The Oppenheim Omnibus E-Book

E. Phillips Oppenheim

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Another great collection of stories from the British author E. Phillips Oppenheim who achieved worldwide fame with his thrilling novels and short stories concerning international espionage and intrigue. A best-selling author of novels, short stories, magazine articles, translations, and plays, Oppenheim published over 150 books. He is considered one of the originators of the thriller genre, his novels also range from spy thrillers to romance, but all have an undertone of intrigue. „The Oppenheim Omnibus: Clowns and Criminals” (1931) is one of Oppenheim’s most intriguing works. Here we have all the elements of blood-racing adventure and intrigue and are precursors of modern-day spy fictions. Highly recommended for people who like to treat a mystery story as a solvable riddle!

Leseprobe

Contents

MICHAEL'S EVIL DEEDS

I. THE UNDISCOVERED MURDERER

II. THE KISS OF JUDAS

III. THE MENWOOD ROAD BANK ROBBERY

IV. THE HONOUR OF MONSIEUR LUTARDE

V. THE THREE MALEFACTORS

VI. THE WINDS OF DEATH

VII. SEVEN BOXES OF GOLD

VIII. THE UNFAMILIAR TRIANGLE

IX. MICHAEL’S WEDDING GIFT

X. THE MYSTERY ADVERTISEMENT

XI. THE GREAT ELUSION

PETER RUFF

I. INTRODUCING MR. PETER RUFF

II. A NEW CAREER

III. VINCENT CAWDOR, COMMISSION AGENT

IV. THE INDISCRETION OF LETTY SHAW

V. DELILAH FROM STREATHAM

VI. THE LITTLE LADY FROM SERVIA

VII. THE DEMAND OF THE DOUBLE-FOUR

VIII. Mrs. BOGNOR’S STAR BOARDER

IX. THE PERFIDY OF MISS BROWN

X. WONDERFUL JOHN DORY

RECALLED BY THE DOUBLE FOUR

I. RECALLED BY THE DOUBLE FOUR

II. THE AMBASSADOR’S WIFE

III. THE MAN FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

IV. THE FIRST SHOT

V. THE SEVEN SUPPERS OF ANDREA KORUST

VI. MAJOR KOSUTH’S MISSION

IX. THE AFFAIR OF AN ALIEN SOCIETY

VII. THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN

VIII. THE GHOSTS OF HAVANA HARBOUR

X. THE THIRTEENTH ENCOUNTER

JENNERTON & CO.

I. THREE BIRDS WITH ONE STONE

II. JUDGMENT POSTPONED

III. THE TAX COLLECTOR

IV. THE LION’S DEN

V. THE YANKEEDOODLE KID

VI. WAITING FOR TONKS

VII. NUMBERS ONE AND SEVEN

VIII. TAWSITTER’S MILLIONS

IX. THE MAN WITH TWO BAGS

X. THE GREAT BEAR

MICHAEL'S EVIL DEEDS

I. THE UNDISCOVERED MURDERER

Michael

The duel–or shall I call it, perhaps, vendetta–between Norman Greyes and myself–known under many aliases but christened Michael Sayers–commenced on the morning of the third of November, some years ago, when I left my suburban home at Brixton to catch my usual train to the city, and found myself confronted upon the pavement with the immediate chances of life or death.

I will admit that I was taken by surprise. Every man at Scotland Yard was known to me by name and reputation, and I was perfectly convinced in my own mind that there was no one in that much abused but, from our point of view, admirable institution, capable of penetrating the secrets of my daily life and discovering in me, the reputed Thomas Pugsley, leather agent of St. Thomas’ Street, Bermondsey, and Number 138, Woollerton Road, Brixton, the most accomplished and daring criminal of modern times. I knew at once, when I saw the police sergeant, with his two plain-clothes companions, crossing the road towards me, that some one else was taking a hand in the game. Even at that moment, when I had little time for observation, I saw the wellremembered figure of a man emerge from behind the curtains of Number 133, opposite, and it took me exactly ten seconds to realise that henceforth, after I had escaped from this present dilemma, I should have to move my pieces with greater circumspection across the chessboard of life. I recognized him the instant he appeared before the window. There were a few streaks of grey in his black hair, but his keen, grey eyes, his forceful mouth, his long, lean face were all unchanged. He was the one man in the old days whom we had all feared, the man whose retirement from the Force we had celebrated with a small but very select little dinner at the Café Royal. My old hatred of him blazed up as I realised the voluntary nature of his return to the career which he had abandoned. I made up my mind then that if ever the time came when I should be the arbiter of his fate, this man should have no quarter.

The street was a short one, and within fifty yards of a bustling thoroughfare. Nevertheless, at that early hour there were not many people about, and, as it afterwards transpired, witnesses of the spirited few seconds which followed were almost non-existent. It has always been my principle that the best form of defence is prompt attack. Whilst the inspector, therefore, stood with his mouth open ready to inform me that he held a warrant for my arrest, I shot him through the right shoulder blade. He staggered and would have fallen but for his two companions. Before they had propped him up against the railings and recovered from their surprise, I was round the corner of the street and in an empty telephone booth in the adjacent post-office.

I have always maintained that the Telephone Company is an unjustly abused institution. On this occasion, at any rate, my defence of them was justified. Within thirty seconds of asking for Number iooo Hop, I was speaking to the warehouseman whose duty it was to dust and keep in good order my samples of leather, which, to tell the truth, were rarely used. My few rapid words of instruction spoken, I turned my attention to those ingenious devices which, although savouring a little of the trickster, have on more than one occasion assisted me in preserving my liberty. I turned my overcoat, which, in place of a sober black garment, now became a covering of light grey tweed with a belt behind. I rolled my trousers up to the knee, disclosing very well cut brown leather gaiters. I left my black bowler hat in the telephone box, replacing it with a tweed cap; removed with a little pang of regret the most wonderful dark moustache which the hand of artist had ever fashioned, adjusted a pair of spectacles, and made my exit.

There was some commotion in the street outside, and the freckled young lady behind the counter paid scant attention to me.

“The telephone service doesn’t get any better,” I said pleasantly. It’s taken me nearly ten minutes to get two numbers.” She accepted my complaint with equanimity. Her attention was still on the street outside.

“What is it? A fire?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “Did you pay for both your calls?”

I assured her that I had done so and made my way into the street. There was a little crowd in Woollerton Road, and a motor ambulance came dashing by. I strolled along the broad thoroughfare until I came to a taxicab. I hailed the man and hesitated for a moment, glancing up at the sky.

“Is it going to keep fine?” I asked the driver.

He considered the point for a moment.

“Don’t fancy there’s much more rain about, guv’nor,” he replied.

“Then drive to Streatham Hill Station,” I directed.

From Streatham Hill I travelled to London Bridge by the electric railway, and from London Bridge I took a taxi to Waterloo. From Waterloo I caught the ten-forty train to Brookwood, and from the hotel there, where I paused for some slight refreshments, I engaged a taxicab to drive me to “Linkside”, the country retreat of a certain Mr. James Stanfield, situated on the fringe of Woking Golf Links. William, my man-of-all-work, was digging in the garden, and welcomed me with the bucolic indifference of his class. Janet, his niece, admitted me promptly to the house and received my unexpected visit with that respectful lack of curiosity which was a heritage of her earlier training as parlourmaid. She lit the fire in the little sitting room, and listened to my few remarks with imperturbable pleasantness. Yet on that morning, perhaps more than any other in my life, I felt a shadow of uneasiness concerning Janet. I watched her in silence, stooping over the fire, a young woman with a figure whose perfection her ill-fitting corsets and clothes failed altogether to conceal, pale of complexion, with introspective, queer-coloured eyes, closelipped, and with a mass of well-brushed, glossy brown hair. When she stood up, a little flushed with her exertions, she faced me for a moment, waiting for orders. I am not a susceptible man, but it struck me for the first time that the girl was more than ordinarily good-looking.

“Nothing has happened during my absence, Janet?” I enquired.

“Nothing at all, sir,” she replied.

“Nobody called?”

“There was a rate collector,” she said. “He wanted to know your address in London.”

“Did you tell him?”

“I do not know it, sir,” she reminded me quietly.

I removed my glasses and polished them. I am an expert physiognomist, but the girl’s impassivity baffled me.

“I will leave it with you before I go away next time,” I promised.

“Please put me out a grey tweed golf suit and stockings.”

“Shall you be requiring lunch, sir?” she asked.

“I will lunch at the Golf Club,” I told her. “I shall dine at home.”

“Is there anything particular you would like for dinner, sir?”

“I leave everything to you,” I replied.

She left me silently and without further remark. When I went i ipstairs, a few minutes later, my bedroom as usual was spotlessly aeat, my golfing clothes laid out without any single omission. I discarded my somewhat heterogeneous articles of attire, donned my golfing habiliments with some care, and made my way to the links. In the passage of the clubhouse I met the Secretary.

“Are you wanting a game this afternoon, Mr. Stanfield?” he asked.

“I should be glad of one,” I replied.

“There’s a man just come down,” he went on, “four handicap. You will find him in the luncheon room.”

I made my way there. Seated at a table alone was Sir Norman Greyes, the man who had watched for my arrest, a few hours ago, in Woollerton Road, Brixton.

Norman Greyes

I resigned my position at Scotland Yard early in the autumn of 19– for two reasons. First, as protest against an act of gross injustice which, although it did not affect me personally, was still bitterly resented by the majority of my fellow workers; and secondly because, through the unexpected death of a distant relative, I succeeded to a baronetcy and a sufficient income. I spent the best part of three years in travel, nearly half of which time I was in the United States. On my return to London I found myself, much against my will, hankering after my old profession. It was very clear to me that my old department had lost the mastery it had once attained over the criminal world. The problem of several cold- blooded murders and various large and daring robberies remained entirely unsolved. In the intervals of my country life, I began to study these from an outsider’s point of view, chiefly from the columns of the newspapers, but also to some extent from hints and information supplied to me by my friend Inspector Rimmington, who had been one of my colleagues in the old days and now held the post which I had vacated. Gradually I came to a certain conclusion, a conclusion which I kept largely to myself because I felt sure that no one at the Yard was likely to agree with me. I decided that the majority of these undetected crimes were due to one person, or rather to one gang of criminals presided over by one master mind. Purely from the inherited instinct of my long years of service in the Police Force, I set myself the task of hunting down this super-criminal. In November, 19–, I began to believe that I was on the right track.

There were three crimes which I became convinced had been committed by the same hand. The first was the great robbery of jewels from Messrs. Henson and Watts’ establishment in Regent Street, and the murder of the watchman, who was shot dead at his post. No trace of even a single article of this jewellery had ever been discovered. The second crime was the robbery of a number of bearer bonds from a messenger in a railway carriage on the London, Chatham and Dover line. The messenger was also shot, but recovered after six months’ nursing, although he could never give any coherent account of what had happened to him. The bonds were disposed of in South America at a considerable loss. The third was the robbery from Lord Wenderley’s house in Park Lane of a great collection of uncut jewels, and the serious wounding of Lord Wenderley himself, who was attacked in the dark and who neither saw nor heard anything of his assailant. There were other crimes which I thought might be connected with these, but these three, for various reasons, became linked together in my mind as the outcome of one man’s brain. I set myself the task of discovering this one man, and the day came at last when I really believed that I was in a position to lay my hand upon him. There is no necessity to detail the whole train of circumstantial evidence which finally brought me. to a certain conclusion. It is sufficient to say that after watching him for three weeks, I became convinced that a man by the name of Thomas Pugsley, carrying on business in Bermondsey as a leather agent, and living apparently the most respectable of lives at Brixton, was in some measure connected with these crimes. I discovered that his leather agency business was prosecuted without energy or attention, that his frequent absences from London were not in neighbourhoods where his wares could be pushed, and that he was often away for a month at a time, with his whereabouts unknown even to his landlady. The latter was a highly respectable woman at whose house he had lived for the last two years, and who I honestly believe was ignorant of her lodger’s antecedents, his habits and business. By taking rooms in the neighbourhood, I easily discovered all that she knew and one or two circumstances which lent colour to my suspicions. I placed these, before Rimmington and it was decided to make an arrest.

A more clumsy piece of business than this intended arrest was never planned or carried into effect. The inspector placed in charge of the affair by Rimmington, with his two subordinates, arrived at Brixton an hour later than the time fixed upon, accosted Pugsley in the street, and were very soon made aware of the class of person with whom they had to deal. Before the inspector could get out half a dozen words, he was lying on the pavement with a bullet through his shoulder. His companions dragged him on to the pavement and set him up against the railings. Then they turned to look for Pugsley. There was not a trace of him to be discovered anywhere. The amazing skill and cunning of the man was amply demonstrated on that morning. By some extraordinary means he seemed to disappear from the face of the earth. The books of his business, when examined, showed that he had done scarcely any business; his warehouseman was an honest but stupid fellow who knew nothing except that his master took numerous trips, he thought abroad, to obtain fresh agencies. There was enough money in the bank to pay all liabilities, but so far as Thomas Pugsley himself was concerned, he seemed to have walked off the edge of the world.

The morning which witnessed, however, the shooting of the inspector and the remarkable disappearance of the man in whom I was so deeply interested, was memorable, so far as I was concerned, for another noteworthy incident. Absolutely disgusted with the result of my six months’ labours, I determined to wipe the whole thing from my memory and travelled down to Woking with the intention of playing a round of golf. I was introduced by the Secretary to a resident of the place whose name was James Stanfield, and we had a round which ranks amongst the best I ever played in my life. Stanfield was a silent but by no means a gloomy person. He appeared to be about forty years of age and an absolute golf maniac. He played every shot with the most ridiculous care, but I must confess with also the most wonderful precision. His drives were never long, but they were long enough for him to escape trouble, and in the approximate eighty shots which he took to complete the course, I cannot remember one that was in any way fluffed or foozled. He beat me at the seventeenth hole, and it was whilst we stood together upon the eighteenth tee that the incident happened which was to bring still more excitement into the day. On our right was a small plantation of shrubs through which wound the path which my partner pointed out to me as leading to his house. Our attention was attracted by the continued barking of a small dog which had wandered from the adjacent foot-path. I had the curiosity to walk a step or two into the plantation to see what was the trouble. My companion, however, who was a little on my left, was the first to discover the cause of the dog’s excitement. At a little cry from him I hurried to his side. Stretched upon his back, with extended arms, and a small blue hole in his forehead, we found the body of a man. He was dead but still warm, and by an extraordinary chance I at once recognized him. He was one of the two plain-clothes policemen whom I had seen in Woollerton Road that morning, foiled in his attempt to arrest the man who had been passing under the name of Thomas Pugsley.

Janet Soale

Just before midday on Thursday, the third of November, my master made one of his unexpected reappearances. I was not surprised. Only the night before I had dreamed of him, and it seemed to me impossible that with my passionate prayers going out day by day, he should stay away much longer. When I first saw him turn in at the gate, I was filled with wild excitement. If he could have seen me at that moment, he would have known and understood everything. By the time he had reached the front door, however, and I had let him in, I had regained my self-control. I must have seemed to him just the ordinary well-mannered, wellconducted parlourmaid.

He changed his clothes and went off presently for his round of golf. When I went to his room to brush and press the clothes which he had taken off, I found, however, that he had placed them in a drawer and apparently locked it. The discovery, coming on the top of many others, gave me food for thought I resolved to watch the next morning’s newspapers. It was becoming more and more clear to me that there was something in my master’s manner of life which he was anxious to conceal from the world. I was the more convinced of this when I saw that in the top drawer, which he had opened to take out a tie, he had concealed a small revolver, loaded in all six chambers. A merchant with offices in the City and a country cottage for golf does not carry a loaded revolver about with him. My heart beat with excitement as I picked it up and handled it. I forgot my master’s indifference. I ignored the fact that, although I am well enough to look upon, and that my face and figure have won me more admirers than I could count on the fingers of both hands, he has never cast a second giance in my direction. I still had faith in myself if I chose to make the first advances. I have never made them to any man, but I have an instinct. I believe that he is cold and unresponsive from habit. I believe that if I could make him understand the fires which are burning me up night and day, he would throw off this mask of coldness and mystery, and give me that place in his life which I crave.

I was loitering about his room, looking still at that closed drawer, when to my amazement a man entered?a thin, weedy-looking person, with sunken cheeks and a straggling, sandy moustache. I am not easily frightened, but it gave me a turn when he closed the door behind him.

“What do you want?” I asked sharply. “How dare you come up here?”

He looked at me earnestly. It was obvious that my first thought was a mistaken one. This was not one of the admirers whom I found it difficult sometimes to keep at arm’s length.

“Young woman,” he said, “I am a police officer. You seem to be a sensible girl. Answer the questions which I ask, do not obstruct me in the course of my duty, and you will be rewarded.”

I looked at him in silence for several moments. I do not think that I changed colour or showed anything of the terror which sat in my heart. My master was in danger. All the time 1 stood there, I was thinking. How was I to help–How could I help–

“Your master returned here an hour or so ago,” this man continued, “and has now gone off to play golf. I want the clothes which he wore when he came down.”

“How do you know that he changed?” I asked.

“I saw him come in and I saw him go out,” was the quiet reply.

“This is his bedroom, is it not?”

“It is,” I admitted.

“Then the clothes must be here. Where are they?”

“I do not know,” I answered. “I was looking for them myself. I was just going into the bathroom next door to see if he had left them there.”

He stepped back and entered the bathroom. He was only gone for a few seconds, but I found time to take the revolver from the tie drawer and to slip it into my open pocket.

“The bath has not been used,” he said a little shortly, when he came back. “I should like you to stay with me whilst I search these drawers.”

I made no objection, and he made a hasty search of the contents of the first two. When he came to the bottom one and found it locked, he gave vent to a little exclamation.

“Have you the key of this drawer?” he demanded.

“No,” I answered. “My master has taken it with him.”

He made no bones for what he did, nor offered any apology.

With an instrument which he carried in his pocket, he forced the lock and bent over the contents of the drawer. He was a man addicted, I should imagine, to silence, but I heard him muttering to himself at what he found. When he stood up, there was a smile of triumph upon his lips.

“What time do you expect your master back?” he enquired.

“I do not know,” I answered. “He was lunching at the golf club and playing a round afterwards. About five o’clock, I should think.”

He walked to the window and stood looking out over the links. I, too, looked out. In the far distance we could see two men playing.

“Do you know the links?” he asked.

“Very well,” I told him. “I have lived here all my life.”

“What hole are they playing now?”

“The seventh.”

“What green is that just opposite?”

“The seventeenth.”

“Where is the tee for the eighteenth?”

“Just out of sight underneath the trees.”

He nodded, apparently well content. His eyes lingered upon me. I saw a look in his face to which I was perfectly well accustomed. He had discovered that in my quiet way I was goodlooking. He came a little nearer to me.

“Are you very fond of your master?” he asked.

“I see very little of him,” I answered. “He gives no trouble.”

“Do you know that you are rather a pretty girl?” he ventured, coming nearer still.

“I am always very careful of strangers who tell me so,” I retorted, taking a step backwards. He laughed.

“You’ll give me just one kiss for this?” he begged, holding out a pound note. “You’re an intelligent girl and you’ve told me just what I want to know.”

I looked at him curiously. If it were true that I was an intelligent girl, it was scarcely a compliment which I could return. For a police officer he must have been a hopeless idiot.

“I don’t allow any one to kiss me,” I objected, pushing the pound note away.

“You must put up with it just for once,” he insisted. I scarcely believed that he was in earnest–and for the first time in my life a man kissed me upon the lips. I can find no words even now to describe the fury which was born in my heart against him. I feared even to speak, lest my passionate words might carry some warning to him of the things which were in my heart. He seemed perfectly indifferent, however, and in a few minutes he strolled out and made his way across the garden to.the little spinney. I took up my master’s field glasses and satisfied myself that he was still a long distance away. I waited for a quarter of an hour. Then I took another path which led into the plantation and made my way cautiously to where the man was standing with folded arms, leaning against a tree. I drew nearer and nearer. I am light-footed and I have even been called stealthy. It was part of my early training as a parlourmaid to make no noise when I moved. So I stole to within a few yards of him, unperceived and unheard. I am not an emotional person, and my mind was quite made up as to what I meant to do. It was curious, however, how slight things left vivid memories with me during those few seconds. It was a queer, gusty November day, with tumbled masses of clouds in the sky, and a wind which bent the tops of the sparse trees and brought the leaves rustling down the muddy paths. A bird was singing just overhead, and I remember that in those strained moments I found myself translating his song. He was singing because he was glad to be alive in this wood full of dying autumnal things. Very soon there would be company for the creeping and crawling insects to whom winter meant death. And afterwards! I had a vivid little mind-picture of a crowded courthouse, of the judge who might try me and the jury who might pronounce my fate. For a moment I shivered. Then I thought of that loathsome caress. I thought of my master and I smiled. If he knew, he would thank me. Some day he would know!

I was so close that I think my victim felt the breath from my lips or the sensation of my approaching body. He turned quickly around and I saw his eyes wide-open with apprehension. He would have shrunk away but he seemed paralysed, and as he stood there I shot him through the forehead. He swayed on his feet, his mouth open like the mouth of an insane man. His eyes rolled, he pitched and fell forward on his face. I listened for a moment. Then I took the path back to the house. I had finished what I came out to do.

Michael

My round of golf with the man who was the declared hunter of my life and liberty afforded me no apprehension whatever, although I must confess that the first sight of Norman Greyes seated in the club luncheon room, only an hour or so after he had witnessed the abortive attempt to arrest me, was something of a shock. I came to the conclusion, however, that his presence here was accidental, and in no way connected with that harmless and respectable inhabitant of the neighbourhood, James Stanfield. I played golf steadily and with success. It was not until that startling discovery close to the eighteenth tee that my equanimity was seriously disturbed. As we looked down upon the dead body of the plain-clothes policeman whom I had last seen in Woollerton Road, we both recognized him. No hint of anything of the sort, however, escaped from my lips.

After the first few seconds of stupefaction, Greyes naturally took charge of the affair. He set the caddies to search all around for a weapon, and begged me to summon my gardener, or any one who might be of assistance. I called for Soale in vain, however, and remembering that he had asked leave to visit his brother at Mayford, I abandoned the quest. Subsequently, one of the men working on the course appeared, and we carried the body into my tool shed. Greyes locked the door and telephoned for the police and doctor.

“You will excuse my apparent officiousness,” he said, “but I once had some connection with Scotland Yard.”

“There is nothing to excuse,” I assured him. “I am only too thankful that you happened to be here. Do you think that it is a case of suicide?”

“I have reasons for doubting it,” he replied, “apart from which, if it were suicide, the weapon would have been found. As the event happened so close to your house and actually on your path, Mr. Stanfield, you will not mind, I am sure, if I ask your servants a few questions.”

“I shall be only too pleased,” I told him. “My staff is rather limited as I am only here occasionally. My gardener is out for the afternoon, so there only remains my maidservant.”

I led the way into the house. Janet was busy in the kitchen but came at once at our summons. As usual, she was wonderfully neat, and her manner, although reserved, was perfectly open.

“We want to know,” my companion asked, “whether there have been any callers at the house this afternoon?”

“None, sir,” she replied, “except the boy with the chicken I ordered for the master’s dinner.”

“Have you seen any one about the place?”

“No one, sir.”

“Did you hear anything which might have been the report of a pistol?”

“Nothing at all, sir.”

“Have you been outside the house yourself?”

The girl shook her head.

“I have had no occasion to go out, sir,” she replied. “I have been busy in the kitchen.”

Greyes nodded and dismissed her after a few more unimportant questions. Soon a police inspector arrived, and the doctor. I let them visit the scene of the crime alone. As soon as they had gone, I went upstairs. I looked in my tie drawer for the small revolver. It had gone. I looked in the bottom drawer, which I had left locked, for the clothes which I had worn when I had made my escape. The drawer had been forced open and they, too, had disappeared. Then I realised that I was faced with a problem. Some one had penetrated my defences. I had been–I probably still was– in danger. I went down to the study and summoned Janet once more to my presence. When she arrived, I took a seat between her and the door. I made her face the window. Down in the straggling plantation, the police inspector was still talking to Greyes.

“Do you know anything about this affair which you did not tell Sir Norman Greyes?” I asked her.

“Yes, sir,” she replied. I looked at her thoughtfully. She was very straight and shapely in the grey twilight. Her eyes met mine without flinching. I have been an indifferent student of women’s looks, but I realised then that they were a very beautiful though rather a cruel colour, greeny-brown of a light shade, with delicate lashes and finely cut eyebrows. There was a passionate curve to her lips which I had never before noticed. Her neatly braided hair was brown and lustrous.

“You had better tell me everything, Janet,” I enjoined.

“Soon after you had gone out,” she said, “the man who lies in the outhouse came here and asked me questions about you. He made his way into your bedroom. He was anxious to see the clothes in which you had travelled down. He opened the bottom drawer of your wardrobe and found them.”

“There was a revolver in the top drawer,” I remarked.

“I had discovered that and hidden it,” she replied.

“And after he had found my clothes?”

“He went down to the plantation to wait for you.”

“Did he say what he wanted?”

“He had told me that he was an officer of the police.”

“And then?”

“I went down the other path, and I made my way across the spongy turf to where he was standing. When I was so near that there was no chance of missing him, I shot him dead.”

I am a man to whom courage is second nature, and I have seen death trifled with, and have trifled with it myself, like the juggler with his ball, but I have never heard it spoken of with more indifference. Outside, the figures of the detective and his companion were still visible in the little wood. The body of the dead man was only a few yards away. I leaned forward and looked at the girl, striving to get past the almost cynical impenetrability of her speech.

“Why did you do this, Janet?” I asked.

“He did what no man in the world has ever dared to do before, sir,” she replied. “He kissed me–upon the lips! I wonder that I did not kill him where he stood!”

“Had you no other reason except this, Janet?” I persisted.

“I wished to save you, sir,” she answered.

“To save me from what?”

“From the Law.”

“You think that I was in danger?”

“I know that you were.”

“Who or what do you think I am?”

“A great criminal,” she answered. I was staggered, for it was plain to me now that I must have been at this girl’s mercy many a time. She went on slowly.

“I have always believed,” she continued, “that you were leading a double life. The few visitors you have had have come at night, and secretly. Whenever you have arrived here and Mr. Stanfield has recommenced to play golf, there has been a tragedy or a great robbery in the newspapers on the following morning. I always felt that some day or other this would happen. Now that it has come, I am glad.”

“You realise that you have killed a man in cold blood?” I persisted, determined to try her to the limit.

“I am glad that I have,” she replied.

“For a domestic servant,” I said, “you have a wonderful sense of your obligations.”

“You need not scoff at me,” she complained. “I am a woman, a dangerous woman but a clever one. I was not brought up to be a servant. I am fit to be your companion. That is my hope.”

“I have never trusted a woman in my life,” I told her.

“You will trust me,” she declared, in a low tone. “You will remember what I have done for you to-day. I am the woman who was made to complete your life. You had better realise it and make use of me. You will not regret it.”

She came a little closer to me, and though women have never been more than the toys of my idle moments, I felt the passion of her strike into my heart. My senses were aflame. I saw life differently. Her voice became softer and more sibilant. She was like some beautiful animal. Her eyes were appealing but inhuman.

“You shall marry me,” she continued. “I have a fancy about that and I insist. Then think of the benefit. If disaster should come, I shall never be able to give evidence against you. But there will be no disaster. I know how clever you are. I, too, have wains. My master, say that this means something to you. I have given you proof of my devotion. Repay me.”

I took her into my arms. There was a savage fire about her lips which warmed my blood, a fierce delight in her strangecoloured eyes which amazed whilst it enthralled me. This modern Borgia seemed to have fastened herself on to my life. The figures of the men in the little wood grew more shadowy.

“Where is the pistol?” I whispered, holding her away from me for a moment.

“Where no one will ever find it,” she answered.

“And the clothes?”

“Burned. I run no risks when your safety is in question.”

The searchers came back to the house half an hour or so later. I was busy rebinding the handle of my putter. Janet was in the kitchen, preparing my dinner. Greyes accepted a whisky and soda. He looked tired and a little dejected.

“Any luck?” I asked him, under my breath, as he prepared to take his leave.

He shook his head.

“So far as circumstantial evidence is concerned,” he admitted,

“I am afraid we shall be in a bad way. A more brutal murder I never remember. A young man, too, with a wife and three or four children, simply out to do his duty. If–” He stopped short, swallowed a little sob in his throat, and turned away.

“I hope that you will give me another game of golf some day, Mr. Stanfield,” he said, as he prepared to take his leave.

“With great pleasure,” I assented.

Norman Greyes

Yesterday the inquest on poor Richard Ladbrooke, after having been twice adjourned, resulted in a verdict of murder against some person or persons unknown. The verdict itself is a terrible reflection upon our present criminal methods. It pulls at the strings of my conscience with sickening intensity. Ladbrooke had found a clue which he confided to no one. He had travelled down to Woking in search of the missing man Pugsley–or Michael Sayers, as I believe him to have been. He must have been murdered there either by Pugsley himself or some confederate, yet not one of us has been able to lay our hands upon a single shred of evidence. I have been unable to tear myself away from the place. I have had several games of golf with Mr. Stanfield, and I have dined with him once at his house–a very excellent dinner and wonderfully cooked. He is desirous of offering a small reward for the apprehension of the murderer, but at present I have not encouraged him. I do not want a crowd of people stirring up the waters. I have not said as much to any one–not even to him–but I am making it the object of my life to lay my hands upon the so-called Thomas Pugsley. The day I find him, the mystery of Ladbrooke’s murder will be solved. And I shall find him!

II. THE KISS OF JUDAS

Norman Greyes Tells the Whole Story

On the evening of my return from the Riviera after a three months’ holiday, I was accosted in the lounge of Marridge’s Hotel by a middle-aged man of inconspicuous appearance, who had been seated in a corner alone. It was some few seconds before I could recall him to my memory, but curiously enough a crowd of unpleasant associations gathered themselves together in my mind even before I recognized him.

“You haven’t forgotten me and our golf down at Woking, Sir Norman?” he asked.

I knew all about him then.

“Mr. Stanfield, isn’t it?” I said. “No, I haven’t forgotten.”

I was a few minutes early for my party, and I accepted the offer of a cocktail from my golfing acquaintance, while I waited.

“That was an extraordinary interruption to our first game,” he remarked. “I never fancied my little house much afterwards. I gave it up, in fact, within the year.”

“I heard you had left,” I told him. “Have you still your model domestic?”

“She left me soon afterwards,” he replied regretfully. “You had no luck in your investigations, Sir Norman?” I shook my head. The subject was still a sore one with me.

“I had no luck at all,” I confessed. “I came to certain conclusions which carried me a little way along the road, but all the clues ended abruptly. Yet I don’t despair. I always have the fancy that some day or other I shall solve that mystery.”

The waiter brought the cocktails and we raised our glasses.

“I drink, then, to that day, Sir Norman,” my companion said.

“I am with you,” I declared heartily.

We talked idly of various matters for a few moments–principally of golf, which I had been playing regularly in the South of France. There were several dinner parties being given in the restaurant that evening, and some very beautiful women were in evidence. One in particular attracted my attention. She was tall and, though slim, beautifully made. Her complexion was perfect, although a little colourless. Her strange-coloured eyes had a nameless attraction. Her hair, beautifully coiffured, was just the shade of brown which appealed to me. She bowed to my companion as she passed, and joined a little group at the farther end of the hall. The last thing I noticed about her was her wonderful string of pearls.

“That is a very beautiful woman,” I remarked. “Do you know who she is?”

“A South American widow–De Mendoza, her name is.”

“You know her?”

“My humble apartment is on the same floor as her suite,” my companion replied. “She is gracious enough sometimes to remember the fact that we meet occasionally in the lift.”

My friends arrived, and I made my adieux to my erstwhile golfing acquaintance. Somehow or other, my meeting with him had left an unpleasant impression behind it. It forced my thoughts back to the humiliating recollection of the fact that the murderer of Richard Ladbrooke still remained undiscovered, and that the man who had called himself Pugsley had walked away from detection under our very eyes and never been heard of since. Amongst my fellow guests was an official of the Home Office, and our conversation naturally drifted into the subject of social order.

“Your connection with Scotland Yard having long since ceased, Sir Norman,” he remarked to me, “you will not be over-sensitive as to facts. The epidemic of crime which was raging about two years ago seems to have broken out again with exactly the same results. There are four undetected murders and five great robberies up to the debit of your late department. Your people believe that the same person is at the head of it who planned all those robberies eighteen months ago and escaped arrest by shooting the inspector.”

I affected to take only a casual interest in the information, but as a matter of fact I was considerably moved. If the man who had last concealed his identity under the name of Pugsley, but whom I strongly suspected to be the notorious Michael Sayers, had really come out into the open once more, life would certainly possess a new interest for me during the next few months.

We were a party of six that evening–a celebrated criminal lawyer and his wife, my friend from the Home Office, with his wife and sister-in-law, and myself. The criminal lawyer, who was our host, heard scraps of our conversation and leaned forward.

“You did well to leave Scotland Yard when your reputation stood high, Sir Norman,” he said. “A new era of crime has dawned and the struggle is no longer equal. It isn’t the riffraff of the world to-day who take to murder and burglary. The skilled and conscienceless scientist has taken their place. The criminal of today, in nine cases out of ten, is of higher mental calibre than the detective who is opposed to him.”

“The struggle should be the more interesting,” I remarked vaguely.

It was a fancy of mine that my continued interest in my profession should remain as little known as possible, and I talked for some time on indifferent subjects to the lady who was seated by my side. We admired Mrs. De Mendoza and her gorgeous rope of pearls. My host intervened.

“It is women like that,” he commented, “who choose to deck their bodies with jewels of fabulous value, who encourage crime. Roughly speaking, I dare say that necklace is worth eighty thousand pounds. For purposes of theft, it could probably be disposed of for fifty thousand. What a haul for the scientific thief! If it is really true that Pugsley is once more at work, what an opportunity!”

“A woman must be very brave,” my hostess declared, “to run such risks.”

“The jewels are probably in the hotel safe most of the time,” I suggested. “I don’t suppose she goes out in them.”

Our host smiled.

“I can imagine Pugsley finding a few minutes in the hotel quite sufficient,” he observed. “He or his successors, whoever they may be, would think little enough of human life by the side of, say, fifty thousand pounds. The modern maxim of the thief seems to be all or nothing. By killing at sight they certainly increase their chances of escape.”

That closed our conversation upon the subject. We sat about in the lounge and drank coffee and liqueurs, danced for a time and smoked a few cigarettes. The party broke up as the lights in the lounge were being lowered. I was the only one of our little gathering remaining in the hotel, and I was talking for a few moments to the head porter, who was an old acquaintance of mine, when a man made a somewhat hurried entrance through the swing doors and seemed on the point of proceeding to the office. As he saw me, however, he hesitated and, turning aside, addressed me.

“Excuse me, but are you Sir Norman Greyes?” he asked. I admitted the fact.

“Can I ask you to give me five minutes of your time on a matter of urgent business?”

I looked at him with some surprise. His voice and address were good, and in appearance he differed in no respect from the crqwd of diners who frequented the place. He drew a card from his pocket and handed it to me.

“It is an absurd hour, I know, to trouble you,” he apologised,

“but I can explain in a very few minutes if you will give me the opportunity.”

I stepped underneath one of the electric standards and looked at the card–

MR. STANLEY DELCHESTER

and underneath was the name of a famous insurance company. I motioned him to follow me into the deserted lounge and invited him to take a chair. I must say that he wasted no time in stating his business.

“Many years ago, Sir Norman,” he reminded me, “when you were officially engaged at Scotland Yard, you saved our firm a great loss in the matter of the Hatton Gardens emerald theft.”

“I remember it quite well,” I admitted.

“We understand,” my visitor continued, “that you have now resigned from the Force, but we hoped that you might be inclined to undertake a small commission for us. It came to the ears of our Chief quite unexpectedly that you were staying here, and he sent me after you at once.”

“I can at least hear what the business is,” I replied.

“There is staying in this hotel,” the insurance agent proceeded, “a Mrs. De Mendoza, the reputed widow of a fruit merchant in Buenos Aires. She is the fortunate possessor of a very wonderful pearl necklace, which she has insured with our firm for a hundred thousand pounds. Our acceptance of the policy was a grave error which we recognized almost immediately afterwards. We know nothing of the lady, and under those circumstances it is against our business policy to accept the risk. We have done our best to protect ourselves, however. Since the policy was issued we have kept in constant touch with the lady and in daily communication with the hotel detective. By to-night’s post, however, we had a message from the latter to say that he was at home ill, and that during his absence his duties would be taken over by the night watchman. The policy has only one more week to run, and will not under any conditions be renewed. We want to know if, for any fee which you care to name, you will do your best to guard the necklace for us during that week?”

“Have you had any intimation of thieves working in this neighbourhood?” I asked him.

“None whatever,” he replied. “I will be perfectly frank with you. It is not an ordinary robbery of which we are afraid. For some reason or other, our enquiry department has formed a dubious opinion of Mrs. De Mendoza herself.”

“I see,” I remarked. “You are afraid of a bogus theft.”

“Precisely! Directly we received the letter from the hotel detective, we rang up the manager here. All that we could learn was that the illness was altogether unexpected, and that the man had been compelled to go home at a moment’s notice. In reply to our request that a trained detective might take his place, the management assured us that they considered nothing of the sort necessary. No robbery of jewels had ever taken place from this hotel, and they considered their night porter fully competent to watch over the interests of their guests.”

I considered for a moment.

“Sir William Greaves, our manager, desired me to suggest a fee of two hundred guineas,” my visitor concluded.

“I will accept the commission,” I promised.

The next morning I interviewed the manager of the hotel, to whom I was well known. He showed some irritation when I spoke of Mrs. De Mendoza’s necklace and her nervousness concerning it.

“To be quite frank with you,” he confessed, “although Mrs. De Mendoza is a good client and pays her accounts regularly, I am inclined to be sorry that we ever let her the rooms.”

“Why?” I replied.

“People with valuable jewellery should accept its possession with a certain resignation,” he replied. “This is the last hotel in London where a jewel robbery would be likely. The lady herself, I understand, takes every possible care and caution. She wears her necklace nowhere except in the restaurant and lounge, and every night it is deposited in the hotel safe. I cannot see that she has the slightest cause for anxiety, nor do I understand the nervousness of the insurance company. However, you may rely upon it, Sir Norman, that every facility will be given to you in your task. I would suggest that you pay a visit to the lady herself.”

The idea had already occurred to me, and later in the day I sent up my card to Mrs. De Mendoza and was at once invited to enter her sitting room. I found her writing letters, simply dressed in a black negligee and wearing the pearls. I was struck once more by the extreme elegance of her bearing and figure. As she turned and invited me to seat myself, she stirred in my memory a faint suggestion of reminiscence. I was not sure even then, however, whether it were a real person or a picture of which she reminded me. She listened to the few words with which I introduced myself and smiled deprecatingly.

“It is true that I am very foolish,” she admitted, “but then I have always been a person of superstitions. I have owned my necklace for some years, and I have had it with me in quite lawless places. I have never, however, felt just the same amount of apprehension as I do at the present moment.”

“That certainly seems strange,” I replied. “The servants at this hotel are more carefully chosen than at any other hotel in London, and the guests are in nearly every case old clients.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Apprehensions such as mine,” she said, “are not based upon reason. However, I must confess that I feel more comfortable now that the insurance company has engaged your services. Would you, not like to examine the pearls?”

She came over to my side, and, without unclasping the necklace, let it rest in my hands. The pearls were all marvellously matched, all of considerable size, and with that milky softness which she pointed out to me as being a proof of their great perfection. As wc stood there, necessarily close together, a wisp of her hair touched my forehead. Something in the timbre of her low laugh as she brushed it back, induced me to look up. There were qualities about her smile and the peculiar expression of her eyes which gave me a momentary thrill. I understood at once why men turned their heads always to look at her. Notwithstanding her reserved appearance, she possessed that strange gift of allurement which Helen of Troy might have bequeathed to Mademoiselle de Valliere.

“Do you admire my pearls?” she asked softly.

I let them slip from my palm.

“They are very wonderful,” I admitted.

She moved slowly away. I breathed more easily as the distance increased between us. She looked over her shoulder unexpectedly and I believe that she realised my sensation. The slight frown passed from her forehead. She was obviously more content.

“Tell me how you propose to guard my treasures, Sir Norman?” she enquired, as she sank into an easy-chair. “Shall you stand behind my chair at dinner, disguised as a waiter, and lie on my mat at night? It gives one quite a shivery sensation to think of such espionage!”

“Believe me,” I assured her, “I shall not be in the least obtrusive. I understand that you send your pearls down every night to the hotel safe.”

“I have always done so,” she answered. “Do you think it would be better to keep them up here? Will you promise to sit in this easy-chair, with a revolver on your knee, all night, if I do so?”

“Not for the world,” I declared. “The hotel safe is much the better place.”

“I am glad to hear your decision,” she said, with a slight smile.

“I should sleep very little if I thought that my pearls were near me–and that you were sitting here, on guard. The idea would be disturbing.”

“One cannot guard against miracles,” I observed, “but I think you can make your mind quite easy about the necklace. If you should need me at any time, the number of my room is four hundred and thirty- two.”

“On this floor?”

“On this floor.”

“Tell me,” she asked a little abruptly, as I rose to take my leave, “who was the man with whom you were talking last night in the lounge–a slim, middle-aged man with a very hard face–I am always seeing him in the lift.”

“A man I know scarcely anything of,” I replied. “His name, I believe, is Stanfield. I once played golf with him down at Woking.”

“Stanfield?” she repeated. “Was it in his grounds near Woking that a murder was committed–a policeman was found shot there?”

I nodded.

“1 was playing golf with Mr. Stanfield at the time,” I told her.

“And the murderer was never discovered?”

“Never!”

“I wonder you didn’t take an interest in the case yourself,” she remarked.

“I did,” I told her.

She made a little grimace.

“My fears for my necklace are reawakened,” she declared.

“Surely it ought to have been an easy task for a clever man like you, one who used to be called a really great detective, to discover the murderer?”

“It is beyond my powers to bring him to justice, at any rate,” I replied. “There are many criminals walking about to-day, of whose guilt the police are perfectly well aware. They cannot be arrested, however, for lack of evidence.”

“How thrilling!” she murmured. “Will you ask me to dine with you one night and tell me some of your adventures?”

“I shall be charmed,” I assented. “Meanwhile,–” She accepted toy departure a little unwillingly. I am not a vain man, and I felt inclined to wonder at a certain graciousness of attitude on her part which more than once during our interview had forced itself upon my notice. I decided, however, that she was just one of those women who are born with the desire to attract and dismissed the matter from my mind.

About seven o’clock, a note was brought into my room:

Dear Sir Norman,

A lady and her husband who were dining, have disappointed me. Can you, by any chance, be my guest? If so, let us meet at eight o’clock in the lounge.

Hopefully yours,

Blanche de Mendoza

I scribbled a line of acceptance. I felt, as I descended into the lounge that evening, a premonition that life for the next few hours was going to be very interesting indeed.

At eight o’clock precisely, Mrs. De Mendoza came into the lounge. She was wearing a white lace evening dress, with an ermine wrap which hung loosely around her, disclosing the pearls underneath. Her entrance made a mild sensation. Mr. Stanfield, who was seated in his accustomed corner, drinking his cocktail, watched our meeting and departure into the restaurant with obvious surprise.

“The little man was there again who stares at me so much–Mr. Stanfield, I think you called him?” she remarked, as we took our places.

I nodded.

“I dare say he was surprised to see us together,” I said. “I asked him who you were, on the night of my arrival here.”

“Why?”

“For the same reason that a great many other people ask the same question,” I replied.

She made a little grimace.

“You are determined to pay me no compliments this evening, and I am wearing my favourite gown.”

“I admire your taste,” I assured her.

“Anything else?”

“You are the best-dressed and the best-looking woman in the room.”

“Too impersonal,” she complained.

I turned the conversation to the subject of the necklace. The pearls were collected for her, she told me, by her husband, some in India, some in the Malay States, some in Paris, some in Rio. She spoke of him quite frankly–a prosperous fruit broker who had achieved sudden opulence.

“It was quite as much a change for me as for him,” she remarked. “I was a typist in Buenos Aires before we were married. I have known what it is to be poor.”

She answered all my questions without reserve, displaying later on much interest in the recounting of such of my adventures as were public property. I began to feel that I had been mistaken with regard to her, that she was really exactly what she seemed–a very wealthy woman of adventurous type, suddenly released from matrimonial obligations and a little uncertain what to make of her life.

We took our coffee in the lounge afterwards. In the background, my golfing friend, Mr. Stanfield, was seated, smoking a cigar in a retired corner, and having the air of studying every one who passed.

“He is quaint, that little man,” my companion remarked once, as he glanced over towards us. “He reminds me of those impossible characters one reads about in magazines, who detect crime for the pleasure of it, and discover hidden treasures in absurd places.”

“He is, as a matter of fact,” I told her, “a retired city merchant with a passion for golf–at least, that is what the Golf Secretary at Woking told me.”

The music was seductive, and presently we danced once or twice. In the ballroom, however, my companion showed signs of renewed nervousness. The fingers of one hand were nearly all the time straying around her neck, as though to assure herself that the necklace was still there. Presently she drew me away with an apologetic little laugh.

“I am quite mad,” she confessed, “but I have a fit of nerves tonight. I am going upstairs early. Do you mind?”

“Of course not,” I told her. “Let me see you to the lift.”

“I am going to ask you to do more than that,” she said, as we crossed the hall. “I am going to ask you to come up to my sitting ?wm and escort my maid down to the office when she takes my necklace there. As a reward, you can come back afterwards, if you will, and have a whisky and soda with me.”

“I shall be very pleased,” I acquiesced.

I rang for the lift and we ascended together to the fourth floor. She handed me her key and I unlocked the door of her charming little salon. She pointed to the evening paper and an easy-chair.

“Please make yourself comfortable for five minutes,” she begged, looking back from the threshold of the inner room. “I shall just let Annette help me out of my gown. Then I will give her the jewel case and she shall call for you.”

She nodded and disappeared. I stood for a moment looking after her. The door was closed softly. I heard her call to her maid in the further apartment.