supreme heights of buoyant and sanguine' optimism. He declined to believe Mary Fielding was in any very grave peril. He wanted to rush out into the street and shout his joy aloud. He wanted to work off his exuberant spirits in some form of strenuous and exhausting toil. Most of ell he wanted to fight Fairley and his six constables, one down, another come on.
So excited and elated was he that Tinker felt bound to dash his optimism by recalling to his recollection the known facts of the case, in order to keep his energy within bounds.
"I don't want to distress you," said Tinker, "but you must remember that Miss Fielding did actually kill this man—we have her own word for it, her own voluntary confession."
"No," replied Conway confidently, "that's not correct; we have her own word for it that she fired her pistol at him—nothing more, and it's not the same thing."
"But you don't think she missed him?"
"I am not so sure she didn't; a revolver jerks high at the moment of firing in the hands of an inexperienced holder. She may have missed him."
"But she saw him lying dead at the foot of the staircase."
"She saw him lying very still, and she thought he was dead."
"But Mr. Blake and I saw the bullet wound just over his heart."
"So you may have done; but it doesn't necessarily follow that Mary Fielding's bullet made that wound."
"But there was no second shot fired—if there had been, somebody would certainly have heard it. One shot might have passed unnoticed, but it is inconceivable that two could have been fired without attracting attention."
"I don't care, I am not convinced. We know the body was robbed after the murder took place. We know the woman you've tracked next door was lurking in the vicinity. She robbed the body. She obliterated the chalk-marks on the gate-posts. She wrote the anonymous letter to the police. I am as sure of what I say as I stand here, though I can't give you reasons for it. Why shouldn't the woman have fired the second and fatal shot?"
"Oh, of course, if you call that argument!" protested Tinker, not a little nettled at hearing his objections demolished as fast as he stated them.
"I believe Mr. Blake thinks as I do," continued the sailor, whose optimism seemed to grow more fervid with each successive cold douche the youngster poured on it.
"Mr. Blake! Do you pretend to know Mr. Blake's views better than I do?"
"Yes," was the audacious rejoinder. "I do. I don't believe Mr. Blake would have vetoed her voluntary surrender to the police unless he had seen a chance of ultimately proving her absolute innocence."
"Mr. Blake," retorted Tinker hotly, "merely vetoed her voluntary surrender because he didn't want the inquiry prematurely closed. He wanted the complicated mystery of the conspiracy to murder Carter completely unravelled—that's all he wanted. It couldn't have been done if she'd surrendered at once. He knows Miss Fielding killed Carter—killed him in self-defence. I know it. She knows it. We all know it."
"I don't," laughed Conway; "but don't let's get hot about it."
"It's annoying to hear anyone talking absolute rot."
The sailor laughed again with the utmost good humour, refusing to be convinced by Tinker's arguments, or to take offence at them.
"Instead of arguing, suppose we do something," he said.
"What can we do?"
"Well, for a start, we might try to get into the house next door, and see if we can find anything that bears out my theory."
The youngster was dubious about it.
"Mr. Blake particularly cautioned me against doing anything rash, and ordered me to be home before dark, without fail."
"Well, you can't be home before dark, so you may as well use your time profitably. I mean to do something whether you help or not."
"Oh, of course, if you've made up your mind to play the fool—"
"I have, young 'un."
"Then," said Tinker, "I suppose I must stay and see you through?"
He grinned with delight.
He had found an unanswerable argument for keeping his own fingers prominently in the pie.
The Secret Society Meets at the Rendezvous—
A Wire from Paris.
PUNCTUALLY at nine o'clock, Max Reiter, the man Merivale had spoken of as knowing Marie Lopez's place of concealment, arrived at the hotel in a private brougham to escort Alphonse Roget (alias Sexton Blake) and the proprietor to the meeting of the members of the Secret Society.
Blake left Mary Fielding more cheerful than she had been at any time since the tragedy. He had told her something of the business afoot, and how he hoped it would lead to the final clearing up of the mystery of the conspiracy to murder Raymond Carter. When he said good-night to her, she was happy in the hope that the whirl of intrigue, subterfuge, and clandestine manoeuvring, in which she seemed to have lived for an eternity, would come to a definite end on the morrow.
Max Reiter was of German nationality, and head-waiter at the Cosmopolitan, one of the largest hotels in Cumberland Avenue.
He was evidently a very important personage in the London branch of the society. His attitude to Merivale was that of a superior to a subordinate. To Blake he was courteously respectful, but in no way deferential, exhibiting none of that awe of him which had been so marked a characteristic of Merivale's demeanour to the Special Envoy from the Head Centre in Paris.
Blake was quick to see that he was a much more dangerous and much cleverer individual than Merivale, and that it behoved him to be vigilantly on his guard. The chances were if he made the slightest slip Reiter would detect it, and instantly scent the imposture.
Reiter talked incessantly—about the murder, about the way it had been done, about Marie Lopez, about her jealousy of Mary Fielding, about the way her passionate love for Carter had turned to passionate hate, about Blake's uncanny cleverness in discovering the girl, about the missing papers—in fact, about everything; but in such a cryptic and disconnected fashion that he added nothing to the sum-total of Blake's knowledge.
Blake was still in the dark on four main points.
What was the society's interest in Mary Fielding?
Why had the Head Centre decreed Carter's death simply because of his desire to marry her?
What were the papers to the possession of which so much importance was attached?
Where were those papers now?
Just as the brougham turned out of Stockwell Road into Mansfield Terrace, Max Reiter said to Blake:
"I don't remember seeing you when I was last in Paris, Monsieur Roget."
"When was that?"
"About six weeks ago."
"H'm! Let me see. Six weeks ago. No, I remember I was away—sent on a hurried mission to Portugal in consequence of the revolution there."
"Were you? Why, I remember distinctly being told that Paul Mirski had been sent to Portugal."
"You were correctly informed, m'sieur; Paul Mirski and I were both sent."
"Ah, yes, yes; that would account for it," said Reiter carelessly.
The brougham stopped some distance away from No. 102, and on the opposite side of the road. Reiter told them the number of the house, and the signal agreed upon for gaining admittance, cautioned them against being seen entering it by casual passers-by, then hurried off with the remark that he would join them in a few minutes.
"Where do you think he's gone to?" asked Blake sharply.
"Well, if you ask me, I should say he's gone to get a drink," replied Merivale, "and I hope he'll have the decency to bring a bottle back with him. There is sure not to be any decent stuff in this ramshackle hole."
Then he said: "Now's our chance!" and darted across the road.
Three muffled taps caused the door to open.
They went in. There was no light. The door was promptly and noiselessly closed.
A woman's voice whispered: "Each of you give me hand."
Blake felt his hand grasped, and was drawn slowly forward, first to the right, then down a narrow passage to the loft. An inner door was then opened, and they passed in to a small back room on the ground floor. A smoky paraffin-lamp on a wall-bracket disclosed ten men seated on benches; smoking, and chatting in undertones. The atmosphere reeked of oil and pungent fumes of tobacco. The only woman present was Marie Lopez, a typical Spaniard, with flashing black eyes and olive complexion, undeniably hand some in a coarse, bold way, the beau ideal heroine of a love-drama.
The assembled company rose to their feet when Blake was presented to them, and received him with profound bows and hearty expressions of welcome. There was not a man that didn't appear to be in flourishing circumstances.
After some little time spent in polite commonplaces, Max Reiter came in, and the business of the meeting commenced.
"Then you didn't bring any for us?" murmured Merivale jocularly.
When, being requested to explain, he said he referred to drink, Reiter replied sternly that this was not a convivial occasion, that they were assembled there to discuss matters of great moment to the society to which they all belonged, and that he considered Merivale's levity ill-timed, reprehensible, and in the worst of bad taste.
Merivale no doubt felt, as he looked, crushed.
Then Max Reiter was voted into the chair, Blake was given the place of honour at his right hand, and the proceedings began.
"We are here," said Reiter, "to account to M'sieur Roget, the Special Envoy despatched to us by the Head Centre in Paris, for the various matters which have been the subject of correspondence between us and the Head Centre during the past month, and to answer the complaints which have been made from Paris of our management of this branch. The complaints are twofold. First, of delay in executing the sentence of death decreed on Carter; secondly, of general negligence in respect of the society's interests in the girl Fielding. I hope and believe we have a complete answer to both complaints, an answer that will satisfy M'sieur Roget, and enable him to report to the Head Centre on his return to Paris that the organisation of this branch is efficient and sound and thorough. I now call on Marie Lopez to detail to us the manner in which she carried out the Head Centre's decree." And he sat down.
Very slowly and leisurely the woman rose.
She was obviously one of those women of deceptively lazy temperament, lethargic and lacking in energy under ordinary circumstances, who are capable of panther-like activity and quickness if roused to exert themselves.
Her first words, uttered in a languid drawl, electrified the meeting.
"I didn't kill Raymond Carter; the girl Fielding killed him."
She pronounced Mary Fielding's name with a hiss of contemptuous hate.
"Is that the truth?"
It was Blake who put the question; the others could merely stare in dumb bewilderment.
She turned on him in a flash.
"Have you any reason to doubt my word?"
"The circumstances call for inquiry," he answered coolly.
"What circumstances?"
"Control yourself, please, and bear in mind that I represent the Head Centre, and that powers of life and death have been entrusted to me. You were selected to kill Carter. Carter was killed. You tell us the Fielding girl killed him. Therefore I say the circumstances call for inquiry."
Blake's coldly severe rebuke cowed her for the moment.
"I will tell you what happened," she said. "I went to the street, and found the symbols chalked on the gate-posts, as Merivale told me I should. I hid in the forecourt of the adjoining house. It was an unfinished house. While I was hiding there a boy and a dog came. The dog rushed at me, and I had to run for safety inside. I lost my cap. I think the dog got it. At all events, I couldn't find it again. Then the boy and the dog went away, and presently Carter came. Carter ran up the steps and knocked, and I heard him say: 'I'm a police-constable, miss.' The door was opened, and instantly there was a pistol-shot, and Carter fell backwards down the steps. I was watching, and saw everything. After a few minutes the girl came out and ran away. Then I crept up to the body, and dragged it into the roadway, I dragged it into the roadway because I knew you would not wish suspicion to fall on the Fielding girl, her life being so valuable to our society. Then I searched him, and found the papers, and took them, as well as his purse and watch. I took the purse and watch to give the idea of robbery as the motive for killing him. Then I obliterated the chalk-marks and came away. Here is the watch. Here is the purse. Here are the papers."
She produced the articles as she enumerated them, and laid them down on the table before Blake.
"I have told you, everything," she added, and very composedly sat down.
"I will take charge of the papers," said Blake, deliberately pocketing them; "the purse and the watch you may keep."
Nobody objected, though Blake noticed Reiter was keenly scrutinising him. Most of them were pondering the fact that it was Mary Fielding who had killed Carter, which was clearly a shock and a surprise to them, Mary Fielding's life being too valuable to be placed in jeopardy of the hangman. They would have much preferred that it had been Marie Lopez who had struck Carter down.
Still it was not easy to see how blame attached to Marie. She had done her best. She would have executed the decree of the society if the Fielding girl had not anticipated her. Such was the current of opinion.
Someone said: "It's very awkward."
Someone else said: "If the Fielding girl is hanged, or even if she gets a long term of imprisonment, then good-bye to our millions."
"The Head Centre won't be best pleased," said a third.
"Well, anyhow, for the present she is securely hidden in my hotel, thanks to M'sieur Roget," said Merivale.
"You would none of you mind if I were hanged," snapped Marie Lopez; and nobody contradicted her. Of the two women she could be the better spared, for her life was of trivial importance to the society in comparison with Mary Fielding's.
Blake sat thoughtful and silent. He had got the papers; it only remained to get away with them. But the statement of the woman Lopez was a grievous disappointment to him. Was she lying? It seemed not. Her account of what had happened was clear and precise, and confirmed what Mary Fielding had said. He had hoped for something different, hoped against hope that the girl might be proved to be wholly guiltless. Even now he was not completely convinced to the contrary.
It was Max Reiter who put the next question to Marie.
"You say you dragged the body out into the roadway to prevent suspicion from falling on the Fielding girl, as would be the case if the body were found at the bottom of the stairs leading to her flat?" he asked. And the question showed that he, too, was far from satisfied with Marie's truthfulness.
Her answer was a defiant "Yes." Then she went on: "Do you think if I'd had the gratification of killing him I should deny it? I hated him."
"No doubt," said Reiter quietly, "but you hated the Fielding girl more."
"And if I did?"
"Granted you did, it follows you would not be loth to destroy her."
"Loth! No! If her life had not been valuable to the society, I would have destroyed her long ago."
"Exactly. You have proved your loyalty to the society by refraining from destroying her, as also by doing all you could to avert suspicion from her," said Reiter, in laudatory tones.
"I did," she answered. "I'm glad I'm getting some niggard appreciation at last."
"You did remove every trace of everything that could possibly bring suspicion on her, didn't you?" he asked smoothly.
"I did," she said again.
"Then will you kindly explain how it was that the police instantly suspected her?"
Reiter had been leading up to this deadly thrust.
For a second she was utterly taken aback, and it looked as if she were going to confess she had lied, but she quickly recovered herself.
"How can I explain that? The police don't confide their secrets to me," she scoffed in answer.
"But you might have told them something."
"I didn't."
"You might have sent them an anonymous letter."
"I didn't. You lie if you say so!" she retorted vehemently.
And then Blake knew she had lied.
An anonymous letter had been sent, and she alone could have sent it; only she had any motive for sending it.
Reiter, of course, was merely guessing; he was not aware that such a letter had been actually sent. A shrewd and clever scoundrel this German.
A low hum and buzz of animated conversation broke out in the room.
Affairs seemed to have arrived at a deadlock, opinions being about equally divided whether she were lying or not.
Some argued for her, some against her.
The point at issue now was whether she had communicated with the police. If she had, she had been false to her oath of membership—she had gratified her private feelings at the expense of the society's welfare, she had indulged a personal grievance; she had tried to destroy—and probably had succeeded in destroying—one whom it was her duty, as a member of the society, to have done her utmost to safeguard from harm, and shield from the clutches of the law.
These were cautious, self-controlled men, and, eager and hot as their discussion was, they never allowed their voices to rise above the ordinary conversational pitch. And while this fierce debate raged all round him, Blake sat silent with his knowledge that Marie Lopez had done the thing they were so hotly disputing. The question of questions for him was not whether this woman had indulged her desire for revenge on a rival at the expense of the society's welfare; he knew she had, and didn't care a jot one way or the other; the question of questions for him was, whether she had fired the shot that killed Carter?
But how could he find that out, short of compelling her to confess it? What pressure could he bring to bear on her to compel her to confess? He might say he knew that an anonymous letter had been received by the police, but the effect of such a statement would be to cast instant suspicion on himself.
To add to his difficulties, a certain reluctant admiration for this woman swayed him. She was fighting for her life against a roomful of men. She had done what none of them had dared to do. She had been cruelly used by the man she had undertaken to kill, as cruelly as it is possible for a woman to be used by a man. In a word, she was a woman—a criminal if you like—but still a woman; and because she was a woman, Blake's innate chivalry instinctively recoiled from being the instrument of her destruction, and in consequence the difficulties of his own situation were enhanced a hundredfold.
The hum and babel of sound continued for a long time, and still he sat silent amidst it all; and still Marie Lopez denied that she had communicated with the police.
Suddenly Max Reiter slipped quietly out of the room. No one commented on his departure.
The discussion and the debate held them all enthralled. But Blake observed it.
Blake had distrusted him from the first, and instantly realised it was time to take steps for his own safety.
"I wish," he said, "to question this woman alone, and, as the representative of the Head Centre, I demand the right of doing so."
The unexpected demand surprised his hearers, but no one made any demur. They recognised his right. His authority as Special Envoy of the Head Centre was unimpeachable.
"Shall we leave her and you alone?" asked Merivale.
"No; I will go with her into another room," he replied and rose and beckoned to her to follow him.
The woman obediently followed him.
They passed out and the door was closed.
Ten minutes elapsed, and they had not returned.
Hans Reiter came in and looked quickly round.
"Where's Alphonse Roget?" he inquired peremptorily. They told him. Then he said:
"I had doubts about this man's genuineness, and wired to Paris to ask if the Head Centre had despatched a special envoy to London. I have just received the answer."
"What is it?" choked Merivale.
"I will read you the telegram," he said; and read as follows:
"'No special envoy has been despatched to London. The man Roget must be an impostor. Deal with him. Apparently there has been more bungling your end. Wire again.'"
The Truth Guessed—Mark Conway's Astonishing
Recklessness—What Fairley Did.
A PANIC-STRICKEN silence ensued on the reading of the telegram. Even Max Reiter seemed at a loss what to do. A stranger had been amongst them, taking part in their most confidential deliberations, listening to their most intimate secrets.
The realisation of all this might well appall them.
All recollection of the problem they had been so eagerly debating vanished. It was of no consequence now who killed Carter, or whether they had or not incurred the disapproval of the Head Centre in Paris.
The point was, to what extent was their immediate personal safety menaced; what course of action did the emergency demand?
"I—I—I made him produce—produce his b-badge!" stammered Merivale.
He recognised with terror that he was responsible for introducing the stranger as the genuine accredited agent of the Head Centre. He was defending himself and extenuating his offence before anyone accused him. When a man does that it is a pretty sure sign that he has no good defence.
"You!" said Reiter, in accents of scathing irony.
Gradually they shook off their paralysing inertia, and recovered their self-possession.
"Perhaps he doesn't know—yet!" murmured Merivale.
"Know what?"
"Know that he has been found out."
"You can bet he's gone."
"But Marie—where's Marie? She wouldn't go with him!"
"Wouldn't she? Why not? She hadn't much to expect from us."
"Nor from him either."
"She could make terms with him for the saving of her own skin."
"No, not if it's murder."
"Who is he, anyway? I know he's not one of Fairley's lot."
"Who is he? You ought to be able to guess."
The query was addressed to Merivale from all parts of the room simultaneously.
"I d-d-don't know for certain who he is," stuttered that worthy, "b-but I have a horrible sus-sus-suspicion he may b-be Sus-sus-sus-Sexton Blake!"
Eleven pallid cheeks grew a shade more pallid.
He was asked to explain the grounds of his suspicion, and replied:
"B-Blake was found at my hotel first thing, almost as soon as Fairley. I said myself that he was worse than a dozen Fairleys. The quick way he found the Fielding girl seems to prove it. He could have got the b-badge from the girl—Fielding's old badge. Roget was never there when Blake was there. I never saw them both at the same time, and—oh, my stars! He's—he's g-got the papers!"
After this they entered upon the forlorn hope of searching the house. It was a vain search. The house was empty except for themselves. Alphonse Roget and Marie Lopez had disappeared as if they had never existed.
But they had not gone far—they were only next door in Mark Conway's rooms.
In pursuance of the sailor's determination to do "something," he and Tinker had climbed through the window into the back garden, thence over the fence into the back garden of No. 102, and then, by means of an out-house and a rainpipe, had scrambled through on open window on the first floor. Both of them were as agile as cats, so the operation of effecting an entrance was achieved with the minimum of difficulty; but inasmuch as they had postponed the attempt till it was quite dark, and then had proceeded with the utmost caution, they did not actually gain access to the house before a quarter-past eight—and at half-past eight the conspirators began to arrive.
They were thus safely inside, but whether they would as easily get safe out again was another matter.
Not that the prospect dismayed them one whit.
Tinker was never one to be over particular in the calculation of perils, but on this occasion his boldness seemed to be timid faintheartedness in comparison with the rash audacity of the sailor.
There was a sublime recklessness about all the latter did, once he was inside the house. The room they were in was furnished as a bed-room, and the first thing he did that extorted a murmured protest from the youngster was to light two candles.
"One candle is enough; for Heaven's sake, man, don't play the fool!"
"Must have a decent amount of light if we mean to search the place thoroughly," was the careless rejoinder.
"Well, not so loud—there's no occasion to shout."
"I'm not shouting!" said Conway, with a laugh, in rather louder tones.
He was in a state of mental and spiritual exaltation, in which such terms as "rudeness" and "caution" become meaningless. He was not wantonly reckless or rash. He couldn't help himself. His condition was the natural outcome of his reaction from blank despair to high hope. He had formed a theory of his fiancee's absolute guiltlessness, and he was going to leave no stone unturned to prove it. If he was right, everything was right; if wrong; nothing mattered. He had everything to gain and nothing to lose. When a man is in a mood of this sort, peril and risk inevitably become negligible quantities.
And certainly pure accident stood his friend; or, as he would have said himself, some Higher Power was guarding and watching over him.
He opened boxes, slammed drawers, ransacked cupboards with supreme disregard of the noise he made, and Tinker's heart was in his mouth a dozen times a minute. But nothing happened. Nobody came. Nobody seemed to hear—nobody interrupted them.
"Ah, here we are, I knew I was right," he said at last, with the calmness born of absolute conviction; and Tinker, who had grown tired of imploring him not to talk so loud, could simply gaze in speechless wonder.
He had unearthed from the depths of a wardrobe a powerful air-gun, with a box of the "slugs" that were fired from it.
"This is the weapon the woman killed Carter with," he said; "I am sure of it; and now we know why no second pistol-shot was fired or heard. One of these slugs fired at close range, would kill a man as dead as a rifle-bullet. The mystery is solved."
In that moment the youngster was convinced.
"Let's get out!" he gasped. "I believe you've solved it. Don't let's jeopardise this wonderful success by any foolhardy—"
"Tut!" Conway interrupted him. "We can't leave the house until we've found out what the fellows downstairs are talking about. Come along!" And downstairs he went, followed by Tinker, who felt he could only trust blindly to Providence, and let every consideration of prudence slide.
But here again Conway's action seemed to be controlled by something outside himself, for Tinker had not been listening two minutes in the narrow passage outside the little back room before he recognised Blake's voice.
"Mr. Blake's in there," he whispered, in an awestruck tone.
"That just shows you how right we were to come; we shall have to get him out," answered Conway, in matter-of-fact accents. He evidently saw nothing surprising in finding Blake in the house.
When Max Reiter stole out of the room and out of the house to get the answer to his telegram, he almost brushed against them—but not quite.
When Blake expressed his desire to question the woman in another room, Mark Conway walked straight to the front door and opened it.
When Blake and the woman came out, he said:
"This way, Mr. Blake. Tinker and I are here. I'm Mark Conway!"
If Blake hadn't been a man of iron nerve there would have been a catastrophe then.
What he did was to clap his hand over the woman's mouth, lift her bodily, and carry her out. She was too frightened to scream or to struggle.
Mark Conway opened the door of the other house with his latchkey. Tinker softly closed the front door of the house they had left.
In a minute or less the two men, the woman, and the boy were safely in Mark Conway's sitting-room; and Pedro, who had all this time been left to himself, and had been exceedingly unhappy, was wondering why everybody told him sternly to "hush" when he wished to testify his delight at seeing Blake and Tinker again, with his usual barks of welcome.
Mark Conway said to Marie Lopez:
"I don't know who you are, but I know you killed Raymond Carter with this air-gun, and it is not a bit of use your denying it."
The sight of the air-gun put the crowning touch to her bewilderment.
"Yes," she faltered. "Yes, I killed him."
"Then that's all right," said Conway; "that's all I wanted to know." And turned away as if he had not the slightest further interest in the matter.
"Tell us how you did it," said Blake; but she broke down, and began to sob out an account of her relations with Carter, and the story of her connection with the secret society. It was as pitiful a tale as ever Blake listened to. Carter must have been the vilest of the vile. The woman had been the victim of the blackest-hearted cruelty. It would be an understatement to say that she was more sinned against than sinning. The impression her story made on Blake was, that if wicked, ruthless provocation can be fairly urged as extenuating the crime of wilful murder, then the awful provocation received by Marie Lopez was enough to bring her crime within the category of those that are committed by persons who are not responsible for their actions.
When she had recovered some degree of composure, he said: "Carter was only stunned when he lay at the foot of the staircase?"
"Yes, only stunned. His head was cut by the fall."
"What did you do after Miss Fielding's flight?"
"I went to him, and raised him, and staunched the bleeding."
"And afterwards, when he came to?"
"When he came to I helped him into the roadway. His senses were dazed for a time. He didn't know what he was doing, or what had happened to him."
"And then?"
"When I had made him understand, I told him everything. I told him that the Head Centre had decreed his death. I told him I had been selected to carry out the decree. I implored him to flee from the country, and let me come with him."
"And he?"
"He reviled me."
She uttered the words in a choking whisper.
"Up till that moment I had not intended to kill him. I had hoped I might save him from the death decree; but in that moment, when he cursed and reviled me, I—I changed. I realised that he spurned my devotion; that I was no better than dirt beneath his feet. I hated him."
"And," said Blake, "then you killed him?"
"And then," she echoed faintly—"then I killed him."
So the truth was out!
A tense silence fell on the four in that room.
Marie Lopez sat with her head buried in her hands, quietly sobbing.
Suddenly Conway moved across to Blake, and began eagerly whispering.
"Don't you think we might?" he said aloud.
A long pause ensued before Blake answered, and then he said:
"Under all the circumstances, I think we might."
Conway brought him pen, ink, and paper, and Blake wrote rapidly for several minutes.
"Marie Lopez, will you attend to me?" he said; and the woman, instantly rousing herself, raised her tear-dimmed eyes to his. "I want you to read what I've written here," he went on. "What I have written is your statement of confession exactly as you made it. When you have read it over, I want you to sign it."
She took the paper, read it listlessly, and then scrawled her signature.
"You understand what you have done? This is your written admission of your guilt in regard to the killing of Raymond Carter."
"Oh, yes," she murmured. "I understand."
"Then you may go," he said.
"Go!"
The monosyllable escaped her lips with a gasp of startled amazement.
"You would let me go?" she added; and suddenly sat bolt upright.
"I am not going to try to detain you. It is Mr. Conway's wish that you should have a chance of escape. We both deplore your crime, but we feel that you were tempted and tried beyond endurance. We also feel it is not for us to judge you. Whether you will eventually escape we cannot tell, but we have decided to give you the chance, if you choose to avail yourself of it. You are free to go."
She rose, and moved to the door as one groping blindly in the dark, and Conway ran forward, and opened it for her. At the door she turned, and tried to speak, but though her lips moved, no sound issued from them. Then, with a strange gesture, which seemed to indicate contrition, gratitude, and despair, all in one, she wheeled swiftly round and vanished.
They breathed more freely when she had gone.
"Now Mr. Blake, I don't want to hurry you," said the sailor, with a lilt in his voice; "but don't you think it's about time to remove Miss Fielding from Merivale's Hotel, and let her know of my continued existence in the flesh?"
"No," laughed Blake. "I'm not going to spoil her night's rest. I hope she's fast asleep by this time. I have got all these papers to go through, and find out exactly who she is."
"Now, now, now, Pedro! What's the matter, now?" said Tinker, for the dog had suddenly pricked up his ears, and walked to the window.
"Hallo!" he exclaimed the next moment, as he peered through a corner of the blind. "The garden is full of men. The fellows next door must be clearing out. No, no! I believe, sir—I believe they're police! They are police! They are climbing the fence to No. 102!"
"Then you may depend upon it that the house is surrounded," said Blake, "and that there are as many more in front. Let's go and see."
They tip-toed to the front-room, and Blake's surmise was immediately verified.
A cordon of police was drawn across the road, and Fairley and half-a-dozen burly constables were standing on the steps of No. 102.
A police-whistle was blown, and simultaneously, from back and front, the police rushed in.
It was a beautifully-executed raid, for there was practically no resistance. In five minutes they saw Merivale, Max Reiter, and the nine others led out in handcuffs, and marched off.
When the rest had gone, Fairley lagged behind in conversation with a sergeant. In spite of his brilliant haul, he seemed to be put out about something.
"Confound it," he murmured savagely. "I made sure I had him that time."
"Well it don't much matter, sir; the girl has confessed," said the sergeant.
"It does matter," was the irascible rejoinder. "I wanted to nab him with the rest. Masquerading as an infernal Frenchman," he added viciously.
"Our plain-clothes' men saw him enter the brougham with Merivale and the German chap, so we've got ample proof that he was with them."
"Ample proof—yes; but that don't console me for failing to catch him red-handed, as you might say."
"Well, sir, his arrest is only postponed a few hours."
"Bah!" snorted Fairley. "Just my luck! When we do catch him, likely as not he'll have some elaborate, fine-spun, complicated excuses to allege in defence of his conduct. However, be can't get over the girl's confession. The girl has confessed that he hid her, and that she told him she'd killed Carter. That makes him an accessory after the fact. He's done for as far as that goes."
Fairley limped off, still grumbling at his bad luck.
"We sha'n't see Miss Fielding to-night," said Blake. "She's been arrested."
Then for five minutes his strength was taxed to the utmost in overpowering Mark Conway, and preventing him from dashing out of the house, and committing a violent assault on the inspector.
The Scene in Court—Stranger than Fiction—The End.
THE Bow Street Police Court has been the scene of many thrilling dramas, but never has an atmosphere of keener excitement or more tingling expectancy pervaded its gloomy walls than when Mary Fielding stood in the dock to answer the charge of killing Raymond Carter.
The excitement had been created by the sensational announcements in the morning's papers. One headline ran: "Mary Fielding confesses to the murder, and implicates Sexton Blake."
Another said:
"Sexton Blake a member of a gang of international criminals."
Others were:
"Sexton Blake a fugitive from justice."
"Where are the boy and the dog?"
"Blake's landlady aids his flight by pouring boiling soup over Inspector Fairley."
"Capture of the notorious Cross-and-Circle gang."
Those are only a few, but they are enough to account for and explain the wild rush for seats and standing-room, and even breathing space, beneath the roof of the little court, enough to account for the fact that dozens of lorgnettes and opera-glasses were levelled and kept trained upon the beautiful face of the drooping figure in the dock.
The clerk read out the charge, and Mary Fielding murmured something.
"What does she say?" asked the magistrate.
"I think she said she was guilty, your lordship," said the constable standing at the girl's side.
"Better enter a plea of not guilty," said the magistrate.
The plea of not guilty was entered, and Inspector Fairley stepped briskly, but with a perceptible limp, into the box.
"I only propose to offer sufficient evidence to justify a remand," he began.
"Quite so," said the magistrate. "But isn't the prisoner represented by counsel?"
"Not at this stage, your worship."
"Oh, very well. Pray proceed!"
The inspector proceeded:
"From information received, your worship, I went last night to Merivale's Hotel in Derek Street, where I found the prisoner in occupation of a handsome suite of apartments. I told her who I was, and that I had a warrant for her arrest. Then I cautioned her, and asked her if she had anything to say. She said: 'Yes, I killed him, and Mr. Blake knows all about it.' She was very much agitated. Then I said: 'Do you mean Sexton Blake; who runs a sort of private inquiry agency?' and she answered: 'I mean Mr. Sexton Blake, the famous private detective.'"
The inspector was interrupted at this point by the entrance of Sir Francis Maitland, an eminent K.C., accompanied by four other persons, all a whom had the greatest difficulty in squeezing into the court. Sir Francis bowed to the magistrate, and said:
"I am sorry to be late, but I have only just been retained on Miss Fielding's behalf."
"We are very glad to see you, Sir Francis, but isn't it rather unusual to have a barrister of your standing at this stage of the proceedings? I am only taking sufficient evidence to justify a remand, you know."
Sir Francis, smiling broadly, replied:
"I think the proceedings will not go beyond this stage. I think you will not order a remand. I think you will at once order Miss Fielding's release."
"Are you aware that the prisoner is alleged to have confessed?"
"Oh. yes, I'm aware of it!" chuckled Sir Francis; and sat down.
"Pray proceed!" said the magistrate; and the inspector, who had listened to this little dialogue with wide-open eyes, smiled sardonically, and continued:
"After she said that, I asked her if she had the pistol with which she had killed Mr. Carter, and her answer was, 'Yes, I have it, but not here. I left it in the sitting-room of Mr. Blake's house in Baker Street.' I then took the prisoner into custody, and removed her to the station in a cab. I next visited Blake's house, which I entered with the help of a ladder. The woman of the house, whose name is Bardell, and whom I intend to prosecute for obstructing the police in the performance of their duty, and for an aggravated assault, had refused me admittance earlier in the evening, so I was compelled to resort to the ladder. On the mantelpiece of the sitting-room I found the revolver, which I now produce. It is loaded in five chambers, and one chamber has been discharged. That is all the evidence I propose to offer at this stage, your Worship, and I formally apply for a remand till this day week."
The eminent K.C. rose, large and smiling, then turned to the inspector, and said:
"It is within your knowledge that an autopsy—a postmortem examination of Raymond Carter's body has been made by Dr. Shepherd."
"I knew he was making one, I didn't know he had completed it," was Fairley's answer.
"Well, you may take it from me he has completed it. When I've finished with you I am going to call him. Now, please, take this, and tell me if it fits the revolver you have just produced, but be very careful not to shoot either me or yourself—or the magistrate. What I have handed to the witness, your worship, is a steel-tipped pellet, technically known as a 'slug,' and usually fired from an air-gun."
"Indeed! Extremely interesting, but I hope he'll be very, careful," murmured the magistrate nervously.
"No." said Fairley, "the pellet doesn't fit the accused's revolver."
"It couldn't possibly have been fired from that revolver?"
"Not possibly' It's too large."
"Thank you! You may stand down."
The inspector stepped indignantly from the box.
"Dr. Shepherd, please."
Dr. Shepherd was one of the four persons who had accompanied Sir Francis into the court.
When he'd been duly sworn, Sir Francis asked him:
"Did you make the autopsy of Raymond Carter's body?"
"I did," he replied.
"What did you find?"
"I found this pellet; it was embedded in the heart."
"Did you find any other pellet or bullet of any kind?"
"None."
"You are satisfied that this particular pellet and nothing else caused Carter's death."
"I am fully satisfied; I am absolutely certain."
"Thank you! That is all."
Sir Francis, beaming genially on Fairley, inquired whether he had any questions he would like to put to the doctor and Fairley gasped out:
"No-o!"
"Most extraordinary," murmured the magistrate—"most extraordinary! Quite knocks the bottom out of the case against Miss Fielding. I am of the opinion that Inspector Fairley has been culpably negligent, wickedly and criminally negligent, in the haste with which he has preferred this dreadful charge against this lady!"
"I now call Mr. Sexton Blake," said Sir Francis; and there was a tremendous sensation in court when Blake, who was another of the persons who had accompanied the K.C.—the two others being Mark Conway and Tinker—swept off his disguise, and moved briskly towards the witness-box. In his hand he carried the air-gun.
"Now, Mr. Blake, I won't keep you long. I know Inspector Fairley accuses you of all sorts of crimes, but I dare say his worship won't allow that fact to damage your credibility. Just tell us whether the steel-tipped pellet fits the air-gun."
"It fits it perfectly."
"Now tell us where you found the air-gun, and all about it."
"It was found at No. 102, Mansfield Terrace, Brixton, the house to which I had traced a woman named Marie Lopez, who confessed to me that she had murdered Raymond Carter. It's the same house which Inspector Fairley subsequently raided."
"And your object in going?"
"To ferret out the secrets of the Cross-and-Circle gang."
"In which you were quite successful?"
"I think I may say I was," smiled Blake. "When the gang are brought to trial I shall be able to give evidence which ought to condemn them all."
"And now about your action in sheltering Miss Fielding, please explain that."
"The action I took was as much in the interests of law and order as in Miss Fielding's interests. Miss Fielding came straight to me, and told me she had killed Carter. I and my assistant went at once to the spot, and from observations I then made I was inclined to believe she was mistaken. Subsequent investigations showed there had been a plot to kill Carter. I followed up the clues, and proved that it was so, and that one of the conspirators, the woman Lopez, had actually murdered him. If I had not sheltered and screened Miss Fielding, if I had not protected her against herself, there might have been a frightful miscarriage of justice. That is my justification for what I did."
"All this is quite unnecessary, Sir Francis," said the magistrate.
"Unnecessary, perhaps, from the point of view of Miss Fielding's acquittal, but not unnecessary for the clearing of Mr. Blake's own character," rejoined the K.C.
"Mr. Blake's character does not require clearing, except in the imagination of a stupid police-official," replied the magistrate emphatically.
"After what your worship has said, I am quite satisfied, and so, I expect, is Mr. Blake."
"I am," smiled Blake, and left the box.
"I was going to examine Miss Fielding."
"Unnecessary, poor girl, no, no," said the magistrate; "we must not prolong her ordeal!"
Then, in a few well-chosen words of kindly sympathy, he formally discharged her, and the proceedings terminated.
Blake and Tinker made themselves scarce for a couple of hours to give the lovers an opportunity of being alone; but the whole party met again at a merry lunch, and when that was over Blake disclosed the contents of the packet of papers, and proceeded to explain how and why Mary had been the centre of the dark intrigues and mysterious manoeuvres of the Cross-and-Circle Society.
"Would you be surprised to hear that your name is not Fielding?" was the question with which he opened.
"After what has happened to-day, I don't think I shall ever be surprised at anything again," she answered.
"Your name is Seymour."
"And a very good name, too," struck in Mark Conway, who seemed to think it necessary to keep a tight hold of Mary's hand.
"Mary Winifred Seymour," continued Blake. "Twenty-one years ago Mary Winifred Seymour, then an infant six months old, was kidnapped by agents of the Cross-and-Circle Society while, being wheeled by her nurse in a perambulator in the grounds of her father's house at Thrale Manor in Suffolk. Her parents were wealthy Americans who were staying in this country. Three or four days later they received an anonymous letter from Paris, offering to restore the child on payment of a ransom of one hundred thousand pounds. The letter stipulated that the money was to be left on a certain date at a certain house in Ipswich, and contained a warning that any attempt on the part of the police to arrest the person who would be at the house to receive the money, would result in the parents never seeing their child again alive. The grief-stricken parents were willing enough to accept these conditions, being prepared to submit to any terms that would give their baby-daughter back to them. But the police thought differently, and prepared an ambuscade. The house in question was diligently watched, and on the day named was completely surrounded, but no one came.
"Next day another anonymous letter was received, accusing the parents of a breach of faith, and demanding two hundred thousand pounds as ransom, and giving fresh directions in regard to the sending of the money. The parents consented to this new demand, and strove to keep it from the knowledge of the police, but by some means or other the matter leaked out; there was another ambuscade, and another abortive attempt to capture the kidnappers.
"After this there were various secret negotiations entered into between the parents and the Cross-and-Circle Society, but owing to the difficulty of devising a scheme by which the society, would get the money without risk to themselves, and the parents would be certain of recovering their child after paying the ransom, the negotiations came to nothing; and, to make a long story short, both parents died of grief, accentuated by the agony of their prolonged suspense, before anything was definitely settled. Mary Winifred Seymour, the orphaned baby-heiress to a vast fortune, was left as a hostage in the hands of the kidnappers.
"Years passed. Mary Seymour grew up to womanhood as Mary Fielding, the daughter of the man who subsequently died in prison. She had come of age. The vast fortune, which was hers, had gone on accumulating till it amounted to a million. The Cross-and-Circle Society had had to wait a long time for their ransom, but they were now prepared to claim the million on her behalf.
"But Raymond Carter, one of their trusted agents in London, who was in possession of the papers which established the girl's identity, had a little scheme of his own. His scheme was to marry the girl, and claim the money as her husband, not for the benefit of the Cross-and-Circle Society, but for himself: and the Head Centre, having discovered his project, promptly passed sentence of death on him, which sentence was eventually carried out by Marie Lopez in the manner and under the circumstances already known to us. In these papers," concluded Blake, "there is positive proof that you are Mary Winifred Seymour, and entitled to the million which it has been the object of this infamous gang all these long years to secure for themselves."
LITTLE remains to be told.
The lawyers got to work, and in a few months Mary Winifred Conway, as she then was—for she and Mark were married from Blake's house within three weeks of her acquittal—was duly put into possession of her great fortune.
The infamous Cross-and-Circle Society was broken up, and its members imprisoned.
Marie Lopez escaped, and was never heard of again.
Inspector Peter Fairley is a sadder, and, it is to be hoped and believed, a wiser man. At all events, he has learnt one lesson. He will never again be guilty of the folly of pitting his wits against Sexton Blake's.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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