The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation Part 13

"Leave your business in her hands if need be, I reckon?" suggested Allerd.y.k.e, with a sidelong nod at the closed door.

"In ordinary matters, yes--comfortably," answered Fullaway. "She's a bit a specialist in two things that I'm mainly concerned in--pictures and diamonds. She can tell a genuine Old Master at a glance, and she knows a lot about diamonds--her father was in that trade at one time, out in South Africa."

"Clever woman to have," observed Allerd.y.k.e; "knows all your business, of course?"

"All the surface business," said Fullaway, "naturally! Anything but a confidential secretary would be useless to me, you know."

"Just so," agreed Allerd.y.k.e. "Told her about this affair yet?"

"I've had no chance so far," replied Fullaway. "I shall take her advice about it--she's a cute woman."

"Smart-looking, sure enough," said Allerd.y.k.e. He let his mind dwell for a moment on the picture which Mrs. Marlow had made as Fullaway led him through the office--a very well-gowned, pretty, alert, piquant little woman, still on the sunny side of thirty, who had given him a sharp glance out of unusually wide-awake eyes. "Aye, women are clever nowadays, no doubt--they'd show their grandmothers how to suck eggs in a good many new fashions. Well, now," he went on, stretching his long legs over Fullaway's beautiful Persian rug, "what do you make of this affair, Fullaway, in its present situation? There's no doubt that everything's considerably altered by what we've heard of this morning. Do you really think that this French maid affair is all of a piece, as one may term it, with the affair of my cousin James?"

"Yes--without doubt," replied Fullaway. "I believe the two affairs all spring from the same plot. That plot, in my opinion, has originated from a clever gang who, somehow or other, got to know that Mr. James Allerd.y.k.e was bringing over the Princess Nastirsevitch's jewels, and who also turned their eyes on Zelie de Longarde's valuables. The French maid, Lisette, was probably nothing but a tool, a cat's paw, and she, having done her work, has been cleverly removed so that she could never split.

Further--"

A quiet knock at the door just then prefaced the entrance of Mrs. Marlow, who gave her employer an inquiring glance.

"Mr. Blindway to see you," she announced. "Shall I show him in?"

"At once!" replied Fullaway. He leapt from his chair, and going to the door called to the detective to enter. "News?" he asked excitedly, when Mrs. Marlow had retired, closing the door again. "What is it--important?"

The detective, who looked very solemn, drew a letter-case from his pocket, and slowly produced a telegram.

"Important enough," he answered. "This case is a.s.suming a very strange complexion, gentlemen. This arrived from Hull half an hour ago, and the chief thought I'd better bring it on to you at once. You see what it is--"

He held the telegram out to both men, and they read it together, Fullaway muttering the words as he read--

From _Chief Constable, Hull, to Superintendent C.I.D., New Scotland Yard_.

Dr. Lydenberg, concerned in Allerd.y.k.e case, was shot dead in High Street here this morning by unseen person, who is up to now unarrested and to whose ident.i.ty we have no clue.

CHAPTER XIII

AMBLER APPLEYARD

Fullaway laid the telegram down on his table and looked from it to the detective.

"Shot dead--High Street--this morning?" he said wonderingly. "Why!--that means, of course, in broad daylight--in a busy street, I suppose? And yet--no clue. How could a man be shot dead under such circ.u.mstances without the murderer being seen and followed?"

"You don't know Hull very well," remarked Allerd.y.k.e, who had been pulling his moustache and frowning over the telegram, "else you'd know how that could be done easy enough in High Street. High Street," he went on, turning to the detective, "is the oldest street in the town. It's the old merchant street. Half of it--lower end--is more or less in ruins. There are old houses there which aren't tenanted. Back of these houses are courts and alleys and queer entries, leading on one side to the river, and on the other to side streets. A man could be lured into one of those places and put out of the way easily and quietly enough. Or he could be shot by anybody lurking in one of those houses, and the murderer could be got away un.o.bserved with the greatest ease. That's probably what's happened--I know that street as well as I know my own house--I'm not surprised by that! What I'm surprised about is to hear that Lydenberg has been shot at all. And the question is--is his murder of a piece with all the rest of this d.a.m.nable mystery, or is it clean apart from it?

Understand, Fullaway?"

"I'm thinking," answered the American. "It takes a lot of thinking, too."

"You see," continued Allerd.y.k.e, turning to Blindway again, "we're all in a hole--in a regular fog. We know naught! literally naught. This Lydenberg was a foreigner--Swede, Norwegian, Dane, or something. We know nothing of him, except that he said he'd come to Hull on business.

He may have been shot for all sorts of reasons--private, political. We don't know. But--mark me!--if his murder's connected with the others, if it's all of a piece with my cousin's murder, and that French girl's, why then--"

He paused, shaking his head emphatically, and the other two, impressed by his earnestness, waited until he spoke again.

"Then," he continued at last, after a s.p.a.ce of silence, during which he seemed to be reflecting with added strenuousness--"then, by Heaven! we're up against something that's going to take it out of us before we get at the truth. That's a dead certainty. If this is all conspiracy, it's a big 'un--a colossal thing! What say, Fullaway?"

"I should say you're right," replied Fullaway. "I've been trying to figure things up while you talked, though I gave you both ears. It looks as if this Lydenberg had been shot in order to keep his tongue quiet forever. Maybe he knew something, and was likely to split. What are your people going to do about this?" he asked turning to the detective. "I suppose you'll go down to Hull at once?"

"I shan't," answered Blindway. "I've enough to do here. One of our men has already gone--he's on his way. We shall have to wait for news. I'm inclined to agree with Mr. Allerd.y.k.e--it's a big thing, a very big thing.

If Mr. Allerd.y.k.e's cousin was really murdered, and if the Frenchwoman's death arose out of that, and now Lydenberg's, there's a clever combination at work. And--where's the least clue to it?"

Allerd.y.k.e helped himself to a fresh cigar out of a box which lay on Fullaway's table, lighted it, and smoked in silence for a minute or two.

The other men, feeling instinctively that he was thinking, waited.

"Look you here!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Clue? Yes, that's what we want.

Where's that clue likely to be found? Why, in this, and this only--who knew, person or persons, that my cousin was bringing those jewels from the Princess Nastirsevitch to this country? Get to know that, and it narrows the field, d'ye see?"

"There's the question of Miss Lennard's jewels, too," remarked Fullaway.

"That may be--perhaps was--a side-issue," said Allerd.y.k.e. "It may have come into the big scheme as an after-thought. But, anyway, that's what we want--a first clue. And I don't see how that's to be got at until this Princess arrives here. You see, she may have talked, she may have let it out in confidence--to somebody who abused her confidence. What is certain is that somebody must have got to know of this proposed deal between the Princess and your man, Fullaway, and have laid plans accordingly to rob the Princess's messenger--my cousin James. D'ye see, the deal was known of at two ends--to you here, to this Princess, through James, over there, in Russia. Now, then, where did the secret get out? Did it get out there, or here?"

"Not here, of course!" answered Fullaway, with emphasis. "That's dead sure. Over there, of a certainty. The robbery was engineered from there."

"Then, in that case, there's naught to do but wait the arrival of the Princess," said Allerd.y.k.e. "And you say she'll be here to-morrow night.

In the meantime no doubt you police gentlemen'll get more news about this last affair at Hull, and perhaps Miss Lennard'll find those references about the Frenchwoman, and maybe we shall mop things up bit by bit--for mopped up they'll have to be, or my name isn't what it is! Fullaway," he went on, rising from his chair, "I'll have to leave you--yon man o'

mine'll be arriving from Yorkshire with my things before long, and I must go down to the hotel office and make arrangements about him. See you later--at dinner to-night, here, eh?"

He lounged away through the outer office, giving the smart lady secretary a keen glance as he pa.s.sed her and getting an equally scrutinizing, if swift, look in return.

"Clever!" mused Allerd.y.k.e as he closed the door behind him. "Deuced clever, that young woman. Um--well, it's a pretty coil, to be sure!"

He went down to the office, made full and precise arrangements about Gaffney, who was to be given a room close to his own, left some instructions as to what was to be done with him on arrival, and then, hands in pockets, strolled out into Aldwych and walked towards the Strand, his eyes bent on the ground as if he strove to find in those hard pavements some solution of all these difficulties. And suddenly he lifted his head and muttered a few emphatic words half aloud, regardless of whoever might overhear them.

"I wish to Heaven I'd a right good, hard-headed Yorkshireman to talk to!" he said. "A chap with some gumption about him! These c.o.c.kneys and Americans are all very well in their way, but--"

Then he pulled himself up sharply. An idea, a name, had flashed into his mental field of vision as if sent in answer to his prayer. And still regardless of bystanders he slapped his thigh delightedly.

"Ambler Appleyard!" he exclaimed. "The very man! Here, you!"

The last two words were addressed to a taxi-cab driver whose car stood at the head of the line by the Gaiety Theatre. Allerd.y.k.e crossed from the pavement and jumped in.

"Run down to this end of Gresham Street," he said. "Go quick as you can."

He wondered as he sped along the crowded London streets why he had not thought of Ambler Appleyard before. Ambler Appleyard was the manager of his own London warehouse, a smart, clever, pushing young Bradford man who had been in charge of the London business of Allerd.y.k.e and Partners, Limited, for the last three years. He had come to London with his brains already sharpened--three years of business life in the Metropolis had made them all the sharper. Allerd.y.k.e rubbed his hands with satisfaction. Exchange of confidence with a fellow-Yorkshireman was the very thing he wanted.

He got out of his cab at the Aldersgate end of Gresham Street, and walked quickly along until he came to a highly polished bra.s.s plate on which his own name was deeply engraven. Running up a few steps into a warehouse stored with neat packages of dress goods, he encountered a couple of warehous.e.m.e.n engaged in sorting and cla.s.sifying a consignment of fabrics just arrived from Bradford. Allerd.y.k.e, whose visits to his London warehouse were fairly frequent, and usually without notice, nodded affably to both and walked across the floor to an inner office. He opened the door without ceremony, closed it carefully behind him, and stepping forward to the occupant of the room, who sat busily writing at a desk, with his back to the entrant, and continued to write without moving or looking round, gave him a resounding smack on the shoulder.

"The very man I want, Ambler, my lad!" he said. "Sit up!"