The Adventures of Captain Hex E-Book

Edgar Wallace

• Herausgeber: Al-Mashreq eBookstore
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 142

Beschreibung

The Adventures of Captain Hex by Edgar Wallace takes readers on a thrilling ride through treacherous seas and perilous adventures. Captain Hex, a daring and resourceful sea captain, is drawn into a web of danger as he faces ruthless pirates, hidden treasures, and cunning adversaries. With each new voyage, Captain Hex must outwit his enemies and overcome impossible odds to survive. Full of action, intrigue, and unexpected twists, this gripping tale will leave readers breathless as they follow the courageous captain on his dangerous and unpredictable adventures across the high seas.

Leseprobe

The Adventures of Captain Hex 

Author: Edgar Wallace

Edited by: Seif Moawad

Copyright © 2024 by Al-Mashreq eBookstore

As serialised in

The Sunday Post, Glasgow, Scotland,

February 9-Marh 23, 1919

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

The Adventures of Captain Hex

BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE

I. — MR. MONTAGUE FLAKE, THE MARGARINE KING, HANDS OVER £8,000

Captain Hex's "Man Friday"

The Gallery of War Profiteers

HEX'S DETECTIVE AGENCY

A Mysterious Errand

The Home of the Butter King

THE HEX PRIVATE DETECTIVE AGENCY

A Business Deal

The Bogus Parchment

A Keen Bargain

The Treasure Chest

II. — THE OUTWITTING OF MR. THEODORE MATCH

Hex Surprises

Mr. Match Is Amused

A Challange

The Scheme Progressing

The Crossed Cheques

Payable to Bearer

Outwitted!

III. — THE FOILING OF MR. HARRY B. KINGBERRY

A Tough Case

The Missing Paper

A Dramatic Moment

Put Down for £4,000

Beans

On the Track

At the Docks

The Circle and the Palm Tree

A Surprise

IV. — MR. MONTAGUE SLUIS IS CAUGHT NAPPING — A REMARKABLE DEAL IN PEARLS

Mr. Sluis Is Unmoved

His Only Weakness

Shadowed

An Interesting Purchase

Mr. Sluis Sets a Trap

A Deal in Pearls

Outwitted

V. — THE MAN WHO BETRAYED HIMSELF

Hex Embarrassed

The One Instalment Due

An Old Acquaintance

A Shock for Mr. Flake

A Troubled Conscience

Belshazzar Smith's Testimony

Mr. Flake Explains

Hex Baffled

A Confession

VI. — THE SECRET OF THE HIDDEN VAULT

Mr. Boliviski Is Pleased

How He Did It

Hex's Challenge

How the Land Lies

Hoards His Gold

Bluff

Finding the Architect

What Hans Said

A Startling Discovery

An Astounding Confession

Outwitted

VII. — HOW MR. MILSON WREN WAS OUTWITTED

The Mysterious Business Man

A Lively Interview

Mr. Wren's Aspirations

A Remarkable Campaign

Captain Hex "Caught"

The Coup!

Landmarks

Cover

BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE

EDGAR WALLACE wrote the seven stories in this collection for The Sunday Post, Glasgow, Scotland, where they were published under the pseudonym "E. Graham Smith" in 1919. They have never before been collected in book form.

The hero, the discharged Army Captain Reginald Hex, was the prototype for Anthony Newland, whose adventures were related several years later in The Brigand (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1927). The first two Hex stories were revised and published as Anthony Newland stories in that collection under the titles "Buried Treasure" and "A Contribution to Charity.". 

I. — MR. MONTAGUE FLAKE, THE MARGARINE KING, HANDS OVER £8,000

First published in The Sunday Post, Glasgow, Feb 9, 1919

Revised version printed as "Buried Treasure" in The Brigand

Today we commence a series of remarkable narratives dealing with the exploits of Captain Hex, a young discharged army officer, who has established a private detective agency, the object of which is to help the ex-Service men and their families who are in dire need. Captain Hex goes about his work in a decidedly novel manner, and devises schemes for procuring munificent sums from those best able to bear the financial burden—even though it is against their wish.

Captain Hex

CAPTAIN REGGIE HEX threw up the window of his sitting-room and looked across the chimney tops of Bloomsbury with a critical eye.

It was a sunny day, and even chimney-tops and untidy back-windows have a poetry in the golden light of an early morning in summer to a young man plentifully endowed with faith in his own capabilities.

His age may have been twenty-six, and he was passably good-looking. He had a pair of bright, blue, humourous eyes that seemed forever laughing, a straight nose, a firm, large mouth, shaded by the smallest of moustaches.

His face was tanned brick-red, and he had the appearance of being what in fact he was—an army officer in mufti. If you looked twice at him you realised that the mufti was shabby, and when he turned round, so that the slanting sunlight caught his garments in a searching light, the suggestion of poverty became more apparent.

When he walked to the table which had been laid for him it was noticeable that he limped slightly, and if this minor infirmity be compared with the evidence of the silver badge in the lapel of his coat and the framed certificate above the writing-table in one corner of the room the cause and effect were exposed.

The room was sparsely furnished. Green felt covered the floor, a plain green paper the walls. There was an old gate-legged table, two or three rush-bottom chairs, a big lounge chair which Captain Hex had alone salvaged from the wreckage of his civilian possessions, and the writing-table made up the furniture.

There were a few cheap prints of old masters scattered about the room, a few framed photographs on the mantelpiece, and the only remarkable decoration of the chamber was that which filled the greater portion on one wall space.

It was formed by two great sheets of brown paper. On the surface were neatly pasted at intervals photographs which had evidently been cut from illustrated newspapers.

Captain Hex's "Man Friday"

"Belshazzar Smith," he called imperiously.

"Sir," said a muffled voice.

"Bring your grub in here."

"Harf a mo', sir," said the voice. "I'll get my coat on."

In a few moments there appeared, a plate in one hand and a cup in the other, Belshazzar Smith, late private of the Scots Guards, six feet high, and broad; a sandy man of gentle countenance, with a little ginger moustache and shaggy eyebrows that topped a pair of solemn blue eyes. Add to this a certain baldness and you have the man. He had this in common with his master—that he wore in the button-hole of his ill-fitting coat the silver badge of service.

"Sit down, Belshazzar Smith," said Captain Hex, reaching out and drawing a chair to the table. "We'll start fair."

"I'd just as soon have my grub in the kitchen if you don't mind, sir," pleaded the soldier.

"Be a democrat," snarled Hex. "Sit down with your equals and even worse—where the devil did you get that name of Belshazzar?"

"A Bible name, sir," said Mr. Smith with great gravity. "All our family had that kind of name: Abijah, Shallum, Jotham, Pekah, and Gehazi."

"Good Lord!" said the startled Captain Hex. "You had a lucky escape, for if Belshazzar is a Biblical name, I'm a Hun. But let that go. We will review the situation. I met you last night for the first time!"

"Yes, sir."

"You were broke."

"Yes, sir."

I offered you a job at nothing a week, but with prospects."

"Yes, sir."

"Go on eating, Belshazzar. You're discharged from the army. Why don't you go back to your old job?"

Mr. Smith was silent.

"Because," Captain Hex went on, "because there is no old job—that's what you told me last night. Because you left a little shop to join the army and when you came out you found it in the hands of a healthy young alien named—"

"Livinski," growled Mr. Smith, bolting his toast savagely. "He's opened three shops—all belonging to men who were called up. As Shakespeare says—"

The Gallery of War Profiteers

"Blow Shakespeare!" said Captain Hex. "Now listen to me. I had a business in 1914. It was a good business—foreign agency, stock-buying, and all that sort of thing. I chucked it up: two thousand a year, closed my office, and went into the army.

"Today," he said grimly, "every one of my customers is on the books of Rosenbaum and Toblinsky. From their names," he went on, "you might imagine that they are Irish [sic]. "They're not. They're Russians. They are rich, Belshazzar, rich beyond the dreams of actresses."

"Avarice," murmured Belshazzar Smith, on familiar ground.

"Actresses," insisted Captain Hex firmly, "come here."

He rose and walked to the wall, where his picture-gallery offended the unities and stabbed with his finger portrait after portrait, as he reeled off their titles and biographies.

"That's William O. McNeal, real name Adolph Bernsteiner, the Shell King; that is Harry V. Teckle, the Steel King; that is Theodore Match, the Shipping King; that is Montague G. Flake, the Margarine King; this fellow with the funny nose is Michael O. Blogg, the Jam King—and that fellow with the glasses is the Cotton King; and that lad with the dyspeptic eye and the diamond pin is the Lumber King—bow to Their Majesties, Belshazzar Smith. They are going to make us rich!"

"Sir?" said the startled and baffled Mr. Smith.

"They are our little Eldorados," said Captain Hex calmly, "our Pay Cash or Bearers; our Money from Home!"

"Do you mean they're relations of yours?" Said Belshazzar, in tones of awe.

"God forbid!" said Captain Hex piously. "Sit you down and I'll expound the Plan of Operations and the General Idea."

For an hour he expounded his scheme, and comprehension came very slowly to Mr. Smith, but it came.

"And now," said Captain Hex, getting up, "we will go to the office, and the great advantage of living in your office, Smith, is that you aren't very far from home."

He walked to the writing-table, pulled open a drawer, and took out a wad of press-cuttings, and from these he selected one.

"Before we proceed," he said, "go down to the front door and hang out the board. You will find it in the kitchen. We must do everything regularly.

Mr. Smith disappeared into the tiny kitchen, and presently returned with a small black board on which was painted in white letters—

HEX'S DETECTIVE AGENCY

(Restitution Department)

"That's right," said Hex approvingly. "You will find two nails outside the door, and your job will be to hang it out every morning and take it in every night, providing the youth of Lambeth does not pinch it."

A Mysterious Errand

When Smith returned, his employer took up the cutting.

"Listen to this. It is a description of a sale at Christie's. 'A small box of miscellaneous manuscript went to the bid of Mr. Montague Flake at 120 guineas. The box is of carved Spanish mahogany,' etc., etc. I will not bother you with the details. The point is that Mr. Flake is a great collector of old manuscript and a great hog."

"Now, your part is dead easy," continued Captain Hex, consulting a Bradshaw. "You go down to—let me see—yes, here is a likely place called Little Wenson, and buy a farm. Do the best you can with £200, but remember, it has got to be a free-hold property. It need not be large. It need not be near a road, and preferably there should be at least one tree."

"I am to buy it?" said Mr. Smith slowly.

That is your job," Hex said. "You can take your time. Live as cheaply as you can, but don't close the deal until you get a wire from me. Send me all the particulars, a rough sketch of the property, and your address. You are not to communicate with me except through this office, and under no circumstances are you to disclose the fact that you know me or have any business dealings with me."

An hour later Smith left. Captain Hex took off his coat and set to work. In a box in his bedroom were half-a-dozen sheets of age-stained parchment. He spent the rest of the morning and the greater part of the afternoon covering these with fine writing.

There is no more highly respected figure in financial and business circles than Mr. Montague Flake, for Mr. Flake controlled the butter markets of London, Copenhagen, Rotterdam and, in pre-war days, Tomsk, from which it may be gathered that Mr. Flake was a considerable personage even before the time he managed to corner the butter supplies.

The Home of the Butter King

Officially, Mr. Flake did not control the market. Officially he had nothing to do with the cornering of margarine. In all his stores—and there were 631 branches of Flake U.P. Stores throughout the United Kingdom—the "U.P." standing for "Universal Provisions"—there was a large notice respectfully informing customers that the management was doing its best to get supplies of butter and margarine, but that the failure of the hay crop in Denmark, and the root crop in Ireland, was causing much embarrassment, whilst the extra cost of freights (which really worked out at an additional ¼d per pound), compelled the reluctant directors to raise the price of butter 3d per pound, and margarine 2½d.

And the customers were duly impressed, and, what is more to the point, they paid, and millions of twopence-ha'pennies went into Mr. Flake's pocket, for he was the company, the directors and the shareholders. This was in the days when the price of butter was not controlled and when butter-cards were unknown.

Mr. Flake had a large house in St John's Square, in the most fashionable part of London. He had a model farm in Norfolk, an estate in Kent, a shoot in Yorkshire and a salmon river in Scotland.

Mr. Flake was a harsh-faced man, wholly unsuggestive of butter or anything oleaginous or suave. He was a widower and lived alone, save a housekeeper, three secretaries, four chauffeurs, twelve men-servants, and a small army of white-capped cooks, housemaids, and the like.

Mr. Flake sat in his magnificent library, and was nibbling his pen, for he was in the agony of composition.

He had scratched out twenty lines when a visitor was announced. He took up the card that lay on the silver plate and read the inscription without any great show of interest. It read:

THE HEX PRIVATE DETECTIVE AGENCY

(Restitution Department)

Captain Reginald Hex, D.S.O., M.C.,

late Blitheshire Fusiliers

He glared up at his secretary, who had followed the footman into the room.

"What does he want? Tell him to write."

"He insists upon seeing you, sir," said the footman. "I told him you were busy."

"Show him in," growled Mr. Flake.

A Business Deal

Captain Hex was ushered in, very grave, very business-like and very well dressed, for he wore his one good suit.

"Sit down. Captain—er—Hex," said Mr. Flake, waving his lordly hand to a chair. "What can I do for you?"

Captain Hex removed his gloves slowly, laid them beside his hat, took out his pocket-book and consulted the interior.

"A few days ago," he said, "you purchased a number of miscellaneous manuscripts at Christie's sale."

Mr. Flake nodded.

"They were the property," Captain Hex went on, "of the late Lord Witherall, who was a collector, and they comprised a number of more or less important documents—"

"More or less worthless," interrupted Mr. Flake brusquely. "As a matter of fact, I bought that lot for the box more than for the manuscripts. I haven't had time to look through them yet, but I don't suppose the manuscripts are worth tuppence."

"It was on the subject of the manuscripts I wanted to see you," said Hex. "I have been employed by a client to interview you under peculiar circumstances. A former confidential servant of Lord Witherall gave into his lordship's custody certain documents, the particulars of which I am not at liberty to give, and these, according to the man's relatives—he has been dead some years, by the way—were kept by his lordship in that particular box. The man's name was Samuels, though that was not the name he was known by to Lord Witherall. If that document is in your possession—it is in the form of a letter addressed to Samuels—my client is willing to pay you £200 for its return."

Now Mr. Flake was, above all things, a good business man, and a good business man knows instinctively that a first offer of £200 for anything means that it is worth much more. And a good business man, moreover, has ever an eye to the main chance.

Mr. Flake pressed a bell, and, when his secretary appeared:—

"Bring me that box I bought at Christie's the other day," he said. "I can tell you this," he said, when the girl had gone, "that I do not promise that I can return any document which may be in this box. A deal's a deal. Captain Hex, and I am a business man."

Captain Hex nodded.

"I can only remind you," he said gently, "that the relatives of Samuels are very poor people, and from what I gather that document may be of the greatest value to them."

"And to me," said Mr. Flake pleasantly. "I am poor, too. We are all poor—it is a relative term, as we are on the subject of relatives," he added humorously.

"I don't think you can compare your condition with theirs, sir," said Captain Hex with dignity, "and I feel sure that you would not attempt to benefit at the expense of poor people—"

The Bogus Parchment