Cleek of Scotland Yard Part 32

"Well, he doesn't seem to be very bright, I must say."

"He? Lud! I wasn't talking about _him_; I was talking about myself.

I had something to tell you to-day, and this blessed business drove it clean out of my head. Kibblewhite had the d.i.c.kens and all of a time trying to get at that chap Serpice, as you may remember?"

"I do--in a measure. Succeeded in finding out, finally, that the carriage he drove was one he hired from a liveryman by the month, I think was the last report you gave me; but couldn't get any further with the business because Serpice took it into his head not to call for the carriage again and made off, this Kibblewhite chap didn't know where, and appears never to have found a means of discovering."

"No; he didn't. But ten days ago he got word from the liveryman that Serpice had just turned up and was about to make use of the carriage again; and off Kibblewhite cut, hotfoot, in the hope of being able to follow him. No go, however. By the time he arrived at the stable Serpice had already gone; so there was nothing left for the poor disappointed chap to do but to go out on the hunt and see if he couldn't pick him up somewhere in the streets."

"Which he didn't, of course?"

"Excuse me--which he _did_. But it was late in the afternoon and he was coming back to the stable with the carriage empty. Also, it was in the thick of the traffic at Ludgate Circus, and Kibblewhite was so afraid the fellow might mix himself up in it and give him the slip that he took a chance shot to prevent it. Nipping up the officer on point, he made himself and his business known, and, in a winking, in nips the constable, hauls Mr. Serpice up sharp, and arrests him for driving a public vehicle without a license."

"Well played, Kibblewhite!" approved Cleek. "That, of course, meant that the fellow would be arrested and have to give his address and all the rest of it?"

"So Kibblewhite himself thought; but what does the beggar do but turn the tables on him in the most unexpected manner by absolutely refusing to do anything of the kind, and, as he did _not_ have a license, and would not call anybody to pay his fine, the magistrate finished the business by committing him to _jail_ for ten days in default. And here's the thing I was a.s.s enough to forget: His ten days' imprisonment was up this morning; Kibblewhite, in disguise, was to be outside the jail to follow him when he was discharged and see where he went, and he told me to look for him to turn up at the Yard before six this evening with a full report of the result of his operations."

"Bravo!" said Cleek, leaning back in his seat, with a sigh of satisfaction. "I've changed my mind about leaving you, Mr. Narkom; we will go on to the Yard together. As, in all probability, after ten days without being able to communicate with his pals or with Waldemar, our friend Serpice will be hot to get to them at once and explain the cause of his long absence, the chances are that Kibblewhite will have something of importance to report at last."

He had, as they found out when, in the fulness of time, they arrived at the Yard and were told that he was waiting for them in the superintendent's office, and in his excitement he almost threw it at them, so eager he was to report.

"I've turned the trick at last, Superintendent," he cried. "The silly josser played straight into my hands, sir. The minute he was out of jail he made a beeline for Soho, and me after him, and there he 'takes to earth' in a rotten little restaurant in the worst part of the district; and when I nips over and has a look inside, there he was shakin' hands with a lot of Frenchies of his own kind, and them all prancin' about and laughin' like they'd gone off their bloomin' heads. I sees there aren't no back door to the place, and I knows from that that he'd have to come out the same way as he went in, so off I nips over to the other side of the street and lays in wait for him.

"After about ten minutes or so, out he comes--him and another of the lot--moppin' of his mouth with his coat-sleeve, and off they starts in a great hurry, and me after them. They goes first to a barber shop, where the man I was followin' nips in, has a shave, a hair-cut and a wash-up, while the chap that was with him toddles off and fetches him a clean shirt and a suit of black clothes. In about fifteen minutes out my man comes again, makin' a tolerable respectable appearance, sir, after his barberin' and in his clean linen and decent clothes. Him and his mate stands talkin' and grinnin' for a minute or so, then they shakes hands and separates, and off my man cuts it, westward.

"Sir, I sticks to him like a brother. I follers him smack across to the Strand and along that to the Hotel Cecil, and there the beggar nips in and goes up the courtyard as bold as you please, sends up his name to a gent, the gent sends down word for him to be showed up at once, and in that way I spots my man. For when I goes up to the clerk and shows my badge and asks who was the party my johnnie had asked for, he tells me straight and clear: 'Gentleman he's making a suit of clothes for--Baron Rodolf de Montravenne, an Austrian n.o.bleman, who has been stopping here for weeks!"

Cleek twitched round his eye and glanced at Narkom.

"'Things least hidden are best hidden,'" he quoted, smiling. "The dear count knows a thing or two, you perceive. You have done very well indeed, Kibblewhite. Here is your ten-pound note and many thanks for your services. Good evening."

Kibblewhite took the money and his departure immediately; but so long as he remained within hearing distance--so long as the echo of his departing steps continued to sound--Cleek remained silent, and the curious crooked smile made a loop in his cheek. But of a sudden:

"Mr. Narkom," he said, quietly "I shan't be found in any of my usual haunts for the next few days. If, however, you should urgently need me, call at the Hotel Cecil and ask for Captain Maltravers--and call in disguise, please; our friend the count is keen. Remember the name. Or, better still, write it down."

"But, good G.o.d! Cleek, such a risk as that----"

"No--please--don't attempt to dissuade me. I want that man, and I'll get him if getting him be humanly possible. That's all. Thanks very much. Good-bye."

Then the door opened and shut, and by the time Mr. Narkom could turn round from writing down the name he had been given, he was quite alone in the room.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

"Num-bah Nine-ninety-two--Captain Maltravers, please.

Nine-ninety-two. Num-bah Nine-ninety-two!"

Thrice the voice of the page--moving and droning out his words in that perfunctory manner peculiar unto the breed of hotel pages the world over--sounded its dreary monotone through the hum of conversation in the rather crowded tearoom without producing the slightest effect; then, of a sudden, the gentleman seated in the far corner reading the daily paper--a tall, fair-haired, fair-moustached gentleman with "The Army" written all over him in capital letters--twitched up his head, listened until the call was given for the fourth time, and, thereupon, snapped his fingers sharply, elevated a beckoning digit, and called out crisply: "Here, my boy--over here--this way!"

The boy went to him immediately, extended a small, circular metal salver, and then, lifting the thumb which held in position the hand-written card thereon, allowed the slip of pasteboard to be removed.

"Gentleman, sir--waiting in the office," he volunteered.

"Captain Maltravers" glanced at the card, frowned, rose with it still held between his fingers, and within the s.p.a.ce of a minute's time walked into the hotel's public office and the presence of a short, stout, full-bearded "dumpling" of a man with the florid complexion and the country-cut clothes of a gentleman farmer, who half sat and half leaned upon the arm of a leather-covered settle nervously tapping with the ferule of a thick walking-cane, a boot whose exceedingly high sole and general construction mutely stood sponsor for a withered and shortened leg.

"My dear Yard; I am delighted to see you!" exclaimed the "captain"

as he bore down on the little round man and shook hands with him heartily. "Grimshaw told me that you would be coming up to London shortly, but I didn't allow myself to hope that it would be so soon as this. Gad! it's a dog's age since I've seen you. Come along up to my own room and let us have a good old-fashioned chat. Key of Nine-ninety-two, please, clerk. Thanks very much. Come along, Yard--this way, old chap!"

With that he linked his arm in his caller's, bore him clumping and wobbling to the nearby lift, and thence, in due course, to the door of number Nine-ninety-two and the seclusion which lay behind it.

He was still chattering away gayly as the lift dropped down out of sight and left them, upon which he shut the door, locked it upon the inside, and stopping long enough to catch up a towel and hang it over the keyhole, turned on his heel and groaned.

"What! am I not to have even a two days' respite, you indefatigable _machine_?" he said, as he walked across the room and threw himself into a chair with a sigh of annoyance. "Think! it was only this morning that I ventured upon the first casual bow of a fellow guest with the dear 'Baron'; only at luncheon we exchanged the first civil word. But the ice was broken and I should have had him 'roped in' by teatime--I am sure of it. And now you come and nip my hopes in the bud like this. And in a disguise that a fellow as sharp as he would see through in a wink if he met you."

"It was the best I could do, Cleek--I'm not a dabster in the art of making up, as you know." Mr. Narkom's voice was, like his air, duly apologetic. "Besides, I hung around until I saw him go out before I ventured in; although I was on thorns the whole blessed time. I had to see you, old chap--I simply had to--and every minute was of importance. I shouldn't have ventured to come at all if it hadn't been imperative."

"I'm sure of that," said Cleek, recovering his good humour instantly.

"Don't mind my beastly bad temper this afternoon, there's a good friend. It's a bit of a disappointment, of course, after I'd looked forward to a clear field just as soon as Waldemar should return, but----It is you, first and foremost, at all times and under all circ.u.mstances. Other matters count as nothing with me when _you_ call. Always remember that."

"I do, old chap. It's because I do that I went to the length of promising Miss Larue that I'd lay the case before you."

"Miss Larue? A moment, please. Will the lady to whom you refer be Miss Margaret Larue, the celebrated actress? The one in question who treated me so cavalierly last August in that business regarding the disappearance of that chap James Colliver?"

"Yes. He was her brother, you recollect, and--don't get hot about it, Cleek. I know she treated you very badly in that case, and so does she, but----"

"She treated me abominably!" interposed Cleek, with some heat.

"First setting me on the business, and then calling me off just as I had got a grip on the thing and was within measuring distance of the end. I can't forgive that; and I never could fathom her reason for it. If it was as you yourself suggested at the time, because she shrank from the notoriety that was likely to accrue to her from letting everybody in the world know that 'Jimmy the Shifter' was her own brother, she ought to have thought of that in the beginning--when she acknowledged it so openly--instead of making such an a.s.s of me by her high-handed proceeding of calling me off the scent at its hottest, as if I were a tame puppy to be pulled this way and that with a string. I object to being made a fool of, Mr. Narkom; and there's no denying the fact that Miss Larue treated me very badly in that James Colliver case--very badly and very cavalierly indeed."

Unquestionably Miss Larue had. Even Mr. Narkom had to admit that; for the facts which lay behind these heated remarks were not such as are calculated to make any criminal investigator pleased with his connection therewith. Clearly set forth, those facts were as follows:

On the nineteenth day of the preceding August, James Colliver had disappeared, as suddenly and as completely and with as little trace left behind as does a kinematograph picture when it vanishes from the screen.

Now the world at large had never heard of James Colliver until he did disappear, and it is extremely doubtful if it would have done so even then but that circ.u.mstances connected with his vanishment brought to light the startling disclosure that the worthless, dissolute hulk of a man who was known to the habitues of half the low-cla.s.s public houses in Hoxton by the pseudonym of "Jimmy the Shifter" was not only all that time and drink had left of the once popular melodramatic actor Julian Monteith, but that he was, in addition thereto, own brother to Miss Margaret Larue, the distinguished actress who was at that moment electrifying London by her marvellous performance of the leading role in _The Late Mrs.

Cavendish_.

The reasons which impelled Miss Larue to let the public discover that her real name was Maggie Colliver, and that "Jimmy the Shifter"

was related to her by such close ties of blood, were these: _The Late Mrs. Cavendish_ was nearing the close of its long and successful run at the Royalty, and its successor was already in rehearsal for early production. That successor was to be a specially rewritten version of the old-time favourite play _Catharine Howard; or, The Tomb, the Throne, and the Scaffold_, with Miss Larue, of course, in the part of the ambitious and ill-fated Catharine. Preparations were on foot for a production which would be splendidly elaborate as to scenery and effects, and absolutely accurate as to detail. For instance, the costume which Henry VIII had worn at the time of his marriage with Catharine Howard was copied exactly, down to the minute question of the gaudy st.i.tchery on the backs of the gloves and the toes of the shoes; and permission had been obtained to make the mimic betrothal ring which the stage "Henry" was to press upon the finger of the stage "Catharine" an exact replica of the real one, as preserved among the nation's historic jewels.

Not to be outdone in this matter of accuracy, Miss Larue naturally aimed to have the dresses and the trinkets she wore as nearly like those of the original Catharine as it was possible to obtain. As her position in the world of art was now so eminent and had brought her into close touch with the elect, it was not difficult for the lady to borrow dresses, and even jewels, of the exact period from the heirlooms treasured by members of the n.o.bility, that these might be copied in mimic gems for her by the well-known theatrical and show supply company of Henry Trent & Son, Soho.

To this firm, which was in full charge of the preparation of dresses, properties, and accessories for the great production, was also entrusted the making of a "cast" of Miss Larue's features and the manufacture therefrom of a wax head with which it was at first proposed to lend a touch of startling realism to the final scene of the execution of Catharine on Tower Hill, but which was subsequently abandoned after the first night as being unnecessarily gruesome and repulsive.

It was during the course of the final rehearsals for this astonishing production, and when the army of supers who had long been drilling for it at other hours was brought for the first time into contact with the "princ.i.p.als," that Miss Larue was horrified to discover among the members of that "army" her dissolute brother, "Jimmy the Shifter."

For years--out of sheer sympathy for the wife who clung to him to the last, and the young son who was growing up to be a fine fellow despite the evil stock from which he had sprung--Miss Larue had continuously supplied this worthless brother with money enough to keep him, with the strict proviso that he was never to come near any theatre where she might be performing, nor ever at any time to make known his relationship to her. She now saw in this breaking of a rule, which heretofore he had inviolably adhered to, clear evidence that the man had suddenly become a menace, and she was in great haste to get him out of touch with her colleagues before anything could be done to disgrace her.

In so sudden and so pressing an emergency she could think of no excuse but an errand by which to get him out of the theatre, and of no errand but one--the stage jewels which Messrs. Trent & Son were making for her. She therefore sat down quickly at the prompt table, and, drawing a sheet of paper to her, wrote hurriedly:

_Messrs. Trent & Son:_