Flat 2 E-Book

Edgar Wallace

• Herausgeber: Al-Mashreq eBookstore
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 457

Beschreibung

Unlock the chilling secrets of "Flat 2" by Edgar Wallace, where a seemingly ordinary apartment becomes the center of a perplexing mystery. When a gruesome crime shocks the residents, Detective Wembury is drawn into a web of deception, danger, and hidden truths. As the investigation deepens, every clue unearths more questions, and the line between friend and foe blurs. This gripping thriller promises heart-pounding suspense and unexpected twists that will leave you breathless.

Leseprobe

Flat Two

Author: Edgar Wallace

Edited by: Seif Moawad

Copyright © 2024 by Al-Mashreq eBookstore

Serialised in The Detective Magazine, Nov 24, 1922-Feb 16, 1923

First UK edition: John Long Ltd., London, 1927

First US edition: Doubleday Page & Co., New York, 1926

No part of this publication may be reproduced whole or in part in any form without the prior written permission of the author

All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Flat Two

I. — A SHOT IN THE NIGHT

II. — THE LITTLE MAN WHO CAUSED A RIOT

III. — THE WOMAN WHO ESCAPED

IV. — THE GIRL WHO RAN AWAY

V. — THE BEADED CASKET

VI. — THE MAN WHO WAITED

VII. — BERYL MARTIN

VIII. — THE GIRL WHO HAD LOST

IX. — THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN

X. — THE MAN WHO CUT THE ALARM

XI. — THE MAN WHO TOOK WHAT HE WANTED

XII. — THE MAN IN THE FLAT

XIII. — THE WATCHERS

XIV. — THE BURNER OF LETTERS

XV. — THE WOMAN WITH THE GLOVES

XVI. — THE MAN WHO WAS SUSPECTED

XVII. — THE MAN WHO WAS ARRESTED

XVIII. — THINGS THAT MILLER FORGOT

XIX. — CHARLIE AND KATE

XX. — MILLER HAS A THEORY

XXI. — THE TRAILER OF CHARLIE

XXII. — THE MAN WHO HAD DISAPPEARED

XXIII. — THE MAN ON THE STAIRS

XXIV. — THE MAN UNDER THE SEAT

XXV. — THE MAN WHO FOLLOWED LOUBA

XXVI. — THE MAN WITHOUT AN OVERCOAT

XXVII. — THE MAN WHO HAD BOASTED

XXVIII. — THE IDEA OF CHARLES BERRY

XXIX. — THE MAN IN THE FOG

XXX. — THE COMMISSIONER WHO DISAPPEARED

XXXI. — MILLER

XXXII. THE STORY

XXXIII. — THE KILLING

XXXIV. — THE END

Landmarks

The Council of Justice

Cover

I. — A SHOT IN THE NIGHT

A shot rang out sharply, and Captain Hurley Brown did not need the direction of the sound to guide him to Robert Weldrake’s door. He had tried to intercept the white-faced boy, who had brushed him aside and entered his room, slamming the door and locking it.

Hurley Brown had seen that expression on a man’s face before, and that man, too—just such another promising young officer as Robert Weldrake—had worn it on his return from the last of several interviews with Emil Louba. A shot had followed on that occasion also. Lingering outside, uneasy, smoking cigarette after cigarette, unable to seek his own quarters with the memory of that stricken-face before him, he was debating whether to insist on the boy opening his door to him when the shot stabbed the silence and sent him tearing up the half-dozen shallow stairs to the locked door.

There was no answer to his knock, and he scarcely waited for any, Putting his shoulder to the door, he had already forced it inwards, straining at the lock, when McElvie, Weldrake’s batman, and two officers joined them; and their combined efforts burst the lock, sending them staggering a few paces into the room.

There was little need to raise him. They saw at a glance that Robert Weldrake was dead. The room was still full of an acrid smell, his stiffening fingers clutched at his service revolver.

‘That damned Louba!’ muttered Brown, the first to break the silence, and more than one of his companions spat out vicious curses.

‘If somebody would shoot him. Malta’d be a lot cleaner,’ declared McElvie wrathfully. Nobody disagreed with him. That Louba was the cause of the tragedy was accepted without debate. It was not an isolated case.

Hurley Brown hated Louba. He had seen too many men ruined by him and his kind. He had determined to drive him out of Malta, and had already taken steps to interest the military authorities in the evil influence his establishment exercised over the men stationed on the island.

He had seen the disaster towards which Robert Weldrake drifted, had tried to gain his confidence, to warn him; but the boy had been too deep in to extricate himself.

When nothing more was to be done, and they left the still figure to its loneliness. Brown separated from the others and walked briskly towards Louba’s establishment. As he entered the cabaret, which was a gaudy mask for the remaining and more important part of the establishment, he became aware that there was something unusual happening.

The music had ceased and general conversation had died y away. Glasses were neglected and all heads were turned in the same direction. So far as Hurley Brown could see, it appeared to be an altercation between a customer and one of the performers, a scantily dressed dancer or singer who still had one foot on the low platform at the end of the room. The man she faced was plump and voluble, dark-eyed, with a full florid face and a flamboyant style of dress.

As Brown moved towards the doorway leading to the gaming rooms, the curtains were pulled aside to admit Emil Louba, followed by a weasel-faced fellow who immediately returned to his place in the meagre orchestra which flanked the platform.

‘I’m glad your man fetched you!’ shouted the disturber. ‘It saves me the trouble of finding you.’

‘Ah, da Costa! My friend da Costa!’ remarked Louba, with a purring suavity.

‘Your ruin I’ll be!’ roared da Costa, approaching him. He was small beside the big broad-shouldered Louba, and quivered with a fresh access of rage as the other looked down on him, a smile beneath the black sweeping moustache. ‘Again you have done it!—when will you be content? Do you think I am to be crossed by you everywhere I turn?’

‘All is fair in love and business, my dear da Costa—surely you know that! We can be trade rivals and yet remain the best of friends. But we interrupt the entertainment.’

He took da Costa’s arm in a grip that was savage, despite the smile still on his face, and tried to draw him out of sight and hearing of the gaping crowd.

‘I mean to interrupt it!’ cried da Costa, dragging himself free. ‘That girl is under contract to me—I pay her a salary three times what she is worth—I trained her—she owes everything to me—’

‘It’s a lie!’ screamed the woman. ‘I’m perfectly free to go where I like, and—’

‘And the lady prefers Malta to Tripoli,’ exclaimed Louba. ‘That is all there is about it.’

‘It is not all nor nearly all what you have done to me!’ exploded da Costa. ‘Whenever I am in a good place, you come and set up in opposition or you take my performers away, or—’

‘Or in other ways prove myself the better man,’ assented Louba. ‘Business is a ver’ good game, da Costa, if you know how to play it. Come, now, and leave these good people to their entertainment.’ His fingers sank into da Costa’s plump arm, and be dragged him a step or two towards the curtained doorway.

‘You ungrateful hussy, you shall come back to Tripoli, or you shall pay for your breach of contract and for all the while I kept and trained you, before you earned one penny,’ threatened da Costa, tearing his arm free from Louba’s grasp and springing towards the woman, shaking his fists in her face.

She was more than equal to his abuse, screaming and gesticulating, defying him in scraps of half a dozen languages, until Louba interfered.

‘Go up there and get on with your work,’ he commanded, taking her by the shoulders and bundling her back on to the platform.

He made a sign to the musicians, and also to two waiters.

As though there had been no interruption, the woman and the orchestra burst forth together, she spreading a smile over her shrewish features, and proceeding to twist and turn with great vigour. The waiters seized da Costa and ran him down the length of the room and out into the street, where they scuffled with him for some time on the steps, preventing his re-entrance.

Louba bowed to the company, the overhead lights glistened on his smooth black hair.

‘A t’ousand pardons,’ he murmured. ‘One cannot have the best establishment of its kind without rivals!’

He was about to leave by the way he had come, when Hurley Brown approached him.

‘Nor without retribution, I hope,’ added Brown.

‘Why, Captain Hurley Brown!’ Louba bowed with mocking exaggeration. ‘I take this very kind of you, Captain. It is not often I have the pleasure of seeing you here, although…your young friend, Lieutenant Weldrake, is a frequent visitor.’

‘He will not be in the future,’ came the grim reply.

‘No?’ Louba laughed softly. ‘Well, we shall see! I t’ink you have tried to keep him away before, but…unless my memory is ver’ bad, without much success. Eh?’

‘I shall succeed this time. I promise you.’

‘That is so? Well’—he shrugged his shoulders—‘so long as he settles up like a gentleman before he go, I will not complain. He is leaving us?’

‘He has already left us. And you will leave us soon. You will leave us, Louba, if I have to tie a brick round your neck and drop you in the middle of the sea.’

‘What do you mean by saying he has left us? He has not settled his obligations to me yet. It is not much more than an hour ago since I had to remind him of all that stuff about British officers and gentlemen.’

‘Louba,’ said Hurley Brown, very softly, ‘I really don’t know how I keep my hands off you!’

‘Perhaps it is because you know I should have you t’rown out if you raised a finger to me, dear friend.’

‘You—!’ His arm was caught as he raised it.

‘You will really not gain anything by violence,’ said Louba. ‘And it would be very unbecoming. Eh? Tell me what you mean by saying that boy has gone.’

‘He’s just been murdered.’

‘Murdered? By whom?’

‘By you, Louba.’

‘Oh—oh, I see,’ said Louba after a moment. ‘So that is it. And what do you want here, then?’

‘Just to tell you that if you are not driven out of Malta by the authorities, I’ll kick you out myself, and I’ll kick you out of any place I find you in. We have met elsewhere, Louba, and the longer you live the viler you become.’

‘What nonsense! You mean the longer I live the more fools I meet —naturally. As for your aut’orities just that to them!’ He snapped his fingers. ‘I am not to be held responsible for every young fool who is incapable of taking care of himself. If you want to kick anybody, go and kick them. I assure you, it is ver’ good sport. Captain Brown. I have tried it,’ he grinned.

‘One day,’ said Hurley Brown, ‘you will try it once too often.’

A sneer twisted Louba’s coarse features. ‘If that is a threat,’ he returned, ‘it makes me laugh. I am Emil Louba. I go my way, trampling or stepping over whatever is in my path. It is for others to choose whether I trample or step over. But I do not turn aside.’

With a muttered exclamation. Hurley Brown swung away from the man, and strode through the throng, who were now loudly applauding the panting and smiling performer.

He had known no good purpose could be served by going to the place, but indignation had sent him there. It was outrageous to think of Weldrake lying dead on his narrow bed, whilst Emil Louba pursued his brazen course unharmed.

A violent voice broke on his ears from across the narrow street.

‘I’ll make you pay yet! I’ll make you pay if I wait twenty years!’ It was da Costa, shaking his fists in the direction of Louba’s place, dishevelled and still breathless from the effects of rage and his tussle with the waiters.

II. — THE LITTLE MAN WHO CAUSED A RIOT

It was not a pleasant task to meet Robert Weldrake’s father when he arrived in Malta.

The dead boy had been popular both with the men and his brother-officers, and some satisfaction was felt when it was known that his father was expected. McElvie voiced the general wish when he said that he hoped Mr. Weldrake, senior, was a hefty fellow handy with his fists, who was coming with the express purpose of interviewing Emil Louba.

‘And there’s no other reason why he should come,’ observed McElvie hopefully. ‘He doesn’t wear any uniform, and he can jolly well give Louba what for!’

Nevertheless, the task of greeting him and giving him details of his boy’s death was not a coveted one, and Hurley Brown undertook it with misgivings.

He looked for a tall resolute man, an old and stronger edition of Robert Weldrake, and was amazed when his gaze fell on the small shrinking figure of Mr. Weldrake. If general indignation had reigned before, it was intensified by the pathetic little man upon whom the blow had fallen. It was obvious that his boy had been his world, his death a devastating shock.

He uttered no complaints, asked for no sympathy; he was touchingly grateful for the kindness shown him, tremblingly eager for any and every story, however trivial, anyone could tell him of his son. He sat in the boy’s quarters alone for hours together, touching his belongings, reading his last note. He went to the grave every day, a small solitary figure.

Sympathy for Robert Weldrake was transferred to his father, and the very sight of the forlorn little man acted as fuel to the rage which burned against Louba.

It was da Costa who stirred the fire to a blaze. Meeting Weldrake one night, wandering aimlessly after his fashion, he stopped him, and pointed out Louba’s place.

‘That is where your son got his death-blow,’ he said. ‘That’s where many another has been ruined. That is where Emil Louba is growing rich by ruining men and driving them to suicide.’

Weldrake’s thin face turned in the direction of the red lights which illuminated the outside of the building and he nodded slowly.

Da Costa had sown the seed, and he was not surprised when Weldrake continued his quick nervous walk, going straight towards Louba’s. He had been to all the places that his son had frequented, except to Louba’s.

Da Costa knew the treatment he would receive from Louba, and ran to the barracks.

‘Your little man has gone to Louba! Likely Louba will hoist him on the platform and make him dance for them!’

It was enough.

The soldiers outdistanced him, but he arrived in time to see Weldrake being led away with a cut on his face, looking dazed and shaken.

Inside was pandemonium. The orchestra was playing wildly in an apparent effort to drown the disturbance. People were standing on tables, others protesting shrilly, whilst in the centre were waiters and a dancing-girl trying to keep back excited and angry soldiers.

‘We will see Louba!’ came the insistent shout.

‘Louba had nothing to do with it!’ cried the girl. ‘He never saw him. He sent down word he wouldn’t see him. He was busy.’

‘Yes, busy spinning the wheel upstairs and ruining as many more as he can!’

‘He gave orders for him to be thrown out!’

‘He didn’t! It was the little man who wouldn’t understand and wouldn’t go.’

‘We put him out gently at first.’

‘He would come back.’

‘Where’s Louba?’

The babble was at its height when Louba appeared.

‘Really, Gentlemen, really!’ The oil of his manner fell on flames.

More soldiers were crowding into the place. Da Costa, jumping up and down to get a view, missed the beginning of it, only he knew that his hopes were being realised. Louba refused to be intimidated, and refused to restrain his mockery. It was when he drawled out that there was a great deal of fuss over a degenerate young fool who had not even honesty enough to pay his debts of honour that the first blow was struck. Louba returned it instantly. His bullies sprang into the fray; the soldiers welcomed them.

‘We’ll smash everything in the place!’

The threat was taken up with enthusiasm, and sealed by a loud crash, as a bottle of wine splintered against a long mirror.

Joyous hands snatched up every bottle within reach, trays and chairs in lieu of better missiles, and a deafening crash of glass announced the breaking of every mirror in the garish place.

Women screamed and ran, and some of their escorts also chose the better part of valour.

People came running in from the street, adding to the confusion.

‘Upstairs, boys, and throw his paraphernalia out of the window!’

‘Grab his winnings and send ‘em out with the tide!’

The gamblers upstairs objected to the invasion of the wreckers, knowing nothing of the meaning of it, and the tumult did not diminish.

Da Costa, rejoicing, leapt over the performers’ platform, gaining the tiny dressing-room at the back. This was deserted.

There were several candles on the high bench which served as a dressing table. Flimsy dresses hung on the walls: muslin draped the looking-glass. Da Costa soon had a blaze there.

Going out into the hall again, which was deserted except for the crowd clustering and struggling about the entrance leading to the stairs, striving to join the throng upstairs, or endeavouring to find out what it was all about, he flung a shower of lighted matches over the floor, where pools of fiery spirits lay soaking into the carpet amid the litter of broken bottles which had contained them.

The flames leapt along the group, and were climbing up to the inflammable decorations suspended from the roof before a scream called attention to them.

No one attempted to put them out. It was ‘safety first’.

Da Costa was one of the first to reach the street and to run to a safe distance. From there he watched the deep blue of the sky take on an ominous glow, and gradually lighten to a spreading rose colour that flickered, alternately dull and fierce, whilst the flames of the burning building leapt into view.

It was not late and the streets were full of people, asking what was on fire. Officers and military police hastened down, summoned by news of the riot.

Hurley Brown hurried by with an anxious face. It was one thing to have Louba’s house sacked and burned, another for soldiers to suffer for it.

Da Costa, aching for someone with whom to rejoice, seized on Weldrake, when his small figure appeared in sight.

‘It’s Louba’s,’ he announced, exulting. ‘It’s Louba’s place that’s on fire!’

The sky was lit up with an angry crimson that glowed and sank in the breeze; the surrounding buildings stood out in beautiful and uncanny distinctness.

As the crimson became sullen, screened by black smoke, Hurley Brown returned, and paused beside Weldrake. Only da Costa chattered.

Men drifted back to the barracks and Louba, coatless, for he had taken it off to wrap round his face as he fought his way to the streets, strode up to them with a threatening air,

‘T’ere will be something to pay for this, Captain Hurley Brown!’ he exclaimed. ‘We’ll see what those military aut’orities you spoke of will say to this!’

‘If you have any sense, Louba, you will just sail away and say nothing about it,’ put in da Costa. ‘If you start them asking questions they may ask a great deal more than you’ll like.’

‘What, you? You’ve had a hand in this, da Costa! I know; Eulalie saw you there.’

‘Does she want to come back to Tripoli?’ jeered da Costa.

‘Perhaps she will—and I, too! Hear that? I drove you out of Port Said, and I’ll drive you out of Tripoli.’

‘Don’t you threaten me, Louba! I’m more than a match for you! You’ve done me some injuries in the past, but I’ll make you regret it,’ cried da Costa, truculently, transported with triumph.

‘I never regret anything,’ returned Louba insolently, and turned from him. ‘If you think this will drive me from Malta, Captain Hurley Brown, you will live to discover your mistake.’

‘It did not need this, Louba. I have said you’ll go, and you will go,’ said Brown. ‘Tonight is only another addition to the harm you’ve done —the men implicated in this business are only a few more added to the number of those who’ve suffered through you.’

‘And I’ll see they do suffer,’ muttered Louba, between his teeth. ‘I’ll make them sorry they ever lifted a hand against me.’

‘The only thing they had to be sorry for,’ ejaculated da Costa, ‘is that you weren’t burned along with your house.’

Louba turned his baleful eyes upon him. ‘Very well, very well,’ he said. ‘Time is before me.’

‘Time and Nemesis,’ added Hurley Brown.

‘Time and me!’ boasted da Costa.

‘I take you,’ sneered Louba. ‘I take you both—and as many more as you like to bring.’

Weldrake remained silent, looking from the defiant Louba to the two who hated him. Captain Hurley Brown, grim with mouth hard-set and da Costa, alive with unrestrained passion.

Weldrake slipped away.

An hour later, whilst Hurley Brown made anxious inquiries about him, he was kneeling in the dark beside his boy’s grave.

‘It’s all right, Robert,’ he was whispering reassuringly. ‘You’ll be avenged. I’ll see to it. I’ll never forget. I won’t stay home until he’s paid…I know it will be all right. You’ll be avenged, Robert…’

III. — THE WOMAN WHO ESCAPED

The room looked little like that of a flat in the West End of London.

Oriental tapestries and embroidered silks, emblazoned with every hue, were strewn about, cushions of exotic design in profusion. A gold hookah stood near a wide settee, its pale-blue smoke mingling with that from the perfumed cigarette which the girl smoked, seated amongst the cushions, her feet on a carved footstool.

In a high slender brazier of bronze burned pungent spices, and the only illumination came from a grotesquely carved bronze lantern suspended by chains, from which a pale-green light spread eerily, shining on the polished black head of the man beside the hookah. His Western clothes were covered by an embroidered robe, and to the girl whose dreams of the East were realised by the bizarre effects about her, the dim light, the scent of the smoke and the spices, he was a figure of rich romance.

His imperfect English was in itself an added charm.

‘But you seem to know somet’ing of Cairo already,’ he remarked.

‘No. Just a little that Jimmy told me. He used to tell me interesting things once.’

‘But is interesting no longer?’ inquired Louba.

She frowned.

‘He soon became more talkative about crime and police work out there, than Cairo and Baghdad themselves. Don’t let’s talk about him. When I’m here, I want to forget I’m in England: I want to forget humdrum places and ordinary people and live in a beautiful dream.’

‘You are ver’ good to say I make beautiful dreams for you. You do not now regret our meetings? You are not now troubled by the little inconveniences they entail?’

‘I don’t care for anything so long as I escape for an hour to a new wonderful world.’

‘But it is great pity you should have to escape to it,’ he observed. ‘Would it not be so much more wonderful if you lived there all the time? If your East was not conjured out of a few Eastern hangings and carvings, bound by four walls, but you stood in the secret heart of it, steeped in the soul of its age-old mystery…’

‘Oh, don’t—you make me so envious, and miserable. Because I shall never see it, and I want to more than anything in the world.’

‘And why not, Kate? It is only the shackles of that humdrum society which you dislike that holds you back. If only—’

‘Who’s that?’ she broke in, her lips parted fearfully, the cigarette held far from her as though she prepared to cast it aside hastily.

He turned his head at the sound of the bell.

‘I do not expect anyone,’ he said. ‘Miller will see to it.’

But Miller, his man, opened the door to two visitors whom he dared not take upon himself to send away. He begged them to wait whilst he took their names.

‘Who is it?’ called Louba, as the man knocked on the locked door.

The girl leapt to her feet in terror when the names were given. ‘Daddy! Oh, get me out! Get me out! Which way can I go?’

She seized her coat and hat, flinging them on in trembling haste.

‘You cannot go by the service passage now. There’s only the window. Perhaps I’d better not see them,’ said Louba.

‘Oh, you must! Otherwise he might suspect. How can I get out by the window?’

‘Down the fire escape. I’ll release the ladder, but when you get to the bottom of it, the alarm will ring. You must run round by the back of the house quickly, before anyone can see you. Don’t be frightened. You will get away safely.’

He had unlatched the window, and was tugging furiously to open it. It withstood all his efforts. He went to the door, outside which Miller waited.

‘What’s the matter with the confounded window, Miller?’ he cried.

‘The screws, sir, the screws at the bottom!’

Louba switched on the light and returned to the window, where the girl stooped agitatedly to assist, half sobbing as she fumbled vainly at the small tightened screws.

‘He can’t suspect it’s you,’ said Louba, as he tore his fingers and cursed inwardly in his endeavours to loosen the screws. ‘I’d better send them away.’

‘No, no!’ The girl was in a panic. ‘He’s seen us exchange a private word or two occasionally—I’m always afraid he’ll guess. I must get away if we break the window!’

At last he had the screws out, and the window dragged open.

Without a word and possessed only by her guilty desire to escape, she fled through the window and down the fire escape, jumping the last few steps in a frenzy of fright as the burglar-alarm clanged harshly and sent her fleeing into the misty darkness.

‘Show them in!’ called Louba to Miller, unlocking the door. Hastily he collected a few of the tapestries and cushions and threw them through the doorway into his bedroom, slamming the door shut and wrapping a handkerchief about his torn finger before he went forward to meet his guests.

‘Pray pardon me that I keep you waiting, dear friends,’ he apologised. ‘I had fallen asleep and was far away in the land of dreams. But you bring me a ver’ pleasant awakening.’

His visitors had doubts and, despite Louba’s efforts, it plain that they felt themselves intruders and were anxious to take their leave.

After a very short while they rose to go. He accompanied them to the door himself, still talking vivaciously, and expressing his regret that they could not be persuaded to stay longer.

It was after the door had closed on them that the suavity vanished from his face and was replaced by a scowl.

‘Miller!’

‘Yes, sir,’ said the man, appearing in response to the peremptory call.

‘What is the meaning of that window being stuck fast as if it was never to be opened this side eternity? I have broken my nails and torn my skin trying to open it. Why was it screwed down?’

‘There’s always been screws there, sir, at night-time. With the fire escape outside, it’s safer.’

‘Need you hammer them in so that I must needs root up the whole building to get them out?’ demanded Louba, still visibly irritated and flurried by the contretemps.

‘I only screwed ‘em right as I always do, sir, particularly on a misty night. You may be glad of those screws some day,’ he added, with a feeble attempt at lightness; but if he sought to dispel the gloom, he failed dismally.

‘What do you mean by that?’ exclaimed Louba suspiciously.

‘Nothing, sir,’ replied the man innocently. ‘I only meant they do keep the burglars out, don’t they?’

Louba uttered an impatient exclamation, and went back into the disordered room.

He glanced at the window, even went close and peered out until he could see the faint outline of the fire escape. It certainly would be easy for anyone to enter that way, but for the burglar-alarm connected with the ladder.

He pulled the curtains close across, and returned to the centre of the room, where he stood, biting a finger.

He was a much-hated man. There were people…

Bah!

He shook his shoulders scornfully.

Who dare touch Louba?

IV. — THE GIRL WHO RAN AWAY

Not many days after her escape from Louba’s flat, the same girl stood talking in a low voice to a man in white overalls. The man held a test-tube in his hand, and a broad patch of purple lay across his heavy and unprepossessing face, thrown by a lingering ray of sun slanting through the violet panes of the window.

He kept his eyes on the tube, as though prepared for interruption and desirous of appearing engrossed in his work. The girl herself only leaned inside the door, whispering hastily.

‘If you understand, you’d better go now,’ he said, without turning his head. ‘We don’t want to be seen talking together.’

‘No. I’m afraid he’s seen us before.’ She swung round, and started as she met the grave kindly eyes of the one man she least desired to find her there. ‘Why, Daddy…I didn’t hear you. I just looked in the laboratory to see if you were here,’ she stammered. ‘Won’t you come and have some tea before you start work?’

‘Yes, Kate. I came to see if you were going to give me any. I was afraid you were out.’ He spoke a few words to his assistant, then walked with the girl to the living-rooms.

‘I used to think you didn’t care for Berry,’ he observed, a short while afterwards, as he sat drinking tea.

‘Well, I didn’t at first,’ she replied. ‘…But I think it was only his manner I misunderstood.’

‘That might well be. He had a great deal to learn there; though he’s a good worker…a bit irregular in his hours lately, and…’

He wrinkled up his forehead, pursing his lips dubiously.

He said no more to the girl, but he had growing doubts of the integrity of his assistant, Mr. Charles Berry. Valuable equipment had disappeared from the laboratory since Berry’s coming.

The girl rose early the next morning and wrote a letter which she put in her handbag. Going out, she met the housekeeper.

‘Why, Miss Kate, you’re never going out so early?’ exclaimed the woman. ‘Before breakfast?’

‘Yes, I am. I’m going to Covent Garden to buy some flowers, and then I’m meeting a friend. Perhaps I shall stay out to lunch, too,’ she replied, hastening to the door.

‘Well, she does do some strange things,’ soliloquised the woman, as she watched Kate out of sight.

The letter which the girl had written was delivered at the house the following morning and the envelope bore the Dover postmark.

Charles Berry did not come to work on the day that Kate left, nor was he seen at his employer’s house again.

Inquiries elicited no news of him, but the girl whose dislike of him had been succeeded by civility and hurried conferences was steeping her romantic soul in the East which had for so long filled her dreams, and it was Louba who sat beside her, looking down on the flat-roofed town, with its maze of narrow streets, its medley of colour and costume, scorching under the midday sun. Beyond the town lay a dust-hued plain over which a faint line marked the slow progress of a camel caravan.

‘Oh, I can’t believe it—I can’t believe it’s real, even yet!’ Kate ejaculated.

‘It is very real,’ he answered, with deep satisfaction. ‘You have left stagnation behind, and are just beginning to live. I knew we should be in the East together, one day.’

‘How could you know? I—’

‘Because I wished to bring you here, and I always get what I want. I meant to take you away from that fellow…and I have done so.’

‘Jimmy?’

‘Yes.’ His teeth showed viciously as he spoke the word.

‘Why, Emil, you say it as if you hate him.’

He laughed softly. ‘No. It is not worth my while to hate those who cross me. It is sufficient that I always get the better of them.’

‘But Jimmy has never done you any injury?’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Jimmy, as you call him, does not exist. Let us talk of some-t’ing else.’

They went down into the bazaar towards sundown where she revelled in the sights and sounds and smells, all equally delightful to her infatuated imagination. Even the filthy beggars, in their nondescript tatters of clothing, were powerless to offend her. Were they not truly of the East?

The bargaining, the frequent pretence of breaking off negotiations, the raised hands and protestations when Louba made an offer for the things which caught his or his companion’s fancy, all captivated her. It was the Eastern method of buying and selling, and as such it was delightful.

She resented the intrusion of anything English, and therefore viewed with hostile eyes the obviously English man who tugged furtively at her sleeve when Louba had disappeared within the low dark opening leading to the inside stores of the vendor whose varied goods she was examining.

‘Excuse me, but is it all right with you?’ asked the man, in a manner at once timid and eager. ‘You seem to be without friends here…with Louba. This is a long way from England, and—’

‘It is a long way, but I don’t think that a sufficient excuse for impertinence,’ returned Kate, flushing. ‘I don’t know you.’

‘No; but you see I know Louba, and you don’t look as if you do.’

‘I know him well enough to be content with his…friendship, without requiring the advice of a stranger,’ she said, moving away.

She was the more angry because of that burning flush on her face, the keen sense of her position, according to Western ideas, brought back to her by this reminder of home, and all the conventions she had overthrown. She told herself it was like being wakened from the exotic joys of a gorgeous dream by the sound of a suburban milkman.

‘Yes, I know I’m a stranger,’ said the mild voice. ‘And I don’t ask you to trust or confide in me, only I would suggest to you that you go back home. Whatever your home is like and whatever awaits your return, leave Louba, my dear, and go back before you lose heart, and while life still seems worth another effort.’

Before she could find any reply his mild eyes glanced past her and he darted backwards, out of sight round a pile of carpets and mats, up one of the narrow alleyways running from the main thoroughfare of the bazaar.

It was Louba who had frightened him away. He had come to the doorway and stood beside the youth who was in charge of the place, and he was looking at a customer who strode away through the meandering throng with something held close under his arm, and a suggestion of tremendous haste in his step.

‘Somet’ing interesting about that,’ observed Louba, as he rejoined Kate. ‘A tawdry t’ing, of no value, yet he has given a ridiculous price for it and made off as if he were afraid they would take it from him. Look at the boy!’

The boy, otherwise the proprietor’s son, was rubbing his hands gleefully as he watched the tall form of his late customer disappear. A moment later, he was telling the tale of his good bargain to his father who, blear-eyed and soiled, listened with an indifference that quickly changed to anger.

‘What, he offered that for it, and you let him have it for double the price?’ he cried, according to Louba’s quick translation to Kate. ‘He offered that?—in the beginning?—and you let him have it for double, dolt!’

‘But, that was a dozen times more than it was worth!’

‘How do you know that, fool? Would he have offered six times its value at the first if it were only worth what we thought? Fool, dolt! He so anxious to get it that he—! Oh, why was I cursed with such a son!’

Leaving the old man to his lamentations, Louba and Kate resumed their walk.

‘What was it?’ asked Kate.

‘Just a casket stitched over with beads and stuck with coloured glass.’ His eyes were narrowed. If there was anything to be gained, he disliked another than himself to be the gainer. ‘M’m. I should much like to know the meaning of that.’

Kate was less gay on the homeward journey than she had been when they set out. Though she recalled it with anger and resentment, yet the episode with the little Englishman had dimmed the brightness of her romance.

The sun was sinking as they climbed the low hill; looking back, the town appeared flat and drab. She drew closer to Louba.

‘I do hate those little insignificant men,’ she said, and he pressed her arm against his side. She did not tell him that she was expressing her dislike of another, not her admiration of himself.

She listened with even more than her usual avidity to his extravagant compliments and conceits, clinging the more passionately to her romance because of the chill touch of reality which had approached it.

Though she was smiling when they reached the walled-in garden of the house on the hill, she halted with a sudden start as the figure of Charles Berry loomed before them. She shrank against Louba, glimpsing the hate in the man’s eyes, though he raised them to her for but a moment. If she had tried to forget her aversion for him, he had not forgotten her former slights.

Her new-found smile froze. She shivered.

‘Let’s go in,’ she said to Louba. ‘I’m cold.’

V. — THE BEADED CASKET

‘My dear Kate, not’ing will give me greater pleasure than to relieve you of my short-comings. I beg you not to distress yourself about them any more.’

She looked up at him dully, inured to the sneer on his lips, the oily mockery of his voice. Even the insulting glance, the open contempt in his bold eyes, had long since ceased to make her wince.

Only she waited with parted lips to know the meaning of his last words, apprehensive of fresh indignities. The light banter of his tone, his good spirits, boded her no good, following-upon his brutally unconcealed weariness of her, his coarse ill-humours; particularly upon his anger of only an hour ago.

‘I have had the misfortune to be unable to please you for some time past,’ he went on, and made an airy gesture. ‘It pains me! But I hope I shall always put a lady’s happiness before my own.’ He lit a cigar carefully, throwing the match out into the dim garden. There was no light in the room except that which came through the long open windows. She had fled away from the garish lighted rooms, where Louba pursued his old methods of enriching himself at other people’s expense, to the small private room at the back of the house, sitting there until the light faded and the summer night closed in.

‘You were not when you made me look on just now, while you cheated that young American,’ she said.

‘We will not speak of that, my dear Kate,’ he rejoined, an ominous note in his voice. ‘Your behaviour was…indiscreet, and might have been disastrous, but for my own quick wits. We will not go into details at all; I t’ink it better not. It is sufficient that you are not even of use to me in my business. If I had asked you to dance in the cabaret, you might have suggested it was a great departure from your habits, but I have done no more than to ask you to preside at the tables, and look pretty.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It may no longer be your fault if you do not look pretty, but t’ere seems no reason why you should not look pleasant.’

‘Well?’ she asked. She knew all this was mere preliminary.

‘I have decided that as I can no longer make you happy, I had better pass you over to one who may.’

‘Pass me…!’ She half rose from her seat, her white face clear in the gloom. He put up his hand.

‘Do not do me the injustice of misunderstanding, Kate. It is a husband I am speaking of, and I will myself see you safely married.’

She put her hand up to her throat, but could not speak.

‘Such an old friend, too—Mr. Charles Berry. Is he not?’ asked Louba smoothly.

‘Marry Charles Berry?’ she gasped. ‘Never as long as I live!’

‘Oh, yes you will, my dear Kate. You certainly will. I say it.’

‘I will not!’

‘And I doing my best for you, as your guardian!’ he ejaculated reproachfully. ‘How could I ever go back to England again, if I knew I had left you here unprotected! Really, do you t’ink I have no conscience?’

He was thoroughly enjoying himself but, before he could continue, the door behind them opened, showing a lighted passage and a brilliant and crowded room beyond, before it was quickly closed upon the newcomer.

‘Louba, are you there?’ asked a hoarse breathless voice.

‘Yes. Who is it?’

‘Vacilesco. Will you hide something for me?—just until I have thrown them off.’

He stopped, listening. Hurried feet could be heard thudding down the passage from the great lighted room. ‘They followed me in! They were too close. Hide this—you shall have your share, Louba!’

As the door behind him was flung open, he sprang away from it, thrust something into Louba’s outstretched hands, jumped over the low sill of the window and ran across the dark garden towards the narrow lane running at the bottom. Louba thrust the object behind the nearest cushion, before he spoke to the intruders. ‘What is this? Who are you?’

He moved to the switch and put the light on. Turning her head, Kate beheld three men of villainous aspect, panting like the man they pursued.

‘Someone came in here—he’s got stolen property. Have you seen him?’

‘He’s just entered with the same delightful unceremoniousness as yourselves, gentlemen. You pushed him away from the J door as you came in.’

Louba pointed down the garden, and without waiting for more they leapt forward, and were lost in the darkness.

‘Stay here and see no one touches that!’ ordered Louba, before she went after the men. Vacilesco had promised him a share, but he had never cared for the sharing system.

The others had jumped over the low wall into the lane, but Louba, careful of his immaculate clothes, stayed to open the wooden door. He followed the sound of the steps over the rough path leading along the backs of the gardens. He could hear the men’s feet slipping over the stones.

A little farther along there was a high wall and on the opposite side one or two trees stretched their arms across the narrow path, shutting out the light.

It was at this point that the pursuers came up with their quarry, making a desperate effort to do so. Louba stood still, his keen eyes and ears taking in the struggling mass of figures, the scuffling of feet, the murmur of voices; then a choked sound, a smothered scream, and unbroken silence.

In case they came back the same way, he stepped softly over to the blackness under the tallest tree—standing on the little hillock surrounding it.

He could guess what they were doing over there by the high wall. He could even hear a few whispered curses and queries as their search proved futile.

After a while they moved into the middle of the path, where he could distinguish their three figures against the paler sky. They hesitated, evidently debating amongst themselves, after which they took to their heels and ran off in the opposite direction to Louba’s house.

He waited for a minute or two, then crossed over to the prone figure they had left, stooped and touched him carefully. With a light step he returned to his house.

Kate was sitting where he had left her. He looked at his fingers and gleaming shirt-front when he came into the light. They were spotless.

‘What has happened?’ she asked quickly, roused by the significant inspection.

‘I’m afraid they’ve stabbed Vacilesco, but it has not’ing to do with us. You understand?’ he asked threateningly. ‘We know not’ing.’

‘You have what they were after.’

‘I have not’ing. He left not’ing here. Do not make any mistake about that, my dear Kate. I shall be very annoyed if you do. Have you looked at it?’ he queried, stepping to the cushion behind which he had concealed Vacilesco’s abandoned treasure.

She shook her head.

He closed the windows and pulled the curtains across before he examined his booty.

It was a casket, covered with beads of all colours, worked in a crude but effective design, having imitation jewels in the centre of the largest pattern. He opened it eagerly, and paused in disappointment at the sight of its empty interior.

‘It seems Vacilesco made off with it too late,’ he remarked. ‘…Yet it was not locked. He would surely look inside.’

The casket was lined with white kid, but the bottom was encrusted with beads and coloured glass like the outside. Examining it both inside and outside, Louba gave a grunt of hopefulness, and began running his fingers over the bottom of the inside. He was rewarded by finding the spring which released the false bottom.

An exclamation of pleasure was followed quickly by one of anger, as he saw that the space beneath was quite empty.

He regarded the basket with a scowl for a moment or two before he conquered his chagrin, and shrugged his shoulders.

‘Well, it is Vacilesco who has paid for it,’ he observed. ‘Not I.’

‘Will you go on with what you were saying?’ asked Kate. ‘What do you mean by saying I am to marry Charles Berry?’

‘Just that. We part company, you and I, but I will see you married to him first. Flat 2, Braymore House, London, where you have spent such pleasant hours is still mine, and I shall shortly return. For reasons which you will readily guess, it is convenient for me to have you Mrs. Charles Berry.’

‘But you can’t mean this! It’s too bad even for you!’ she burst out.

‘Bad? The ingratitude! My dear Kate, just think how I might have left you! Why…’ He paused with his eyes on the casket, which apparently put her and her affairs out of his thoughts. ‘Now I remember!’ he exclaimed. ‘I have seen this t’ing before. Yes! It was at—’

‘I don’t want to hear about it!’ she cried. ‘Will you keep to the subject?’

‘Oh, but this was at a time which you would like to hear about,’ he mocked. ‘A time of tender memories! Do you not remember once, in those precious early days, someone gave an incredible price for a worthless casket? It was once when we were in the bazaar—’

‘Oh, don’t!’ She made a gesture of intolerable pain.

He laughed. ‘I said they were tender memories! What a pity such times do not last forever.’

‘I was not regretting the times,’ she rejoined bitterly. ‘I was thinking of a man who warned me…whose advice I despised…that day…’ She turned her face away from his cruel eyes.

‘That day? I cannot remember anyone who could give you advice; but it does not matter. I must go back to my guests—well, my victims, if you like it better.’ His gaze wandered again to the casket. ‘I will keep it in memory of you, dear Kate…a memento of our very charming idyll.’

He turned to the door to throw one last gibe. ‘You, of course, will need no reminder! I flatter myself to that extent.’

He laughed again, and the door closed behind him.

VI. — THE MAN WHO WAITED

‘Don’t you know me, Miller?’

The years had not dealt kindly with Mr. Charles Berry, but Miller had no difficulty in recognising him. He had once been reprimanded by Louba, as a result of endeavouring to satisfy his natural curiosity concerning Berry’s visits to the flat and the quality of his relations with Louba; so that he had a personal reason for remembering him. ‘How are you, Miller?’ went on Berry affably, extending his hand.

‘Oh, fair. How’s things?’ returned Miller. Berry had not formerly been very cordial with him, but it was evident that he wished now to be amiable.

They were outside Braymore House, one cold, damp evening.

‘Just got back to England,’ said Berry. ‘Going anywhere particular?’

‘I’m taking some letters down to Mr. Louba at the Elect Club.’

‘Oh, so he’s there?’

‘Yes. Do you want to see him?’

‘That’s what I’ve come to England for. He’s not treating me as he ought, and if he doesn’t make a change, I think of making it unpleasant for him—I say, come and have one, can’t you? I should like a talk to you. Not in a particular hurry, are you?’

‘Not for five minutes or so.’

They walked side by side, a moist wind in their faces.

‘How is Mr. Louba not treating you properly?’ asked Miller, seeing Berry inclined to be communicative.

‘Well—he’s not paying me all he owes me. How do you think he is for money? Anything gone wrong?’

‘Why?’

‘Do you know anything?’

They regarded each other uncertainly.

‘Look here,’ said Berry. ‘We may as well be frank with each other. Perhaps it’ll help us both. He’s behindhand in his payments to me, and I’m wondering if he’s getting short of cash. How’s he with you?’

‘Well,’ said Miller. ‘My wage is behind too.’

‘Oh.’ Mr. Berry became thoughtful. Turning his head, he drew Miller’s attention to a little man who was following at their heels. ‘Who’s that fellow?’ he asked. ‘I seem to have seen him often, but I don’t remember where.’

‘I don’t know. I’ve seen him hanging about this neighbourhood: but he looks harmless enough.’

They went into the nearest saloon bar, and it was when they were seated together at a table with glasses before them, that Berry decided to take Miller yet more into his confidence.

‘The truth is,’ he said, ‘I’ve already seen Louba.’

‘What, since your return?’

‘Yes. You were out. And he told me that he was broke, and that he was clearing out of the country with as much money as he could get together.’

Miller whistled. ‘That’s lively! What about my wages?’

‘I thought it was just a bluff, to avoid paying me, but if it’s true, it’s pretty dismal, isn’t it?’

‘Rotten,’ responded Miller gloomily.

‘If it’s true, he’ll take every cent he can lay hands on, and you and I’ll never see a penny of our money.’

Miller’s countenance expressed a wrathful agreement.

‘He’s a bad lot is Louba,’ said Berry.

‘I can believe it,’ nodded Miller. ‘If I thought he was really going to do me—’

Berry laughed.

‘He’ll not treat you any better than anybody else, you can rely on that, Miller,’ he said, and came to an abrupt halt.

The little man they had seen in the street had entered the place after them, and had seated himself at a table nearby He blinked guilelessly at Berry’s rude stare.

‘See that man?’ muttered Berry. ‘Come in to have a lemonade,’ he scoffed, not doubting the man’s harmlessness, yet somehow rendered uneasy by his proximity.

‘After all the years I’ve served him!’ exclaimed Miller, his mind still on Louba and his own grievance. ‘But I’ve had my suspicions.’

‘What’s made you suspicious?’

‘I know his companies aren’t doing any too well, and he’s had to pay out a good bit; and I saw something only a couple of days ago that made me open my eyes, but he’s always doing something odd, and I couldn’t be sure it meant a get-away.’

‘What did you see?’ asked Berry eagerly.

‘A passport made out in another name, but with his photograph on it.’

‘Then it’s true. He’s going to run.’ Berry drained his glass and slapped it on the table. ‘And we’re left in the soup! Married?’

‘I’m going to be.’

‘Nice little wedding-present for you—absconding employer. Have another.’

They had two others, and Miller, usually an abstemious man, began to feel himself a disgracefully used person.

‘All these years I’ve been with him!’ he ejaculated.

‘Earned a nice fat wedding-present, if any man has,’ sympathised Berry.

‘And the wages he owes me!’

‘Mean rogue. Might have paid you, at least.’

Berry was well content with Miller’s condition of mind, when he was again irritated by the little man at his elbow, who was undisguisedly listening to what portions of the conversation reached his ears.

‘Excuse me,’ said Berry loudly. ‘Are we saying anything to interest you, sir?’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said the little man. ‘I couldn’t help hearing that you were speaking of Mr. Louba.’

‘Friend of yours?’

‘No. But I’m very interested in him.’

‘Really? A lot of people are.’

‘Yes. I’m particularly interested in him just now.’

‘Oh, why?’

The little man brought his glass of lemonade and seated himself at their table.

‘Why,’ he explained. ‘I find that da Costa has a flat above his in Braymore House.’

‘Yes, he has,’ said Miller. ‘But he’s not a friend of Mr. Louba’s’.’

‘Oh, no, I wouldn’t call him that,’ returned the little man. ‘That is why I’m very hopeful just now. He said if he waited twenty years…and it isn’t twenty years yet.’

‘Don’t seem much to be hopeful about, if you’re talking about Mr. Louba,’ said Miller dejectedly.

‘What do you know about Louba?’ queried Berry.

‘Oh, nothing much,’ replied the little man gently. ‘I met him years ago…a long while. Only I’ve never lost faith—particularly in da Costa. They’ve quarrelled again since then: rivals, you know, and da Costa doesn’t forget.’

‘Well, what’s it all about, anyway?’ demanded Berry, impatient to continue his manipulation of Miller’s grievances.

The little man looked at him blankly.

‘Any special business with us?’ asked Berry rudely.

‘Oh, no, thank you. Pardon me for interrupting you. I’m always interested in anything concerning Louba. It helps me along. Not that I ever lose faith,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘Faith is a great thing, gentlemen. I’ve been living on it for years now. Keeps me cheerful when otherwise I should die—but I’m always cheerful. I have faith. And I wait.’

He drank his lemonade, made a little bow, and went out. Berry tapped his forehead.

‘Well, now, look here. Miller,’ he said. ‘Louba’s treating us both badly, and he’s a rogue, anyhow. Why should we let him grab all the money he can and clear off with it?

‘How can we stop him?’

‘We can’t stop him from clearing off, but we can go shares in his plunder.’

‘He’ll see to that! Whoever goes short, you can be sure he’ll have enough to live in luxury. Trust him.’

‘If we’re fools enough to let him. You’re in the house with him, Miller.’

Miller put down his glass so hastily that some of its contents splashed over on to the marble-topped table.

‘What if I am? D’you take me for a thief?’

‘I shouldn’t be sitting here talking to you if you were,’ replied Berry, with a slightly overdone haughtiness.