When the Gangs Came to London

Edgar Wallace

Chapter I

All this began on the day in 1929 when ‘Kerky’ Smith met his backer in the Beach View Cafe and put up a proposition. This was at the time when Big Bill was lording it in Chicago, and everything was wide open and the safe- deposit boxes were bursting with grands. But to cut into the history of these remarkable happenings the historian would probably choose the adventures of a lady in search of a job.

The girl who walked up the two steps of 147 Berkeley Square and rang the bell with such assurance and decision was difficult to place. She was straight of back, so well proportioned that one did not notice how much taller she was than the average. She was at that stage of development when, if you looked to find a woman, you discovered a child or, if prepared for a child, found a woman.

You saw and admired her shape, yet were conscious of no part of it: there was a harmony here not usually found in the attractive. Her feet were small, her hands delicately made, her head finely poised. Her face had an arresting quality which was not beauty in its hackneyed sense. Grey eyes, rather tired-looking; red mouth, larger than perfect. Behind the eyes, a hint of a mind outside the ordinary.

The door opened and a footman looked at her inquiringly, yet his manner was faintly deferential, for she might just as easily have been a duchess as one of the many girls who had called that day in answer to Mr. Decadon’s advertisement.

“Is it about the position, miss?” he dared to ask.

“About the advertisement, yes.”

The footman looked dubious. “There have been a lot of young ladies here today.”

“The situation is filled, then?”

“Oh no, miss,” he said hastily. It was a dreadful thought that he should take such a responsibility. “Will you come in?”

She was ushered into a large, cold room, rather like the waiting-room of a Harley Street doctor. The footman came back after five minutes and opened the door.

“Will you come this way, miss?”

She was shown into a library which was something more than an honorary title for a smoke-room, for the walls were lined with books, and one table was completely covered by new volumes still in their dust jackets. The gaunt old man behind the big writing-table looked up over his glasses.

“Sit down,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Leslie Ranger.”

“The daughter of a retired Indian colonel or something equally aristocratic?” He snapped the inquiry.

“The daughter of a clerk who worked himself to death to support his wife and child decently,” she answered, and saw a gleam in the old man’s eye.

“You left your last employment because the hours were too long?” He scowled at her.

“I left my last employment because the manager made love to me, and he was the last man in the world I wanted to be made love to by.”

“Splendid,” he said sarcastically. “You write shorthand at an incredible speed, and your typing has been approved by Chambers of Commerce. There’s a typewriter.” He pointed a skinny forefinger. “Sit down there and type at my dictation. You’ll find paper on the table. You needn’t be frightened of me.”

“I’m not frightened of you.”

“And you needn’t be nervous,” he boomed angrily.

“I’m not even nervous,” she smiled.

She fitted the paper into the machine, turned the platen and waited. He began to dictate with extraordinary rapidity, and the keys rattled under her fingers.

“You’re going too fast for me,” she said at last.

“Of course I am. All right; come back here.” He pointed dictatorially to the chair on the other side of the desk, “What salary do you require?”

“Five pounds a week,” she said.

“I’ve never paid anybody more than three: I’ll pay you four.”

She got up and gathered her bag. “I’m sorry—”

“Four ten,” he said. “All right, five. How many modern languages do you speak?”

“I speak French and I can read German,” she said, “but I’m not a linguist.”

He pouted his long lips, and looked even more repulsive than ever.

“Five pounds is a lot of money,” he said.

“French and German are a lot of languages,” said Leslie.

“Is there anything you want to know?” She shook her head. “Nothing about the conditions of service?”

“No. I take it that I’m not resident?”

“You don’t want to know what the hours are – no? You disappoint me. If you had asked me what the hours were I should have told you to go to the devil! As it is, you’re engaged. Here’s your office.”

He got up, walked to the end of the big room and opened a recessed door. There was a small apartment here, very comfortably furnished, with a large walnut writing-desk and, by its side, a typing desk. In the angle of two walls was a big safe.

“You’ll start tomorrow morning at ten. Your job is not to allow any person to get through to me on the telephone, not to bother me with silly questions, to post letters promptly, and to tell my nephew none of my business.”

He waved his hand to the door.

She went, walking on air, had turned the handle and was half-way into the hall when he shouted for her to come back. “Have you got a young man – engaged, or anything?”

She shook her head. “Is it necessary?”

“Most unnecessary,” he said emphatically.

In this way Fate brought Leslie Ranger into a circle which was to have vast influence on her own life, bring her to the very verge of hideous death, and satisfy all the unformed desires of her heart.

The next morning she was to meet Edwin Tanner, the nephew against whom Mr. Decadon had warned her. He was a singularly inoffensive, indeed very pleasant person. He was thirty-five, with a broad forehead, pleasant, clean- shaven face and very easily smiling eyes that were usually hidden by his glasses.

He came into her room with a broad beam soon after her arrival.

“I’ve got to introduce myself, Miss Ranger. I’m Mr. Decadon’s nephew.”

She was a little surprised that he spoke with an American accent, and apparently he was prepared for this.

“I’m an American. My mother was Mr. Decadon’s sister. I suppose he’s warned you not to give me any information about his affairs? He always does that, but as there’s no information which isn’t everybody’s property, you needn’t take that very seriously. I don’t suppose you’ll want me, but if you do my house phone number is six. I have a little suite on the top floor, and it will be part of your duty to collect every Saturday morning the rent my uncle charges for the use of his beautiful home – he’s no philanthropist, but there’s a lot about him that’s very likeable.”

So Leslie was to discover in the course of the next few months.

Decadon very rarely mentioned his nephew. Only once had she seen them together. She often wondered why Tanner lived in the house at all. He was obviously a man with some private income of his own, and could have afforded a suite in a good London hotel.

Decadon expressed the wonder himself, but his innate frugality prevented his getting rid of a man for whom he had no very deep affection. He was suspicious of Edwin Tanner, who apparently visited England once every year and invariably lived with his uncle.

“Only relation I’ve got in the world,” growled old Decadon one day. “If he had any sense he’d keep away from me!”

“He seems very inoffensive,” said the girl.

“How can he be inoffensive when he offends me?” snapped the old man.

He liked her, had liked her from the first. Edwin Tanner neither liked nor disliked her: he gave her the impression of a picture painted by a man who had no imagination. His personality did not live. He was invariably pleasant, but there was something about him that she could not reduce to a formula. Old Decadon once referred to him as a gambler, but explained the term at no length. It was strange that he should employ that term, for he himself was a gambler, had built his fortune on speculations which had, when they were made, the appearance of being hazardous.

It was a strange household, unreal, a little inhuman. Leslie never ceased to be thankful that she lived away from the house, and in comfort, as it happened, for most unexpectedly Mr. Decadon doubled her salary the second week of her service. She had some odd experiences. Decadon had a trick of losing things – valuable books, important leases. And when he lost things he sent for the police; and invariably before the police arrived they were found. This alarming eccentricity of his was unknown to the girl. The first time it happened she was genuinely terrified. A rare manuscript was missing. It was worth £2,000. Mr. Decadon rang up Scotland Yard while the girl searched frantically. There arrived a very young and good-looking chief inspector whose name was Terry Weston – the manuscript was found in the big safe in Leslie’s room before he arrived.

“Really, Mr. Decadon,” said Terry gently, “this little habit of yours is costing the public quite a lot of money.”

“What are the police for?” demanded the old man.

“Not,” said Terry, “to run around looking for things you’ve left in your other suit.”

Decadon snorted and went up to his room, where he sulked for the rest of the day. “You’re new to this, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Mr…”

“Chief Inspector Weston – Terry Weston, I won’t ask you to call me Terry.”

She did not smile readily, but she smiled now. There was an air of gaiety about him which she had never associated with the police.

For his part he found a quality in her which was very rare in women. If she had told him that she was Mr. Decadon’s granddaughter he would not have been surprised. Curiously enough, her undoubted loveliness did not strike him at first. It was later that this haunting characteristic brought him unease.

He met her again. She lunched at a restaurant off Bond Street, He came there one day and sat with her. It was not an accidental meeting as far as he was concerned. No accident was more laboriously designed. Once he met her when she was on her way home. But he never asked her to go out with him, or gave her the impression that he wished to know more of her. If he had, he might not have seen her at all, and he knew this.

“Why do you work for that old grump?” he asked her once.

“He’s not really a grump,” she defended her employer a little half- heartedly – it was the end of a trying day.

“Is Eddie Tanner a grump?”

She shot a swift look at him. “You mustn’t cross-examine me.”

“Was I? I’m sorry. You get that way in my job. I’m not really interested.” Nor was he – then.

Leslie had little to do: a few letters to write, a few books to read and references to examine. The old man was a great lover of books and spent most of his time reading.

The second unusual incident that occurred in that household took place when she had been there about four months. She had been out to register some letters, and was going up the steps to the house, when a man she had noticed as she passed called her. He was a little man with a large, grotesque bowler hat. His collar was turned up to his chin – it was raining, so there was an excuse for that – and when he spoke it was with a distinctly American accent.

“Say, missie, will you give this to Ed?”

He jerked a letter out of his pocket.

“To Mr. Tanner?”

“Ed Tanner,” nodded the man. “Tell him it’s from the Big Boy.”

She smiled at this odd description, but when she went up in the little elevator to the top floor where Edwin Tanner had his suite, and gave it to him, he neither smiled nor displayed any emotion.

“The Big Boy, eh?” he said thoughtfully. “Who gave it to you – a little man, about so high?”

He seemed particularly anxious to have a description of the messenger. Then she remembered the extraordinary hat he wore, and described it.

“Is that so?” said Mr. Tanner thoughtfully. “Thank you very much, Miss Ranger.”

He was always polite to her; never invited her into his suite, was scrupulously careful never to earn the least rebuff.

Events were moving rather rapidly to a climax, but there was no indication of this. When it came with dramatic suddenness, Leslie was to think that the world had gone mad, and she was not to be alone in that view.

* * *

“There are two supreme and dominating factors in life: the first is the love of women, and the second the fear of death – get that?”

Captain Jiggs Allerman, of the Chicago Detective Bureau, sat back in his chair and sent a ring of cigarette smoke whirling upward to the ceiling. He was tall and spare. His face was almost as brown as an Indian’s from his native Nevada.

Terry Western grinned: Jiggs was a joy to him.

“You’re a chief inspector or sump’n’,” Jiggs went on. “Maybe they’re takin’ children for chief inspectors nowadays. First time I saw you I said to meself, ‘Gee, that’s a kid for a detective,’ and when they told me you were chief inspector I just thought Scotland Yard had gone plumb crazy. How old are you now, Terry?”

“Thirty-five.”

Jiggs’ nose concertina’d. “That’s a lie! If you’re more’n twenty-three I don’t know anything.”

Terry chuckled. “Every year you come to Scotland Yard you pull that crack and it isn’t even getting stale. You were telling me about the dominating factors of life.”

“Sure – women and death.” Jiggs nodded violently. The first have been a racket for years, but up to now only doctors an’ funeral parlours have exploited the second. But that racket’s on the jig, Terry – I’m tellin’ you!”

“I’d hate to believe it,” said Terry Weston, “and I’ll be interested to know just why you say that.”

Jiggs shifted his lank form into a more comfortable position.

“I’ve got nothing to go on: it’s just instinct,” he said. “The only thing I can tell you is that rackets are profitable. They’re easy money. In the United States of America, my dear native land, umpteen billions a year are spent by the citizens for protection. What’s a good racket in the United States must be a good racket in England, or in France. Germany – anywhere you like.”

Terry Weston shook his head. “I don’t know how to put it to you…” he began.

“Fire away, if you have anything to say about law enforcement.”

“I was thinking of prohibition for the moment,” said Terry.

Jiggs sniffed. “Bit tough that we can’t enforce prohibition, ain’t it? I suppose it couldn’t happen in this country – that there’d be a law that the police couldn’t enforce?”

“I don’t think it’s possible,” said Terry, and Jiggs Allerman laughed silently. “Ever heard of the Street Betting Act?” Terry winced. “There’s a law, isn’t there? Maybe it’s not called that, but it’s against the law to bet on the streets, and if a fellow’s pinched he’s fined and maybe goes to prison. And a thousand million dollars changes hands every year – on the streets. And when you’re talking about prohibition, turn your brilliant intellect in that direction, will you? No, Terry, where human nature is human nature, the thing that goes for one goes for all. I can tell you, they’ve been prospecting in England, some of the big boys in Chicago and New York, and when those guys get busy they go in with both feet. Your little crooks think in tenners, your big men think in thousands and don’t often get at ’em. But the crowd I’ve been dealing with work to eight figures in dollars. Last year they opened a new territory and spent two million dollars seeding it down. No crops came up, so they sold the farm – I’m speaking metaphorically. I mean they cut their losses. That makes you stare. And here’s London, England. They could take out a hundred million dollars every year and you’d hardly know they were gone.”

It was Jiggs Allerman’s favourite argument. He had used it before, and Terry had combated it glibly.

He went out to lunch with his visitor, and a lunch with Jiggs Allerman was an additional stripe to his education.

It was in the Ritz Grill that he saw Elijah Decadon and pointed him out.

“That’s the meanest millionaire in the world.”

“I could match him,” said Jiggs. “Who’s the dark fellow with him? He seems kind of familiar to me—”

“That’s his nephew. You might know him; he lived in Chicago. Not on the records by any chance?” he asked sarcastically.

Jiggs shook his head. “No, sir. None of the best crooks are. That surprises you, that the big fellers behind the rackets have never seen the inside of a police station? I’ve got him! Tanner – that’s his name, Ed Tanner, playboy, and a regular fellow.”

“Does that mean he’s good or bad?”

“It means he’s just what he is,” said Jiggs. “I often wondered where he got his money. His uncle’s a millionaire, eh?”

“He didn’t get it from him,” said Terry grimly. Jiggs shook his head. “You never know.”

Mr. Decadon, that severe old man, sat bolt upright in his chair, his frugal lunch before him, his eyes fixed malignantly upon his sister’s son. Elijah Decadon was an unusually tall man, powerfully built and, for his age, remarkably well preserved. His straight, ugly mouth, his big, powerful nose, his shaggy grey eyebrows, were familiar to every London restaurateur. The sixpence he left behind for the waiter was as much a part of him as his inevitable dispute over the bill. The bill was not bothering him now.

“You understand, Mr. Edwin Tanner, that the money I have I keep. I want none of your wildcat American schemes for making quick money.”

“There’s no reason why you should go in for it. Uncle Elijah,” said the other good-humouredly, “but I had private advice about this oil-field, and it looks to be good to me. It doesn’t benefit me a penny whether you go in or whether you stay out. I thought you were a gambler.”

“I’m not your kind of gambler,” growled Elijah Decadon. The two men sitting at the other side of the room saw him leave, and thought there had been a quarrel.

“I wonder what those two guys had to talk about. No, I don’t know Decadon – I know Ed. He’s the biggest psychologist in the United States, believe me, and…Suffering snakes! Here’s the Big Boy himself!”

A man had come into the dining-room. He was very thin, of middle height, and perfectly tailored in a large-pattern grey check. His hair was close- cropped; his long, emaciated face, seamed and lined from eye to jaw, was not pleasant to look upon, and the two scars that ran diagonally down the left side of his face did not add to his attractiveness.

Jiggs whistled. He was sitting bolt upright, his eyes bright and eager. “The Big Boy himself! Now what in hell…”

“Who is he?” asked Terry.

“You ought to know him. He’ll be over here in a minute.”

“He didn’t see you…” began Terry.

“I was the first man in the room he saw, believe me! That guy sees all the pins on the floor. Never heard of him? Kerky Smith – or Albuquerque Smith – or Alfred J. Smith, just according to whether you know him or read about him.”

Kerky Smith strolled aimlessly along the room and suddenly, with an exaggerated lift of his eyebrows, caught Tanner’s eye. Ed Tanner was smiling.

“Lo, Kerky,” he said. “When did you get in? Well, who’d have expected to see you?” He held out his hand. Kerky shook it limply, “Will you sit down?”

“Staying long?” asked Kerky, ignoring the invitation.

“I come over here every two years. My uncle lives here.”

“Is that so?” Kerky Smith’s voice was almost sympathetic. “Left Chicago in a hurry, didn’t you, Ed?”

“Not so,” said the other coolly.

Kerky was leaning on the table, looking down at Tanner. On his thin lips was a peculiarly knowing smile. “Heard you were in the bread line. Caught in the market for two million, someone told me. Staying long?”

Ed leaned back in his chair. He was chewing a toothpick. “Just about as long as I darn well please,” he said pleasantly. “Jiggs is having an eyeful.”

Kerky Smith nodded. “Yeah. I seen him – damn rat! Who’s he talking to?”

“A Scotland Yard man.”

Kerky Smith drew himself up and laid his long, slim paw on Ed’s shoulder. “You’re going to be a good boy, ain’t you – stand in or get out. You’ll want a lot of money for this racket, Ed – more money than you’ve got, boy.” A friendly pat, and he was strolling over to where Allerman sat. “Why, Jiggs!”

He hastened forward, his face beaming. Jiggs Allerman kicked out a chair.

“Sit down, you yellow thief,” he said calmly. “What are you doing in London? The British Government issue visas pretty carelessly, I guess.”

Kerky smiled. He had a beautiful set of teeth, many of which were gold- plated. “Wouldn’t you say a thing like that! You might introduce me to your friend.”

“He knows all about you. Meet Chief Inspector Terry Weston. If you stay long enough he’ll know you by your; finger-prints. What’s the racket, Kerky?”

Kerky shrugged his thin shoulders. “Listen, chief, would I be here on a racket? This is my vacation, and I’m just over looking around for likely propositions. I’ve been bearing the market, and how! I make my money that way. I’m not like you Chicago coppers – taking a cut from the racketeer and pretending you’re chasing him.”

Into Jiggs Allerman’s eye came a look that was half stone and half fire. “Some day I’ll be grilling you, big boy, up at police headquarters, and I’ll remember what you say.”

Kerky Smith flashed a golden smile. “Listen, chief, you take me all wrong. Can’t you stand a joke! I’m all for law and order. Why, I saved your life once. Some of them North Side hoodlums was going to give you the works, and I got in touch with a pal who stopped it.”

He had a trick of dropping his hand casually on shoulders, He did so now as he rose. “You don’t know your best friend, kid.”

“My best friend is a forty-five,” said Jiggs with suppressed malignity, “and the day he puts you on the slab I’m going to put diamonds all round his muzzle.”

Kerky laughed. “Ain’t you the boy!” he said, and strolled off with a cheerful wave of his hand.

Jiggs watched him sit down at a table, where he was joined by a very pretty blonde girl.

“That’s the kind you don’t know in England – killers without mercy, without pity, without anything human to ’em! And never had a conviction, Terry. He’s always been in Michigan when something happened in Illinois, or floatin’ around Indiana when there was a killing in Brooklyn. You don’t know the cold-bloodedness of ’em – I hope you never will. Hear him talking about saving my life? I’ll tell you sump’n’. Four of his guns have made four different attempts to get me. One of his aides, Dago Pete, followed me two thousand miles and missed me by that.” He snapped his fingers. “Got him? Of course I got him! He was eight days dying, and every day was a Fourth of July to me.”

Terry was hardened, but he shivered at the brutality of it; and yet he realised that only Jiggs and his kind knew just what they were up against. “Thank the Lord we haven’t got that type here…” he began.

“Wait,” said Jiggs ominously.

Terry had hardly got to his office the next morning, when the Assistant Commissioner phoned through to him. “Go down to Berkeley Square and see old Decadon,” he said.

“What’s he lost, sir?” asked Terry, almost offensively

“It isn’t a loss, it’s a much bigger thing…the girl phoned through, and she asked whether you would go.”

Terry drove to Berkeley Square; Leslie must have been watching for him, for she opened the door herself. “Lost something?” he asked.

“No, it’s something rather serious, or else it’s a very bad joke. It’s a letter he received this morning. He’s upstairs in his room, and he asked me to tell you all about it. As a matter of fact I can tell you as much as he can.”

She led the way into her own little office, unlocked a drawer, and took out a printed blank on which certain words had been inserted in handwriting. Terry took it and read.

“MUTUAL PROTECTION

“These are dangerous days for folks with property and money, and they need protection. The Citizens’ Welfare Society offers this to Mr….”

Here the name of Elijah Decadon was filled in in ink.

“They undertake to protect his life and his property, to prevent any illegal interference with his liberty, and they demand in return the sum of £50,000. If Mr….”

Again the name of Elijah Decadon was filled in in ink.

“Will agree, he will put an announcement in The Times of Wednesday the letters ‘WJS.’ and the word ‘Agree.’ followed by the initials of the person advertising.”

Here followed in heavy black type this announcement

“If you do not comply with our request within thirty days, or if you call in the police, or consult them, directly or indirectly, you will be killed.”

There was no signature printed or otherwise.

Terry read it again until he had memorised it, then he folded it and put it in his pocket.

“Have you the envelope in which this came?”

She had this. The address was typewritten; the type was new; the postmark was E.C.1; the envelope itself was of an ordinary commercial type. Leslie was looking at him anxiously.

“Is it a joke?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” Terry was doubtful. “It came by the early morning post. Does anybody else know about this being received? Mr. Eddie Tanner, for example, does he know anything about it?”

“Nobody except Mr. Decadon and myself,” said the girl. “Mr. Decadon is terribly upset. What had we better do, Mr. Weston?”

“You can call me Terry, unless you feel very bad about it. Of course, no money will be sent, and you did the right thing when you sent for the police.”

She shook her head. “I’m not so sure about that,” she said, to his surprise. “I’m willing to confess that I tried to persuade Mr. Decadon not to phone you.”

“That’s not like a law-abiding citizen,” he smiled. “No, you did the right thing. It’s probably a bluff, and anyway we’ll see that no harm comes to Elijah Decadon. I’d better have a talk with him.”

He went upstairs, and after considerable delay Decadon unlocked the door of his bedroom and admitted him. The old man was more than perturbed, he was in a state of panic. Terry telephoned to Scotland Yard, and three officers were detailed to guard the premises.

“I’ve asked Mr. Decadon not to go out, but if he does, the two men on duty in the front of the house are not to let him out of their sight.”

He put through a second call to Jiggs Allerman’s hotel, asking the American to meet him at Scotland Yard. When he got to headquarters Jiggs had already found the most comfortable chair in the room.

“Here’s something for your big brain to work on,” said Terry.

He handed the printed letter to the visitor. Jiggs read it, his brows knit. “When did this come?”

“This morning,” said Terry. “Now what is it? Something serious or a little joke?”

Jiggs shook his head. “No, sir, that’s no joke. That’s the pay-and-live racket. It’s been worked before, and it’s been pretty successful. So that’s the game!”

“Do you think there’s any real danger to Decadon?”

“Yes, sir.” Jiggs Allerman was emphatic. “And I’ll tell you why. This racket doesn’t really start working till somebody’s killed. You’ve got to have a couple of dead people to prove you mean business. Maybe a lot of others have had this notification, and they’ll be coming in all day, but it’s just as likely that only one has been sent out and Decadon is the bad example.” He took the paper again, held it up to the light, but found no watermark. “I’ve never seen it done this way before – a printed blank – but it’s got its reason. Anyway, it’s an intimation to everybody that these birds mean business.”

Terry got an interview with the Commissioner and took Jiggs along with him. The Chief was interested but rather sceptical. “We don’t expect this sort of thing to happen in our country, Captain Allerman,” he said.

“Why shouldn’t it?” demanded Jiggs. “Say, Commissioner, get this idea out of your head about England being a little country surrounded by water, and that it’s difficult for people to leave once they’re known. This isn’t an ordinary felony. When the shooting starts it’ll start good and plenty, and all the theories about this sort of thing not being done in England – will go sky- ways!”

Usually Leslie left about five o’clock in the afternoon. Decadon had been very nervous and morose all the afternoon, and she was so sorry for him that, when he suggested she might stay late, she readily agreed. She had plenty of work to do. Ed Tanner saw her coming back from her tea and was surprised.

“Why, what’s keeping you so late tonight. Miss Ranger? Is the old gentleman busy?”

She made some explanation, which did not seem convincing even to herself.

Tanner had not been told; the old man had been very insistent about this.

At about seven o’clock that evening she heard Tanner’s voice in the library, and she wondered whether Mr. Decadon had told him. They were talking for quite a long time. After a while she heard the squeak of the elevator as it went up to Eddie Tanner’s suite. A little later the bell rang, and she went into the library.

The old man was writing rapidly. He always used sheets of foolscap, and wrote in a very neat and legible hand for one so old. He had half covered the sheet when she came in.

“Get Danes,” he said, naming one of his footmen. “Ring for him, my girl,” he went on impatiently. “Ring for him!” She pressed the bell and Danes came in. “Put your name, your occupation, and your address here, Danes.”

He pointed to the bottom of the paper, and Danes signed. “You know what you’re signing, you fool, don’t you? You’re witnessing my signature, and you haven’t seen my signature,” stormed the irritable old gentleman. “Watch this. Miss What’s-your-name.”

He invariably addressed Leslie by this strange title, for he could not remember names.

He took up a pen and signed it with a flourish, and Danes obediently put his name, address and occupation by the side of the signature. “That will do, Danes.”

The man was going, when Leslie said quietly: “If this is a will I think you will find that both signatures must be attested together and in the presence of one another.”

He glared at her. “How do you know it’s a will?” he demanded, He had covered the writing over with one big hand.

“I’m guessing it’s a will,” she smiled. “I can’t imagine any other kind of document…”

“That will do – don’t talk about it,” he grumbled. “Sign here.” He watched her as she wrote. “‘Ranger’ – that’s it,” he muttered. “Never can remember it. Thank you.”

He blotted the sheet, dismissed the footman with a wave of his hand and thrust the document into a drawer of his desk.

Presently he frowned at her. “I’ve left you a thousand pounds,” he said, and she laughed. “What the devil are you laughing at?”

“I’m laughing because I shan’t get the thousand pounds. The fact that I’ve witnessed your will invalidates the bequest.”

He blinked at her, “I hate people who know so much about the law,” he complained.

After Leslie was dismissed he rang the bell himself, had Danes up again and the cook, and procured a new witness. She did not know this till afterwards. At half-past eight she was tidying up her desk when she heard a faint click, and looked up. It seemed to be in the room. She heard the click again, and this time she heard the sound of the old man’s voice, raised in anger. He was expostulating with somebody. She could not hear who it was.

And then she heard a piercing cry of fear, and two shots fired in rapid succession. For a moment she stood paralysed, then she ran to the door which led to the library and tried to open it. It was locked. She ran to the passage door; that was locked too. She flew to the wall, pressed the bell, heard a running of feet, and Danes hammered on the door. “What is it, miss?”

“The door’s locked. The key’s on the outside,” she cried. In another second it turned.

“Go into the library and see what’s happened.” Danes and the second footman ran along, and returned with the report that the library door was locked and that the key was missing.

It was an eccentricity of Mr. Decadon that he kept keys in all locks, usually on the outside of doors. With trembling hands she took that which had opened her own door and, kneeling down, looked through the keyhole into the library. Carefully she thrust in her own key and pushed. That which was on the inside of the door had by chance been left so that the thrust pushed it out. As it dropped on the floor she unlocked the door with a heart that was quaking and ran into the room. She took three paces and stopped. Old Elijah Decadon lay across the desk in a pool of blood, and she knew before she touched him that he was dead.

Chapter II

Terry had arranged to go that night with Jiggs to see a musical comedy, and he was just leaving the house when the urgent call came through. Fortunately Jiggs, who was collecting him, drove up at that moment, and the two men went straight to Berkeley Square.

There was already a crowd outside the house. Somehow the news had got around. Terry pushed his way to the steps and was instantly admitted.

The two plain-clothes officers who had been on duty outside the house were in the passage, and their report was a simple one. Nobody had entered or left within half an hour of the shooting.

Terry went in and saw the body. The old man had been shot at close quarters by a heavy-calibre revolver, which lay on the floor within a few feet of the desk. It had not been moved.

He sent for a pair of sugar-tongs and, after marking the position of the revolver with a piece of chalk, he lifted the weapon on to a small table and turned on a powerful reading-lamp. It was a heavy, rather old-fashioned Colt revolver. As far as he could see, there were still four unused cartridges. What was more important, there were distinct fingerprints on the shiny steel plate between the butt and the chambers.

There was something more than this – a set of fingerprints on a sheet of foolscap paper. They were visible even before they were dusted. There was a third set on the polished mahogany edge of the desk, as though somebody had been resting their fingers on it.

Terry went into the girl’s room and interviewed her. She was as pale as death, but very calm, and told him all she knew.

“Has Tanner been told?”

She nodded.

“Yes, he came down and saw…poor Mr. Decadon, and then went up to his room again. He said nothing had to be touched, but by this time of course the police were in the house. Mr. Tanner didn’t know that they’d been outside watching.”

He sent one of the servants for him. Ed Tanner came down, a very grave man. He went without hesitation into the library.

“It’s dreadful…simply shocking,” he said. “I can’t believe it.”

“Have you seen this revolver before?” Terry pointed to the gun on the table. To his amazement, Tanner nodded.

“Yes,” he said quietly, “that’s my revolver. I’m pretty certain of it. I didn’t touch it when I came into the room, but I could almost swear to it. A month ago a suitcase of mine was stolen at the railway station, and it contained this revolver. I notified the police of my loss and gave them the number of the missing weapon.”

Terry remembered the incident because the theft of firearms came within his department, and he had a distinct recollection of the loss being reported.

“You haven’t seen the pistol since?”

“No, sir.”

“Mr. Tanner,” said Terry quietly, “on that revolver and on the desk there are certain fingerprints. In a few moments the fingerprint department will be here with their apparatus. Have you any objections to giving the police a set of your fingerprints in order that they may be compared with those found on the revolver?”

Eddie Tanner shook his head with a smile.

“I haven’t the least objection. Inspector,” he said.

Almost as he said the words the fingerprint men came in, carrying their mystery box and Terry, taking the sergeant in charge aside, explained what he wanted. In a few minutes Tanner’s fingerprints were on a plain sheet of paper, and the sergeant set to work with his camera men making the record of the other prints which had been found. The easiest to do were those on the sheet of foolscap. A dusting with powder brought them out clearly. The sergeant examined them, and Terry saw a look of wonder in his face.

“Why, these are the same as that gentleman’s.”

“What?” said Terry. He took up the revolver, made a dusting, and again examined it. “These also.”

Terry looked at the imperturbable Mr. Tanner, He was smiling slightly.

“I was in this room at seven o’clock, but I didn’t touch the paper or the desk or any article in the room,” he said. “I hope you’ll realise, Mr. Weston” – he turned to Terry – “that the fact that I was here at seven o’clock could be offered as a very simple explanation of those fingerprints – apart, of course, from those on the revolver. But I couldn’t possibly have made them, because I was wearing gloves. In fact, I intended going out, and changed my mind after interviewing my uncle.”

“What was the interview about?” asked Terry.

There was a pause. “It concerned his will. He called me down to tell me that he intended making a will for the first time in his life.”

“Did he tell you how he was disposing of his property?”

Tanner shook his head. “No.”

Terry went out in search of the girl, and learned to his surprise that the will had been made and witnessed. She had not seen its contents, and knew nothing about it except that it was a document which she had witnessed, and in which she had been left a thousand pounds.

“I told him the fact I had witnessed the will invalidated it, as I was a beneficiary,” she said.

“Have you any idea where he put it?”

She could answer this readily. “In the top left-hand drawer of his desk.”

Terry went back to the chamber of death. The divisional surgeon had arrived and was examining the body. “Do you know how your uncle was leaving his money in the will?”

“No, I don’t,” repeated Tanner. “He told me nothing.”

Terry went round the desk and pulled open the top left-hand drawer. It was empty! He went back to Tanner. “You realise how serious this is, Mr. Tanner? If what you say is true, and your uncle never made a will, you, as his only relative, are the sole legatee. If, on the other hand, your uncle made a will, as he undoubtedly did, it is quite possible that you were disinherited, and the destruction of the will, as well as the killing of your uncle, are circumstances which suggest a very important motive.”

Tanner nodded. “Does that mean…”

“It merely means that I shall ask you to go with an officer to Scotland Yard, and to wait there until I come. It doesn’t mean you’re under arrest.”

Tanner thought for a moment. “Can I see my attorney?”

Terry shook his head. “That is not customary in this country. When any definite charge is made you may have a lawyer, but it’s by no means certain that any charge will be made. The circumstances are suspicious. You agree that the revolver is yours, and the sergeant says that the finger-prints resemble yours; though of course that will be subject to a more careful scrutiny, and I am afraid there is no other course than that which I am now taking.”

“That I understand,” said Tanner, and went off with one of the officers.

Jiggs Allerman had been a silent witness to the proceedings, so silent that Terry had forgotten his presence. Now he went across to where the American was standing watching the photographing of the body.

“Is this a gang killing or just plain interested murder? I can’t decide.”

Jiggs shook his head. “The only thing that strikes me as odd are those finger-prints on the foolscap paper. Do you notice how coarse they are?”

The finger-print sergeant looked round. “That struck me too, Mr. Weston. The lines are curiously blurred; you’d think the impressions had been purposely made, and that whoever put them there laid his hand down deliberately, intending to make them.”

“That’s just what I was going to say,” said Jiggs. “And the gun on the floor – whoever heard of a gangster leaving his gun behind? He’d as soon think of leaving his visiting-card.”

Terry’s own sergeant had come on the scene, and to him he delegated the task of making a careful search of the house.

“I particularly want Tanner’s room gone through with a fine tooth-comb,” he said. “Look for cartridges or any evidence that may connect him with the crime. I’m particularly anxious to find a will made by Decadon this evening, so you’ll make a search of fireplaces or any other place where such a will might have been destroyed.”

After the body had been removed and the grosser traces of the crime had been obliterated he called in Leslie. She was feeling the reaction: her face was white, her lips were inclined to tremble.

“You go home, young lady. I’ll send an officer with you – and God knows I envy him! – and be here tomorrow morning at your usual hour. There’ll be a whole lot of questions asked you, but you’ll have to endure that.”

“Poor Mr. Decadon!” Her voice quivered.

“I know, I know,” he said soothingly, and dared put his arm about her shoulder.

She did not resent this, and his familiarity gave him the one happy moment of his day.

“You’ve got to forget all about it tonight; and tomorrow we’ll look facts more squarely in the face. The only thing I want to know is, did you hear Tanner talking in the library, and at what time?”

She could place this exactly, and it corresponded with the story Tanner had told.

“And you heard voices just before the shooting?”

“Mr. Decadon’s,” she said, “not the other’s.”

“You heard the click as the key was turned, both on the library door and on your own?”

She nodded.

“The first click was on your own door?” he went on. “That is to say, the corridor door. The last click was the door into the library. So we may suppose that somebody walked along the corridor, locked your door first, went into the library, and then, either known or unknown to Mr. Decadon, locked the communicating door between library and office?”

She nodded again. “I suppose so,” she said wearily.

He took her by the arm.

“That’s enough for tonight,” he said. “You go home, go to bed and dream of anybody you like, preferably me.”

She tried to smile, but it was a miserable failure. When she had gone: “What do you make of that, Jiggs?”

“Very much what you make of it, old pal,” said Jiggs. “The murderer came from the back of the house…”

“It might have been Tanner,” suggested Terry, and Jiggs nodded.

“Sure. It might also have been one of the servants. Let’s take a look at these premises.”

They went along the corridor to the far end. The elevator was here on the left. On the right was a flight of stairs leading down to the kitchen. Under the stairs was a large locker, containing overcoats, waterproofs, umbrellas and rubber over-shoes. Jiggs opened the door of the elevator, switched on the light, and the two men got in. Closing the door, he pressed the button and the lift shot up to the top floor, where it stopped.

Apparently there were no intermediate stations, and no other floor was served by this conveyance.

They got out on a small landing. On the left was a half-glass door marked ‘Fire.’ Terry tried this and it opened readily. As far as he could see, a narrow flight of iron stairs zig-zagged to a small courtyard. Terry came in, closed the door and went on to Tanner’s apartment, which was being searched by the sergeant and an assistant.

“Nothing here that I can find, sir,” reported the officer, “except these, and I can’t make them out.”

He pointed to a chair on which were placed a pair of muddy and broken shoes. They were the most dilapidated examples of footwear that Terry remembered seeing.

“No, they weren’t on the chair when I found them: they were under it. I put them up to examine them more closely.”

They were in Tanner’s bedroom, and the sergeant drew attention to the fact that a small secretaire was open and that a number of papers were on the floor. Several pigeon-holes must have been emptied in some haste.

“It looks as if the room has been carefully searched, or else that Tanner has been in a hurry to find something.”

Terry looked at the shoes again and shook his head.

“Did you find any burnt paper in the grate?”

“No, sir,” said the sergeant. “No smell of burnt paper either.”

“Listen, Terry,” said Jiggs suddenly. “You’ve had a couple of coppers outside since when?”

“Since about half-past ten this morning.”

“Any at the back of the premises?”

“One,” said Terry.

“It’s easier to get past one than two,” said Jiggs. “Let’s go down the fire escape and see if anybody could have got in that way. You notice all the windows are open in this room? It’s a bit chilly, too.”

Terry had noticed that fact.

“I don’t think the idea of the fire-escape is a bad one,” he said, and the two men went out to investigate.

Terry left his companion outside the elevator door while he went down to borrow a torch from one of the policemen. When he came back the fire-escape door was open and Jiggs had disappeared. He flashed his lamp down and saw the American on the second landing below. “That’s better than matches,” he said. “Look at this, Terry.”

Terry ran down the stairs to where his companion was standing. Jiggs had something in his hand – a rubber overshoe.

In the light of the torch Terry made a quick examination. The shoe was an old one, and subsequently proved to be one of the unfortunate Decadon’s.

“What’s it doing here?” asked Jiggs.

They went down the next two flights, but found nothing. At the bottom the stairs turned abruptly into the courtyard. Jiggs was walking ahead, Terry behind with a light showing him the way.

“There’s a door in that wall. Where does it lead to-a mews?” asked Jiggs. “That’s what you call it…”

Suddenly he stopped.. “For God’s sake!” he said softly. “Look at that!”

Almost at their feet was a huddled heap. It was a man, ill-clad, his trousers almost in rags. On one foot was a rubber overshoe, on the other a slipper. His hat had fallen some distance from him.

Terry moved the light; he saw the back of the head and the crimson pool that lay beyond.

“Here’s our second dead man,” said Terry. “Who is he?”

Jiggs leaped over the body and reached for the lamp. His examination was a careful one. “If he isn’t a tramp he looks like one. Shot at close range through the back of the head. A small-calibre pistol…dead half an hour. Can you beat that?”

Terry found a door which opened into the kitchen and sent one of the horrified servants in search of the police surgeon, whom he had left writing his report at Leslie’s desk. While he awaited his coming he scrutinised the dead man’s feet.

He wore soft leather slippers, which were a little too small for him, and over these had evidently drawn the overshoes.

A detective came running out, and Terry sent him back to bring the fingerprint outfit. He then began a careful search of the dead man’s clothes. In the left-hand pocket of the shabby overcoat he found a small metal box, rather like a child’s money-box. It was black-japanned and fastened with a small lock. Terry tried to open it, but failed. “It wouldn’t have been much use as an indicator of flnger-prints,” he said. “It’s been in his pocket. Did you find anything else, Jiggs?”

Allerman had taken up the search where Terry left off. The inspector heard the jingle of coins, and Jiggs held out his hand.

“That’s an unusual phenomenon in England,” he said, and Terry gasped.

There were about ten or twelve English sovereigns. “In the waistcoat pocket, wrapped up in a piece of paper, “and this man is a hobo or nothing.”

They left the body to the care of the surgeon and drove back to Scotland Yard in a squad car. Tanner was waiting in Terry’s room. He was smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper, which he put down as they entered.

“Did you find the will?” he asked.

“No, but we found one or two other things,” said Terry. “When were you in your bedroom last?”

Tanner’s eyebrows rose. “Do you mean in Berkeley Square? I haven’t been there since morning.”

Terry eyed him keenly. “Are you sure?” The man nodded. “Have you been to your desk for anything?”

“Desk? Oh, you mean the little secretaire. No.”

“Was there anything valuable there?”

Eddie Tanner considered. “Yes, there were twelve pounds in gold. It’s been amusing me to collect English sovereigns since your people came off the gold standard. As for me going into my bedroom, I’ve just remembered that when I tried to get into the room this afternoon it was locked. I thought the housekeeper had locked it, but I didn’t bother to send for her. She does lock up sometimes. Mr. Decadon had a servant who stole things a few months ago – I wasn’t in the house at the time, but I’ve heard about it – and apparently there was quite an epidemic of caution. Has the money gone?”

“I have it in my pocket, as a matter of fact,” said Terry grimly, “but I can’t give it to you yet.”

He took from his pocket the little tin box, went to his desk, took out a collection of keys and tried them on the lock. Presently he found one that fitted, and the box opened. One side fell down; behind it was a small linen pad. When he pushed back the lid he saw the contents.

“A rubber stamp outfit!” he said in surprise.

Jiggs, looking over his shoulder, picked out one of the three wooden- backed stamps and examined it in amazement.

“Well, I’ll go to…!”

They were the rubber impressions of fingerprints, and their surface still bore a thin film of moisture.

“That’s where the fingerprints came from,” said Terry slowly. “The man who killed Decadon stopped to fix the blame on somebody.” He looked at Eddie Tanner. “You must have some pretty powerful enemies, Mr, Tanner.”

Tanner smiled. “I’ve got one,” he said softly, “and he’s got a whole lot of friends.”

He looked up, caught Jiggs’ questioning eye, and smiled again.

At three o’clock in the morning there was a conference of all heads of Scotland Yard, and it was a delicate compliment to Jiggs Allerman’s prescience and popularity that he was admitted.

The fingerprint officer on duty brought one or two interesting facts.

“The tramp has been identified,” he said. “His name is William Board, alias William Crane, alias Walter Cork. He has seven convictions for vagrancy and five for petty larceny.”

“He’s a tramp, then?” said Terry.

“That’s all we know about him,” said the fingerprint man.

Jiggs shook his head vigorously.

“He committed no murder,” he said. “I never met a hobo who was quick enough for that kind of crime. He may have put the prints on. How did he get into the yard?”

The Assistant Commissioner, wise in the ways of criminals, had a logical explanation to give.

“The man who killed Mr. Decadon also killed Board. He was used as a tool and destroyed because he would have made a dangerous witness. He was shot with a powerful air-pistol at close range, according to the doctor. You’ve released Tanner?”

Terry nodded. “Yes, we couldn’t very well keep him after we found the stamps. The only tenable theory is that Board broke into the house earlier in the day, before the police came on the scene, and concealed himself in Tanner’s bedroom. He was wearing Tanner’s slippers and a pair of overshoes which were admittedly in the bedroom. What I can’t understand is why he should take that risk. Tanner was in and out of the suite all day.”

“Suppose Tanner had him there?” said Jiggs. They looked at him.

“Why should Tanner have him there?” asked Terry scornfully. “To manufacture evidence against himself?”

“That sounds illogical, doesn’t it?” said Jiggs with strange gentleness. “Maybe at this late hour I’ve got a little tired and foolish. One thing is certain, gentlemen: the first shot in the campaign has been fired. Tomorrow morning’s newspapers are going to carry the story of the demand for fifty thousand pounds – old man Decadon is the awful example that will start the ball rolling. The point is, will it start both balls rolling? I rather think it will.”

The Assistant Commissioner laughed. “You’re being mysterious, Jiggs.”

“Ain’t I just!” said Jiggs.

Terry went back to his office, and sat down in the quietude of that hour and worked out the puzzle of the day. It was not going to be an easy one to solve, and he had a depressed feeling that Jiggs’ pessimistic prophecy might be fulfilled.

He was sitting with his head on his hands, near to being asleep, when the telephone rang and jerked him awake. The Scotland Yard operator spoke to him. “There’s a woman on the phone who wishes to speak to you, sir. I think she’s talking from a call box.”

“Who is she?” asked Terry.

“Mrs. Smith. But I don’t think you know her. Shall I put you through?”

Terry heard a click, and then an anxious voice hailed him.

“Is that Mr. Terry, of Scotland Yard, the detective?”

It was rather a common voice.

“Yes, I’m Mr. Terry Weston.”

“Excuse me for bothering you, sir, but is Miss Ranger coming home soon? I’m getting a little anxious.”

“Miss Ranger?” Terry sat up. “What do you mean – is she coming home soon? She went home a long time ago.”

“Yes, sir, but she was called out again by a Scotland Yard gentleman – an American gentleman. They told her you wanted to see her.”

“What time was this?” asked Terry, a little breathlessly.

She thought it was about ten, but was vague on the subject. “She’d only just got in, and was having a bite of supper, which I made her have…”

“How long after she came in did she go out?”

The woman thought it was a quarter of an hour.

“Where do you live?”

She told him. It was a little street in Bloomsbury.

“I’ll be there in five minutes,” said Terry. “Just wait for me, will you?”

He rang for a car, and went down the stairs two at a time. In less than five minutes he was in the neat parlour of the landlady. She could only tell him substantially the story she had already told.

There had been a knock at the door and she had answered it. A man was standing there, and by the kerb was a car and another man. He said he was from Scotland Yard and spoke distinctly with an American accent. He said Mr. Terry Weston wished the young lady to go to the Yard immediately. She remembered definitely that he said “Weston.”

“Would you recognise him again?” asked Terry, his heart sinking.

She did not think so. It was a very dark night and she had not taken much notice of him. The girl had gone almost at once. She had been particularly impressed by the fact that the two men had raised their hats to her as she came out of the house. She thought it was so nice to see detectives being polite to a lady.

“They drove off towards Bloomsbury Square,” she said.

She had stood at the door and watched the car go. Then, to Terry’s astonishment: “The car was numbered XYD7000.”

“You noticed the number?” he asked quickly. The landlady had a weakness for counting up numbers on number-plates. She had, she said, a faith – and a very complete faith – that if the numbers added up to four and she saw two fours in succession, she was going to have a lucky day. She betted on races, she added unnecessarily.

Terry went round to the call box from which she had telephoned, got through to the Yard and handed in the number. “Find out who owns this, and ask the Flying Squad to supply me with a unit.”

By the time he reached the Yard the information was available. The car was owned by the Bloomsbury and Holborn Car Hire Company, but it was impossible to discover from their garage to whom it was hired at the moment. All inquiries in this direction were suddenly blocked when a report came up that a car bearing this number, and genuinely hired to a doctor, had been stolen that night in Bloomsbury Park.

“That’s that!” groaned Terry. “Warn all stations to look for it and arrest the driver and its occupants.”

Then began a feverish search which was almost without parallel in the annals of the Flying Squad. Crew after crew were brought in on urgent summons, and shot off east, west, north and south.

In the morning, as day was breaking, a motorcyclist patrol saw a car abandoned in a field by the side of the Colnbrook by-pass. He went forward to investigate, and instantly recognised the number for which the whole of the Metropolitan police had been searching. He jumped off his machine and ran forward. The blinds were drawn. He pulled open the door and saw a girl lying in one corner of the car. She was fast asleep. It was Leslie Ranger.

* * *

Leslie had had no idea that anything was wrong till the speed of the car increased and one of the two ‘detectives’ who were sitting with her leaned forward and began to pull down the blinds.

“Don’t do that,” she said.

“You just sit quiet, missie, and don’t talk,” said the man, “and if you just sit quiet and don’t talk you ain’t going to be hurt – see?”

She nearly fainted when she realised that she had been the victim of a trick.

“Where are we going?” she asked, but they did not answer. In fact, neither of the men spoke.

They must have travelled for the better part of an hour, when the car swerved suddenly round a sharp corner, followed a bumpy road, turned again to the left and stopped. One of the men took a scarf from his pocket and blindfolded her, and she submitted meekly. She was assisted from the car, walked along a paved pathway and into a house.

It must have been a small house, because the two men had to walk behind her, one of them guiding her by her elbows. She turned sharp left again, and guessed that she was in a room where there were several men. She could smell the pungent odour of cigar smoke.

“Tell her to sit down,” said somebody in a whisper, and, when she had obeyed: “Now, miss, perhaps you’ll tell us what happened at old man Decadon’s house. You’ll tell us the truth and you’ll answer any questions that are put to you, and nothing’s going to happen to you.”

The man who said all this spoke in a sort of harsh, high whisper. He was obviously disguising his voice.

She was terribly frightened, but felt that there was nothing to be gained by refusing to speak or by suppressing anything she knew; so she told them very frankly and freely, and answered their questions without hesitation.

They seemed most interested and insistent in their inquiries about Eddie Tanner. Where had he been? Was she sure they were his fingerprints? When she told about the revolver on the floor somebody laughed, and the questioner snarled an angry admonition, after which there was silence. This inquisition lasted two hours. They brought her hot coffee, for which she was grateful, and eventually she said:

“All right, kid. You can tell the police all about this – there’s no reason why you shouldn’t. But don’t tell more’n the truth, or ever try to line me up by my voice.”

They had taken her back to the car and made her comfortable, and that was all she remembered, except that another car was following them all the time. She fell asleep while the vehicle was still in motion, and knew nothing until the policeman woke her up.

Terry expected something big in the morning Press, but he was hardly prepared for the importance which the newspapers gave to the two murders. “Is this the beginning of a new era of lawlessness?” asked the Megaphone blackly.

Fleet Street seemed to recognise instantly the significance of the two crimes which shocked London that morning. ‘The Beginning of the Rackets’ was a headline in one journal. Fleet Street, living on print, was impressed by print. That notice, which had been sent to Elijah Decadon, neatly printed in blue ink, spelt organisation on a large scale.

And yet Scotland Yard received no intimation that any other rich or prominent man had had a similar warning. From one end of England to the other the newspapers were shocked and wrathful, and their leading articles revealed an energy to combat the new peril which impressed even Jiggs Allerman.

The tramp’s antecedents had been quickly traced. He had been living in a lodging-house, but had not been to his room for two nights prior to the murder. He was a fairly reticent man, and had not discussed his business with anybody.

During the night the Assistant Commissioner had been on the telephone to Chicago, and had secured permission to attach Jiggs Allerman to the Scotland Yard staff as a temporary measure. Jiggs, with his new authority, had spent all the morning at the house in Berkeley Square. He came back to the Yard to find Terry reading the newspapers. “Did you find anything?” asked Terry.

“Yeah.” Jiggs nodded. “The old man had fitted up a kitchenette for Tanner. There’s a gas-stove there.”

He took out of his pocket an envelope, opened it carefully and picked out a strand of thin wire six inches in length.

“Found this wound around one of the burners, and outside the top landing of the fire-escape there’s a hook fixed into the wall, and fixed recently.”

“What do you make of that?” asked Terry.

Jiggs scratched his chin. “Why, I make a lot of that,” he said. “What was the direction of the wind last night?”

Terry took up a newspaper and turned the pages till he came to the weather report. “Moderate north-west.”

“Grand. What’s been puzzling me more than anything else has been the disappearance of the air-pistol. That had to be got rid of pretty quick, and the tramp Board wasn’t the kind of man to think quick and, anyway, he didn’t get rid of it! But he helped.”

Terry frowned at him. “You’re being a little mysterious, Jiggs.”

“I know I am,” admitted Jiggs. “That’s my speciality.” He leaned down over the table and spoke emphatically. “There was only one possible way that gun could be got rid of, and I knew just how it had happened when one of the maids in the next house said somebody had smashed the window of her bedroom a few minutes after the murder was committed – I’m talking about the murder of the tramp, and the time we’ve got to guess at.” He took a pencil from his pocket and made a rough plan. “There’s the courtyard. One side of it’s made up of the back premises of the next-door house. The maid slept on the fourth floor; she’d gone to bed early because she had to be up at six.

“She was just going off to sleep, when her window was smashed in by somebody on the outside. When I say ‘somebody’ I mean ‘something.’ Now the fourth floor of that house is one floor higher – roughly fifteen feet – than the top floor in Decadon’s house, and when I heard about that window being smashed and found the wire on the gas burner and the hook on the wall, I got your people to phone every balloon-maker in London and find out who made a toy balloon that could lift a couple of pounds when it was filled with coal- gas.”

Terry stared at him. “I’ve heard of that being done once.”

“Now you’ve heard of it being done twice,” Jiggs finished for him. “The balloon was filled in the kitchenette; the end of it was tied round the burner – the gas pressure is pretty high in that neighbourhood. Just before the murder the mouth was tied, the balloon was taken out on to the fire-escape and fastened with a string or wire to the hook. The hook was upside down; that is to say, the point of it was downward. After Board was killed the murderer tied the gun to the balloon and let it go. The wind must have been fresh then, and as it went upwards the pistol smashed against the window of the housemaid’s room. You know my methods, Weston,” he added sardonically.

Terry figured this out for a few minutes. Then

“But if your theory is correct, the murderer must have come up the fire- escape after he’d killed Board.”

Jiggs nodded slowly. “You’ve said it, kid.”

“Do you still believe that Tanner was the murderer?”

Jiggs smiled. “It’s no question of believing, it’s knowing. Sure he was the murderer!”

“And that he deliberately left evidence to incriminate himself?”

“Well, he’s free, isn’t he?” demanded Jiggs. “And clear of suspicion. You haven’t a case to go to the Grand Jury, have you? Those stamps with his fingerprints on let him out. You couldn’t get a conviction. And in a way you’ve taken all suspicion from him, made him a victim instead of a murderer. He’s free – that’s the answer. I’ve told you, he’s the greatest psychologist I’ve met. Suppose you hadn’t found fingerprints or a gun, where would suspicion have pointed – at Ed! There’s the will gone, and Ed’s the old man’s legatee at law. What he did was to bring suspicion on himself at once, and destroy it at once. How far is the sea from here?”

“About fifty miles,” said Terry.

Jiggs whistled softly to himself. “Ed never made a mistake. The gasbag he used would stay up two hours, so you’ll never see that pistol again. It’ll drop in the sea somewhere.”

“We’ve had no further complaints from people about these demands,” said Terry.

“You’ll get ’em,” said the other, with a grim smile. “Give ’em time to let it soak in.” He looked at his watch. “I’m going along to the American bar at the Cecilia,” he said. “I’ve got quite an idea I’ll hear a lot of interesting news.”

The Cecilia bar is the rendezvous of most Americans visiting London. The gorgeous Egyptian room, dedicated to the cocktail, was filled by the time Jiggs got there. He found a little table and a chair that was vacant, and sat down patiently for the arrival of his man. It was nearing noon when Kerky Smith came leisurely into the bar, the bony chin lifted, the thin, set smile on his face. He looked round, apparently did not see Jiggs, and strolled to the door. Jiggs finished his drink deliberately, beckoned the waiter and put his hand in his pocket. He had no intention of leaving, but it would require such a gesture as this to bring the Big Boy to him.

“Why, Jiggs!”

Kerky Smith came forward with a flashing smile, his ring-laden hands extended. He took Jiggs’ hand in both of his and pressed it affectionately.

“Not going, are you? Say, I wanted to talk to you.” He looked round, found a chair and dragged it to the table. “Isn’t it too bad about that old guy? I’ll bet Ed is just prostrated with grief!”

“Where did you get that international expression from – ‘prostrated with grief’?”

“Saw it in a book somewhere,” said Kerky shamelessly. “Funny how you can get all kinds of swell expressions if you keep your eyes open. Left him all his money, ain’t he? Well, he needed it. He was short of a million to carry out all the big ideas he has.”

“It will be months before he can touch a cent,” said Jiggs.

The thin eyebrows of Kerky Smith rose. “Is that so? I guess you can borrow money on wills, can’t you? Ed was down at a moneylender’s this morning.”

Jiggs was politely interested. “What kind of a racket was he in when he was running round Chi?” he asked.

Kerky shook his head slowly. There was in his face a hint of disapproval. “I hardly know the man,” he said. “And what’s all this about rackets? I read about ’em in the newspapers, but I don’t know any of these birds.” He said this with a perfectly straight face. Jiggs would have been surprised if he had not. “Seems to be some kind of racket starting here,” he went on. “Has anybody asked Ed to pay? He’s a rich guy now.”

“What was his racket in Chicago?” repeated Jiggs, without any hope of being satisfied, for gangland does not talk scandal even of its worst enemies.

“He was just a playboy, I guess. I used to see him around Arlington, and he lived at the Blackstone, That’s the kind of bird he was.”

Jiggs leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “Kerky, you remember the shooting of Big Sam Polini? The choppers got him as he came out of mass one morning – a friend of yours, wasn’t he?”

There was a hard look in Kerky’s eyes, but he was still smiling.

“I knew the man,” he said simply.

“One of your crowd, wasn’t he? Who got him?”

Kerky’s smile broadened. “Why, if I knew I’d tell the police,” he said. “Joe Polini was a swell fellow. Too bad he was shot up.”

“Did Ed know anything about it?”

Kerky wagged his head wearily. “Now what’s the use of asking fool questions like that, Jiggs? I’ve told you before I don’t know anything about him, He seems a nice feller to me, and I wouldn’t say a word against him. Especially now, when he’s in mourning.”

Jiggs saw the sly, quick, sidelong glance that the other shot at him, and supplied his own interpretation.

“I’m going off to Paris one day this week,” said Kerky. “If they start any racket here I want to be out of it. London’s the last place you’d expect gunplay. Say, you’re at Scotland Yard now, ain’t you?”

“Who told you that?”

Kerky shrugged his thin shoulders. “Sort of story going round that you’ve been loaned.” He bent over and laid his hand on Jiggs’ shoulder. “I kinda like you, Jiggs. You’re a swell guy. I wouldn’t stay around here if I were you – no, sir! Of course, you could stay and make it pay. A friend of mine wants some detective work done, and he’d pay a hundred thousand dollars to the right kind of guy. All he’d have to do would be just to sit around and be dumb when anything was happening. You might be very useful to my friend.”

“Is your friend seeking a divorce or just salvation from the gallows?” asked Jiggs bluntly.

Kerky got up from the table. “You make me tired, Jiggs,” he said. “Some of you fellers are swell, but you can’t think with your heads.”

“I can think better with my head than with my pocket, Kerky. Tell your friends there’s nothing doing and, if they try another way of making me drunk, that I’m packing two guns, and they’ve got to do their shooting pretty quick.”

Kerky shook his head and sighed. “You’re talking like one of them gang pictures which are so popular in Hollywood,” he said.

He called the waiter to him and paid him, beamed on his guest and, with a wave of his hand, sauntered across the room to the bar.

Jiggs went out, all his senses alert. There was a little dark-faced man, elaborately dressed, sitting in the vestibule of the hotel, gazing vacantly at the wall opposite. He wore a gold and diamond ring on the little finger of his left hand. Jiggs watched him as he passed; he so manoeuvred himself that his back was never towards the idler, who apparently was taking no notice of him, and did not even turn his head.

By the door leading out to the courtyard of the hotel was another little man, blue-chinned, dark-eyed, quite unconscious, apparently, of Jiggs’ presence. Captain Allerman avoided him, but he did not take his eyes off him until there were half a dozen people between them.

There would be quite an exciting time in London before the end of the week, he decided, as a cab took him back to his hotel, and he wondered if the English people in general, and the English police in particular, quite knew what was going to happen. Prohibition was something they read about in the newspaper and the resulting gang warfare a disaster which happened only in the States.

When he went in to lunch he met some men he knew. They were talking about the Decadon murder. None of them apparently saw anything in the threatening note that in any way menaced their own security.

He was called from lunch by a telephone message from Terry.

“I’ll come along and join you,” said Terry. “There’s been a development. Can we go up to your room?”

“Sure,” said Jiggs.

He was waiting for the inspector when he arrived, and they went up in the lift together to Jiggs’ suite.

“Here’s a new one.”

Terry took from his pocket a leather case and extracted a folded note. It was exactly the same size as the warning which old Decadon had received, but it was printed in green ink and differently worded.

“Dear Friend (it began)

“We are out to ensure your comfort and security. We are a band of men who will offer you protection against your enemies and even against your friends. You need not worry about burglars or hold-up men if you trust us. If you agree to employ us, put a lighted candle in the window of your dining-room between 8 and 8.30 tonight. We are offering you, for the sum of £1000, payable within the next three days, the protection that only our organisation can give you. If you decline our services you will, we fear, be killed. If you take this note to the police or consult them in any way, nothing can save you. Have a thousand pounds in American or French currency in an envelope, and after you have put the candle in your window you will receive a telephone message explaining how this money is to be paid.”

It was signed “Safety and Welfare Corporation.”

“Printed in green ink, eh? Well, we’ve got ’em both working now, the green and the blue. Who had this?”

“A very rich young man called Salaman. He lives in Brook Street, and had it this morning by the first post. We’ve got no evidence that anybody else has had the warning. Salaman sent it to us at once, and we’ve put a guard on his house.”

“He didn’t come to Scotland Yard?”

“No, we avoided that. He telephoned first and sent the letter by special messenger.”

Jiggs pursed his lips. “They’ll know all about it. What have you advised him to do?”

“To put a candle in his window, and we’ll get a man into the house tonight who’ll take the message.”

Jiggs was not impressed. “I’m telling you that they know he’s been to the police. What sort of man is he?”

Terry hesitated. “Not the highest type of citizen. Plenty of money and a few odd tastes. He’s a bachelor, a member of the smartest set – which doesn’t necessarily mean the best set. I’ve got an idea that he’s rather on the decadent side.”

Jiggs nodded. “He’ll be very lucky if he’s not on the dead side,” he said ominously.

Chapter III

Leslie went to her work rather late that morning, and with a sense of growing desolation. The tragedy of old Elijah Decadon’s death was sufficiently depressing, and she had not yet recovered from the terrifying experience of the previous night.

The situation, so far as she was concerned, was reducible to bread-and- butter dimensions. She had lost her job, or would lose it when she had finished the week. For a second or two she thought of Terry Weston and the possibility of his using his influence to find her another situation, but this was hardly thought of before the idea was dismissed.

The police were still in occupation of the house. They had made a methodical search of the study, and the contents of the desk had been gone over by two men practised in this kind of search. There was plenty of work for her to do: arranging, sorting and extracting papers. For two hours she was with the police sergeant who was in charge of the work, explaining the importance of various documents.

Danes brought her some tea. He had had an exciting morning.

“About that will, miss, that we signed. The police have been trying to get me to say what was in it.”

“Well, you didn’t know, Danes,” she smiled, “so you couldn’t very well tell them.”

Danes was doubtful whether he might not have offered more information than he had. “It’s a funny thing, miss, that Mr. Decadon locked the drawer when he put the will away – you remember? He sent for us again because he’d left you some money in it and it wasn’t legal. Well, we got the cook to come up and witness his signature. He didn’t exactly sign, but he ran a pen over his name and said that legally that was the same thing. He locked the drawer and put the key in his pocket, yet when that detective started searching the drawer was unlocked. That’s a mystery to me.”

“It isn’t much of a mystery, Danes,” she said good-humouredly. “Poor Mr. Decadon may have taken the will out of the drawer and put it somewhere else.”

“That’s what I told Mr. Tanner, miss,” said Danes. “He’s been asking me a lot of questions too – he just telephoned down to ask if you were in, and…”

The door opened at that moment: it was Eddie Tanner. He greeted the girl with his quiet smile and waited till the footman had left.

“You had a very unpleasant experience last night, they tell me,” he said. “I’m sorry. I wonder if you’d mind telling me what happened?”

She told her story, which seemed less exciting to her than it had sounded when Terry Weston was her audience.

“Well, nothing happened to you – that’s good,” he said.

She thought he was not particularly enthusiastic about her own safety.

“About this will. Miss Ranger – the one you signed. I suppose you didn’t see anything that was in it…or to whom the money was left?”

She shook her head.. “It may have been left to you.”

“I shouldn’t think that was very likely. My uncle really didn’t like me – and I didn’t really like my uncle. Have you seen Captain Allerman?”

The name seemed familiar, but she; could not recall ever having met that officer.

“He’s an American policeman – Chicago,” he said. “A very brilliant man, but occasionally he indulges in fantastic theories. One of his theories is that I killed my uncle.”

He opened the door leading into the library, saw the men engaged and closed the door again.

“They’re doing some high-class searching. I wonder if they’ll find the will? I suppose it was a will. It might have been some other document?” he added inquiringly.

He went to the door and stood there, leaning his head against the broad edge of it. “By the way, I shall want you to stay on and deal with my uncle’s papers and books – they’ll require cataloguing. The job will last six months, and at the end of that time I will find something for you.”

He looked at her for a long time without speaking, and then he said slowly: “If you find that missing document will you oblige me by not reading it, and handing it to me – not to the police? I’ll give you fifty thousand pounds if you do this.” He smiled. “A lot of money, isn’t it? And it would be quite honestly earned.”

She gasped. “But, Mr. Tanner…” she stammered.

“I’m serious. And may I ask you not to repeat this to Mr. Terry Weston? You’re now in my employ – I hope you won’t object to my reminding you – and I’m sure I can count on your loyalty.”

He went out, pulling the door to noiselessly.

She sat for a long time, looking at the door blankly. He had meant it…fifty thousand pounds! Then suddenly she remembered something; it was extraordinary that she had not thought of this before. She rang the bell and Danes came in.

“What time did you clear the post-box last night?” she asked.

He thought for a second. “About half-past seven, miss.”

There was only one post-box, a large mahogany receptacle that stood on a table just inside the library. All letters except those sent by Eddie Tanner were placed in that box before they were despatched.

“Mr. Decadon rang for me – he just pointed to the box and I took the letters out.”

“How many were there?” she asked.

He was not sure; he thought about six. She went over in her mind quickly the correspondence for which she had been responsible.

“There was one long envelope, and the rest were just ordinary…”

“One long envelope?” she said quickly. “Was it in handwriting or typewritten?”

“In handwriting, miss. It was in Mr. Decadon’s hand. I know because the ink was still wet and I smudged it a bit with my thumb.”

“Do you remember the address to which it was sent?”

Danes put his hand to his forehead and thought hard.

“It was written on the top, miss: ‘Personal attention of Mr. Jerrington. Private and confidential.’ That’s right, miss. I don’t remember the address, though.”

The mystery was a mystery no longer, “Will you ask Mr. Tanner to come to me if he is in the house” she said.

Ed Tanner was with her in a minute. “Well?” he asked. “Is it about the will?”

For the first time since she had known him he displayed some kind of emotion.

“Yes, I think I know what happened to it. Mr. Decadon must have posted it.”

“Posted it?”

“The box was cleared at half-past seven, and Danes said he saw a long envelope which had recently been addressed in Mr. Decadon’s writing. It was marked: “For Mr. Jerrington” of Jerrington, Sanders & Graves, Mr. Decadon’s lawyers.”

“Oh, yes?” He stood for a few seconds fingering his chin, his eyes downcast. “Mr. Jerrington. I know him, naturally. Thank you, Miss Ranger.”

She wondered afterwards whether she should not have informed the police, in spite of his warning, and she called up Scotland Yard, but Terry Weston was out.

Mr. George Jerrington, the eminent head of a famous legal firm, was often described by his associates as being a little inhuman. He was sufficiently human, however, to develop a peculiar appendix, and a week before the murder he had gone into a nursing home and had parted with that troublesome and unnecessary thing, with the assistance of the most expensive surgeon in London.

That day he was near enough to convalescence to deal with his personal correspondence, and a telephone message was sent to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, to his head clerk, requesting that the most urgent of the letters should be sent to him.

“You’d better take them yourself,” said Mr. Jerrington’s partner to the clerk. “Who was that in your office half an hour ago?”

“Mr. Decadon’s nephew, sir – Mr. Edwin Tanner.”

“Oh, yes,” said the partner. “A fortunate young man. Decadon died intestate, I understand?”

“I believe so, sir.”

“What did he want – Mr. Tanner?”

“I think it was in connection with the estate. I asked him if I he’d see you, but when I told him that Mr. Jerrington was ill he said he would wait. He said he’d sent Mr. Jerrington an urgent personal letter, and I told him Mr. Jerrington would probably attend to that today. I have several such letters to take to him.”

The nursing home was at Putney. The clerk, whose name was Smethwick Gould, travelled by bus to the foot of Putney Hill and walked the rest of the way. It was nearly six o’clock, and ordinarily it would have been quite light, but heavy clouds were coming up from the south-west and there was a smell of rain in the air. Most of the cars which passed him had their headlights on.

He had reached the top of the hill and was turning left towards the houses which face Putney Common when a car came abreast of him and a man jumped out. “Are you from Jerrington’s?” he said.

Smethwick Gould said that the man spoke with a slightly foreign accent. He wore a big, yellow waterproof coat, the high collar of which reached above the tip of his nose.

“Yes, I’m from Jerrington’s,” said the clerk.

“Then I’ll take that bag from you.”

And then Smethwick Gould saw that in the man’s hand was an automatic. He stated afterwards that he made a desperate struggle, but the balance of probability is that he handed over the bag without protest. The man in the raincoat jumped into the car and it drove off. With great presence of mind, Gould realised that he had forgotten to note the number of the car. He realised this the moment the number was invisible, but in all probability he would not have been greatly assisted, for a car was afterwards found abandoned on Barnes Common which was proved to have been stolen from Grosvenor Square.

The report of the loss went straight through to Scotland Yard, but did not come to Terry. He was just going out to superintend the Salaman case, and to coach that young man in his conduct, when Leslie phoned through to him and told him what had happened that afternoon.

“I’ve got a guilty feeling that I should have rung you before.”

“Good Lord! That’s news!” said Terry. “I’ll ring through to Jerrington’s right away.”

But Messrs. Jerrington were precise people who closed their offices at five o’clock, and he had no satisfaction from them. It was not until he had smuggled himself into Salaman’s handsome house that the report of the robbery reached him. He was not particularly interested until he learned that the victim was Mr. Jerrington’s head clerk, and then he swore softly to himself, realising what had happened. “Tell me quickly, exactly what happened?”

“I’ve got the report here, sir,” said the officer at the other end of the wire. “Mr. Jerrington has been in a nursing home. He’s been operated on for appendicitis, and has seen none of his personal correspondence. As they knew he was making satisfactory progress, letters weren’t opened but were kept for him until he was ready to deal with them. This morning they phoned through from the nursing home asking somebody to take out the personal letters, and Mr. Smethwick Gould went out with them. He carried them in a briefcase…”

“And he was held up and robbed on the way,” said Terry. “Quick work! All right. Have all the facts ready for me when I get back to the Yard, and tell this Smethwick person that I would like to see him.” He was hardly off the line before the phone rang again.

They were in Salaman’s beautiful drawing-room. The ceiling was black, the curtains purple, the carpet a dead white. There were green candles in old gold sconces, and large divans. Even the telephone had been specially designed to match the apartment.

Terry did not like the house and he did not like the slim, sallow owner; and liked less the faint scent of incense which hung about the room.

He motioned to Salaman, who took up the phone and lisped an inquiry. Terry waited, listening.

“Yes, I’ve put the candle in the drawing-room window. You saw it. Where am I to meet you?”

By arrangement, he was repeating every word of the man who was phoning.

“At the top of Park Lane, on the park side. Twenty-five paces from the Marble Arch corner. Yes, I understand. A man will come along wearing a red flower, and I’m to give him the package. Certainly…not at all.”

He replaced the receiver and smiled fatuously.

“We’ve got him!” he said.

Terry did not echo his enthusiasm.

The police had gone when Leslie reached Berkeley Square the next morning, and she was somewhat relieved. She was very uncomfortable, working under their eyes, never knowing at what moment they would come in and fire off some question which, if not embarrassing, was at least difficult to answer.

All the papers that had been taken from the old man’s desk had to be filed or destroyed. She had been working half an hour, when Eddie came in, his cool and imperturbable self.

“No luck, I suppose?”

“I’m sure it went to Mr. Jerrington, if you’re talking about the will,” she said. “Did you get on to him?”

He nodded. “Yes, I called, but Mr. Jerrington is in a nursing home with appendicitis. Apparently all his private papers were stolen yesterday by some hold-up man who robbed his clerk in broad daylight. I read it in the paper.”

“That’s terribly unfortunate,” she said.

“Isn’t it?” said he, with that inscrutable smile of his. “This country is becoming so lawless, so unlike the old England I used to know.” He looked round. “I think that’s a mutual friend of ours, Mr. Terry Weston.”

His sharp ears had heard the bell, and he went to the door, intercepting Danes.

“If that’s Mr. Weston, show him in here, please. He phoned to say that he was coming,” he told the girl. “I hope he isn’t being infected with Captain Allerman’s suspicion! Good morning, Inspector.”

“Good morning.”

Terry was bright, but it was a hard brightness, and Leslie was not quite sure that she liked him that way. He was kindly enough to her, and offered her his hand in greeting – a formality he had omitted in dealing with Eddie Tanner.

“We were just discussing the robbery of Mr. Jerrington’s private papers,” said Eddie.

“I wanted to discuss that too.” Terry looked at him. “Rather an extraordinary happening, in all the circumstances.”

Eddie Tanner ran his hand over his bald forehead and frowned. “I don’t perhaps know all the circumstances, but in any circumstances it was unfortunate.”

“You called at the office in the afternoon?”

Mr. Tanner nodded. “Naturally. Mr. Jerrington is my lawyer – or, at least, he acted for my uncle. There are several matters which have to be straightened up, the most urgent being some interest he has in an oilfield in a town called Tacan, which I believe is in Oklahoma.” He looked at the girl. “Have you heard about that?”

“No, Mr. Tanner, but I knew very little about Mr. Decadon’s private investments.”

“The point is” – he frowned deeply, and this seemed to absorb his attention more than the theft of Mr. Smethwick Gould’s papers – “Tacan – is there such a place?”

“That’s not very important at the moment,” began Terry.

Then he saw the real Eddie Tanner. Two cold eyes stared at him. They held neither resentment nor anger, but there was in them a deadly cold that he had never seen in the eyes of man.

“It’s important to me.”

Leslie was growing uncomfortable in the presence of this unspoken antagonism. “I can easily tell you where Tacan is, Mr. Tanner,” she said. “We have a very good gazetteer.”

She went into the library, ran her fingers along the shelves and pulled out a big book. As she opened it a paper dropped to the floor. She stooped and picked it up; in another second she came running in to them. “Look!” she said. “The will!”

Terry snatched it from her hand. “Where did you find it?” he asked.

“In a book – in the gazetteer I was looking at.”

Terry read quickly. There were half a dozen lines.

“I, Elijah John Decadon, being of sound mind, declare this to be my last will and testament. I leave all of which I die possessed without reservation to Edwin Carl Tanner, the son of my sister, born Elizabeth Decadon, and I hope he will make a good use of his new possessions, a better use than I fear he will make.”

It was signed in his own sprawling hand, and by the side were the names, addresses, and occupations of the three witnesses, one of which signatures was her own, and this had been crossed out and initialled by old Decadon.

Terry folded the paper slowly, his eyes still on Eddie Tanner. “Rather a coincidence Miss Ranger was looking in that identical gazetteer at this identical moment,” he said slowly. “This, I presume, you will want to send to your lawyers – I don’t think you’ll lose it.” He handed the paper to Eddie. “I congratulate you, Mr. Tanner – so it wasn’t necessary to destroy this document after all. It must have been a great surprise to you.”

Tanner did not reply. Danes, who saw him come out of the room, thought he was amused.

There was a consultation that afternoon at Scotland Yard, and everybody was wrong except Jiggs Allerman. He had interjected comments from time to time as the discussion proceeded, and when at the end the Assistant Commissioner had asked him for an opinion.

“You don’t want an opinion, you want approval,” he growled. “I tell you, you people are just crazy. You don’t realise what you’re up against. If you imagine that this crowd is going to be caught tonight, you’ve got another guess coming. If they send anybody to collect this envelope, it’ll be a pigeon anyway, and if it only ends with the pinching of a man who’s earning a dollar for taking a risk he doesn’t understand, I’ll be glad, and so will you.”

There was one man on that board who did not like Jiggs. Detective Inspector Tetley was not particularly popular with anybody, least of all with his peers. He was a man with a remarkably small head and a remarkably generous appreciation of what was in it. Jiggs disliked him the first time he saw him. He hated his little moustache; he disliked his shining hair, and loathed his lack of intelligence.

“What’s your solution?” asked Tetley. “I know you American police are clever fellows and, personally speaking, I’d like to have the benefit of your advice, especially as I’m in charge of the show tonight.”

“My solution is a fairly simple one,” said Jiggs shortly. Take this boy Salaman and put him in prison – in a cell – anywhere these fellows can’t get him. If you do that you’ll break the jinx. They depend entirely on quick results. If you can hold ’em off Salaman for two or three weeks, they’re sunk!”

“You’re talking as though this fellow’s going to be killed!” said Tetley scornfully. “I’ll have twenty officers round him.”

“Tell ’em not to get too close,” said Jiggs.

Tetley had been given charge of the local arrangements. The trap had been staged in his division, and as the hour approached quite a respectable number of loafers began to appear on the sidewalk. They were working men, city clerks, business men.

“Artistically they’re wonderful,” said Terry, who inspected them in the station yard before they went out. “But you men have got to realise you may be in a pretty tight corner. You’ve been chosen because you understand the use of fire-arms, and because you’re single men. Whatever happens, you’re not to lose your heads. The moment this man approaches Salaman you’re to close on him. There’ll be a squad car waiting, with four officers in attendance, and you’ll just turn him over to them and your work will be finished. If there’s any shooting you’ll shoot to kill – this is no wrist-slapping expedition.”

He waited on the opposite corner of Park Lane. At three minutes before the hour Salaman arrived in his chauffeur-driven car and stepped down on to the sidewalk. Except for the detectives, there were very few people about, for the point chosen was well away from the bus stop.

Standing reading a newspaper on the kerb, Terry watched.

“Here comes the stool,” said Jiggs suddenly.

A middle-aged man, wearing a flaming flower in his buttonhole, was walking from the direction of Piccadilly. Terry saw him stop and look at his watch and then go on. He walked a short way past the spot where he had to meet Salaman, then he turned back and came to a halt within a foot of the position which had been described over the telephone. Salaman had seen him and strolled down to meet him. They saw the man touch his hat and ask Salaman a question, and the young man took an envelope from his pocket and handed it to the messenger. As he did so, the detectives closed. They were within a foot of their terrified prisoner, when the staccato crash of a machine-gun came from somewhere overhead. The little man with the flower in his coat and Salaman went down together. A detective drooped and sank by the railings, and a second a doubled up and fell with his head in the roadway.

“In that block of flats!” yelled Jiggs.

The entrance to the flats was behind them. The elevator door was open.

“Upstairs, quick! We’re police officers.”

The lift shot up, and even in the brief space of time it took to go from the ground floor to the fourth Terry learned the names of the occupants.

“One empty flat? That’s the place. Have you a pass-key?”

By the greatest good fortune he had. But there was no need for a key: the door of the flat was wide open, and even as the men ran into the room they could smell the acrid scent of exploded cordite.

Jiggs ran into the front room. The window was wide open. The room was empty, except for a chair drawn up near the window-sill and the small machine- gun that lay on the floor.

“First blood to green,” said Jiggs between his teeth. “I wonder how many of those poor coppers are killed. It doesn’t matter about Salaman. I just don’t like people who have black ceilings.”

Terry went for the liftman, who was also the assistant caretaker. He had admitted nobody to the empty flat, and was quite ignorant of the fact that there was anybody in the building. It was easy, he said, to get an order to view, and in the course of the last two or three days there had been several parties who had made an inspection of the apartment.

There was the usual fire-escape; it was at the end of a short passage leading from the main corridor.

“That’s the way they went,” said Terry, looking down.

Looking from the window of the flat, he saw a huge crowd surrounding the dead and the dying men, and as he looked an ambulance came up, followed immediately by another. Police whistles were blowing and men in uniform were coming from all directions, while from nowhere had appeared two mounted policemen who were peeling the edge of the crowd.

He sent a man in search of Tetley, and the inspector came, awhile of face and shaking. “That young man’s killed, and so is the fellow with the flower, and one of my best sergeants. I had a narrow escape myself.”

“You had a narrow escape,” said Jiggs, “because you weren’t on that side of the road. What made you stay over our side?”

Tetley shot a malevolent look at him. “I was just going over…” he began.

“About two minutes too late,” said Jiggs. “What made you stay over on our side? I’d like to know that, Mr. Tetley.”

The man turned on him in a fury which was half panic. “Perhaps if you ask the Commissioner tomorrow he’ll tell you!” he shouted.

The last of the ambulances had moved away, the crowd was being skilfully dispersed, and already road-sweepers were working at the mess that the shooting had left on the sidewalk.

“This is going to put the cat amongst the pigeons,” said Jiggs. “Incidentally, it’s going to make London sit up and take notice, and I’m rather wondering how they’ll take it.”

Terry was silent as they drove back to Scotland Yard in a police car. He was feeling bitterly his own responsibility, though it was not entirely due to his advice or judgment that Salaman had been allowed to walk blindly into a trap that had been set probably since the early morning.

The machine-gun yielded no clue. It was of American make, and of the type which, Jiggs said, was most frequently used by the gangsters of his city.

“That’s one to the green,” said Jiggs again, “and now it will be the blue’s turn. The only hope is that these two bands of brigands won’t be satisfied to sit quietly and share the loot.”

“By ‘the green’ you mean the last set of notices, the one Salaman had: there are two gangs working – you’re sure of that?”

“Absolutely sure,” said Jiggs. “The blue caught old Decadon. The green are the smarter crowd, I think. It’s going to be very interesting to see how it all works out.” He paused for a moment. “And I hope we’ll live to see it!”

A more exhaustive examination of the officials connected with the building brought no result. The empty flat was in the hands of two or three agents; it was the property of a stockbroker who had moved to other premises. None of the estate agents had given the key to a likely tenant, but three of them had within the past two days personally conducted likely tenants through the empty apartment. The last of these, a man and a woman, had inspected the flat early on the morning of the outrage.

“And while they were going through the rooms,” said Jiggs, “the front door would be open and anybody could come in.”

The hall porter remembered ‘a dark-looking man,’ carrying a heavy suitcase, which he said had to be personally delivered to a tenant on the floor whence the shots were fired. He had gone up in the elevator, but the lift attendant did not remember his coming down again. It was exactly at the hour when the prospective tenant was making his inspection.

“That’s the explanation,” Jiggs nodded. “It was easy to get up and down the stairs when the elevator was working and miss seeing the attendant. Probably two of them were in the flat; one was certainly there before the people who were looking the flat over had left the premises.”

All London was scoured that night, and particularly that section of London where the alien had his quarters. Fire-arms experts and ballistic authorities examined the machine-gun. Terry Weston, in the course of an inspection of the murder scene, discovered what had been obvious, yet had been missed – that two of the park railings had been neatly painted white for a depth of about four inches from the cross-bar.

“I didn’t notice it either,” said Jiggs, “and that’s the one thing I should have looked for – the choppers had to have a target to make absolutely sure. Those marks on the rails gave them the distance and the direction without fail. Lord! I was mad not to have seen that when we were waiting for Salaman to come along.”

Scotland Yard waited in some trepidation for its Press, and there was relief in high quarters when Fleet Street, with singular unanimity, agreed that it was not the moment to blame Scotland Yard, but to devise methods for preventing a recurrence of the outrage. Said the Megaphone:

“We do not yet know the full particulars of what preliminary precautions the police took, and what steps were taken to minimise the danger to this unfortunate gentleman. Until we know this it would be unfair to offer any criticism of Scotland Yard and its system. Neither Scotland Yard nor the public could possibly expect an outrage of this character, committed with cold-blooded ferocity and the reckless employment of machine-guns.”

It was generally believed at the time that there were two machine-guns employed, and indeed an erroneous statement to this effect had gone out to the Press.

Early the next morning Terry had a phone message from the last person in the world he expected to hear from. “It’s Eddie Tanner speaking. I wonder if you could find time to come round and see me? It’s on a purely personal matter, and I’d come to Scotland Yard, but I don’t think it’s particularly advisable at the moment.”

When Terry arrived he found the young man sitting at the very desk where, forty-eight hours before, his uncle had sat, and at which he had been murdered in cold blood. He was smoking a cigarette, and before him was a newspaper.

“Bad business, this,” he said, tapping the black headlines with his finger. “You must be having a pretty lively time at Scotland Yard.”

Terry was not favourably disposed towards him, but even now could not believe that this man had deliberately shot to death a harmless old man, cold- bloodedly and without compunction. “Do you want to talk about this?” he asked.

“No, it’s rather out of my line.” Eddie pushed the paper aside. “Miss Ranger will be here in half an hour, and I intend dismissing her.”

He waited, but Terry made no comment.

“I’ve been thinking the matter over, and I’ve decided that the situation is a little dangerous for her. Within an hour or two of my uncle being killed she was picked up by a gang, who are probably the murderers, and she went through an experience which must have terrified her. Evidently the people who are responsible for this murder” – he tapped the paper again – “aren’t very fond of me, and I’m very anxious that her experience shouldn’t be repeated. You’re a friend of hers – at least, you know her – and I’m anxious to get you to help me.”

“In what way?”

Eddie swung round in his swivel chair so that his profile was to Terry Weston. He dropped the end of his cigarette into a water-filled vase and lit another.

“That young lady lives in an out-of-the-way place: rather cheap room, no telephone – a particularly dangerous situation, if these birds still think she can supply them with hot news. I want Miss Ranger to take a flat in the West End, right in the very centre and in a good-class neighbourhood. It’s rather a delicate matter to suggest to her, because I’m willing to pay the rent of that flat and naturally, being a charming young lady, she’ll kick at the idea. I’m not only willing to pay the rent, but I’ll furnish the flat.”

“Why?” asked Terry.

The other shrugged.

“It’s a small price for a large peace of mind,” he smiled. “In other words, I don’t want this lady on my mind.”

“That’s a very generous offer,” said Terry, “and I quite see your point of view, although you may have another one at the back of your mind which you haven’t given me.”

Still smiling, Edwin Tanner shook his head. “I have no arriere pensee. I’m telling you just how I feel. I like this young lady – which doesn’t mean that I’m in love with her, or that I should like to be any better acquainted than I am. She’s one of the few women I’ve met in this world whom I would trust, in spite of the fact that she notified you of something which I asked her not to communicate to the police. But I think I understand that. The circumstances were unusual. Anyhow I want, as far as possible, to protect her from her accidental association with me. If you think there’s anything behind my very simple suggestion, I can’t help it.”

“What do you want me to do?” asked Terry.

“Merely to persuade her to accept my suggestion.”

“I have no influence with Miss Ranger,” said Terry, and again came that quick smile of Eddie’s.

“I think you have a greater influence than you imagine and, if this is the case, will you help me?”

“I’ll have to think about it,” said Terry.

When Leslie arrived, a quarter of an hour later, she found Eddie Tanner sitting on her desk.

“No work today. Miss Ranger.” He was almost gay. “You’re pleasantly fired.”

She looked at him in consternation. “Do you mean you don’t want me any more?”

“I mean that there’s no more work to do. There’s plenty of work,” he said, “but I’ve decided that it’s rather dangerous for you to be in my employ any longer.”

He told her practically what he had told Terry.

“I’ve had Terry Weston here this morning,” he explained quite frankly, “and I’ve asked him to help me by adding his influence to mine.”

“But I couldn’t possibly accept money for…”

Eddie nodded. “I see your point of view, and in fact I’ve anticipated it. I’m greatly obliged to you that you’re not furious with me. But that’s exactly how the matter stands. Miss Ranger, and you’d be taking a great load off my mind if you’d see my point of view. I owe you fifty thousand pounds…”

“You owe me fifty thousand pounds?” she gasped.

She had forgotten a promise which she had regarded at the time as a piece of extravagance, not to be seriously considered.

He nodded. “I haven’t fifty thousand pounds to give you at the moment, because it will be some considerable time before my uncle’s fortune passes into my hands. But I haven’t forgotten.”

“Mr. Tanner” – she stood squarely before him – ”you know exactly what Mr. Weston thinks, and I’m afraid it’s what I think – that in some way you secured possession of that will and that you put it in the gazetteer for me to find. As I believe; you found it before I did, that absolves you…”

“It does nothing of the kind,” he interrupted, “even supposing Inspector Weston’s fantastic theory were well founded. In any circumstances I’m the executor of my uncle’s estate, and he left you a thousand pounds, which I shall give to you today. But I want you to let me add to that the service I suggest.”

She shook her head.

“I’d even forgotten about the thousand pounds,” she said with a faint smile. “That will be ample for me. I promise you this, Mr. Tanner, that I will move to a more central position. In fact, I’d already decided to do that. I have some of my mother’s furniture stored, and I shall be able to make myself a comfortable home. I’m very grateful to you all the same,” she nodded. “I didn’t somehow think it was going to be very easy, and I doubt whether even the influence of Mr. Terry Weston would make me change my mind.”

“I respect you for it,” said Eddie curtly.

He paid her her salary and that for another week in lieu of notice, with punctilious exactness, and half an hour later she was in her little room, packing in preparation for the move which she had long since regarded as inevitable.

She would not be sorry to leave behind that dreary little home of hers. It was a lonely place and when she returned at night she would sometimes walk for a hundred yards without seeing a soul.

“I shall be sorry to lose you, miss,” said the landlady. Yet apparently mingled in her sorrow was a certain satisfaction which made it possible for her to be sprightly, even in the moment of her misfortune – if misfortune it was to lose a single young lady who very rarely had a meal in the house. “The truth is, I’ve let one room on your floor and I could have let yours. They’re coming about it tonight. As a matter of fact, miss, I was going to ask you whether you minded moving upstairs. They’re two nice young foreign gentlemen who’re studying at the University.”

Just about that time quite a number of young Europeans ‘studying at the University’ were seeking lodgings in the West End.

It was a relief to Leslie to know that her departure would not at any rate bring any gloom to a woman who had always been kindly, if sometimes a little tiresome.

With all the morning before her, she intended to do a little shopping, lunch in the West End, and then go out to the repository where her mother’s furniture had been stored since that dreadful day three years before when Leslie had had to face the world alone.

She had been guided by a fussy relative who always appeared on such occasions, and who had induced her to store the goods in a pet repository of his own situated in one of the most inaccessible spots. Leslie did not welcome the prospect of a visit to Rotherhithe. She would, she decided, do the unpleasant task first and leave the shopping, and maybe dinner, till that was completed. In the circumstances she decided on a taxi.

She dived out of the traffic of London Bridge, down the slope into Tooley Street, and the drabness of Rotherhithe came out to meet her. She was not quite sure where the repository was, and stopped the cab to ask a policeman.

“Zaymen’s Repository, miss?”

He gave elaborate directions, in which everything seemed to be on the left and nothing on the right.

“You going to claim your property? You’re just about in time. They’ve been advertising for a week. Old Zaymen’s been dead two years; young Zaymen…” He lifted his eyes and shrugged his shoulders.

Leslie supposed that young Mr. Zaymen was not all he might be, and began to fear for her furniture. “Some say they’ve gone broke,” said the policeman, “some say they’re just selling out, but whichever way it is it can’t be right.”

She excused herself from his philosophy and directed the taxi onward, and after a lot of searching they came to the repository, which was not on the roadside, as she had expected, but through a labyrinth of small lanes, down one more dirty than any, past walls which seemed to exist for the purpose of giving a resting-place to rusting iron, and eventually they came to a stark-looking warehouse which she dimly remembered having seen before, though in point of fact she had never been in the neighbourhood until that moment.

There was a certain amount of activity. Men were going in and out; there was an uncleanly-looking clerk sitting behind a glass-covered partition, and to him she addressed her request for information, producing the receipt for the furniture and a smaller receipt for the money she had paid from time to time in Zaymen’s London office.

The clerk looked at them, scowled at them, held them up to the light, brought them close to his eyes and far away from him.

“You’re just in time, young lady. That deposit was going to be sold off tomorrow.”

“You’d have been sold off the next day,” said Leslie, with spirit.

She was handed over to the care of a young clerk who was beautifully tailored and whose hair was glossy and perfectly brushed. He was very young, very important, and spoke continuously of ‘we,’ and she presumed he was the younger Zaymen until he admitted he only had a ‘position’ with the firm. After a while he came down to earth and was quite agreeable as he showed her over the floor and when she had identified her furniture he summoned white-aproned men to remove it in a truck which providentially was there at the moment. “It’s a shame” – he almost said ‘shime’ but corrected himself – “Zaymen’s busting up like this, but I suppose they couldn’t refuse the offer. It’s one of the soundest warehouses on the: river, with a wharf in front, hauling gear, wood-panel walls, fireproofed throughout…”

“In fact a very good warehouse,” said Leslie, a little amused.

“It’s young Mr. Zaymen.” He shook his head and heaved a sigh.

“Is it women or drink?” asked Leslie, and he was rather shocked. Apparently Mr. Zaymen was a gambler. “He’s gambled away the old family warehouse with wharfage and haulage in good condition.”

“I agree with you it’s a shame.”

He became more and more gallant. She felt that at any moment he might take off his coat and lay it over a puddle, if there was a puddle, that her feet should not be soiled.

“When I saw you first,” he admitted at parting – he gave her a very moist hand – “I thought you were a bit stuck up.”

“When I saw you first,” she said very gravely, “I thought you were a bit stuck down. And now we’re both wrong.”

She went round to the wharf, saw her furniture being loaded on to a van, and gave the address to which it should be sent. She was taking rather a wild risk, for the little flat she had applied for had not yet been assigned to her. Tipping the workmen, she was going on, when she heard two men talking. They were American and, as she was passing, she heard the voice of the second man.

“Say, listen, you couldn’t compare this with the Hudson. Why, right up by the palisades it’s more’n six times as wide.”

Her heart leapt almost into her mouth. She did not forget voices, and the voice she heard was that of the man who had told her to get into the car that night when she was wanted at Scotland Yard.

He spoke again – some triviality about the colour of the river – and she was sure. She looked round carefully for she did not want them to recognise her. There were two men; they both wore untidy-looking pullovers; both were dressed in blue dungarees, over which had been pulled heavy gum-boots, knee high.

“Well, boy,” said the voice, “let’s go and shoot the works, and after we’re through you can take Jane and I’ll take Christabel and we’ll go to the movies.”

The second man laughed at this, a short, hard laugh that finished as abruptly as it had begun. They were both of moderate height, she noticed, both lithe, unusual-looking men. They lurched along past the workmen who were loading her furniture, and presently disappeared behind the van. She went back to her taxi, a little uncertain as to what she should do. Though she was confident in her mind that this was the man who had led her into danger that night, she could not be sure. She had once heard an American woman say that all English voices sounded alike, but that she could pick out one voice in a thousand when Americans were speaking. It seemed to Leslie that the reverse held now. All American voices did seem alike, and – only the English had a subtle difference.

Who was Jane, and who was Christabel, she wondered as she got into the cab and went bumping over the uneven surface of the lane back to the main road. Some private and possibly ribald jest of their own that did not bear investigating, she decided.

They had reached the main road, and the taxi driver was waiting for a large lorry to pass, when she heard the chug-chug of a motorcycle, and the rider came immediately abreast of the window. He grabbed the roof of the taxi with his hand and looked in. It was the man she had heard speaking. He gave her a long, swift scrutiny, and she returned his stare. “What do you want?” she asked.

He muttered something, and dropped behind as the taxi moved forward.

There was a possible explanation for his conduct. He might have heard the warehousemen mention her name as her furniture was being loaded and come after her to make sure. But if that were so, there could be no question about the accuracy of her recognition. It was the man who had come to her house the night Mr. Decadon was killed. What was he doing there? Perhaps he was a sailor; he was dressed in the clothes she had seen men wear on tramp steamers, and just at that period the Pool was full of shipping. She wondered if she should call up Terry…she was always thinking of excuses for calling up Terry…

The cab turned down Cannon Street. Near to the junction of Queen Victoria Street she was held up in a block of traffic. Then, to her amazement, she heard her name called. She looked round. A man was standing by the open window, a small-faced man with a black moustache.

He lifted his hat with elaborate politeness.

“You don’t know me, young lady, but I know you – Inspector Tetley from Scotland Yard…a friend of Mr. Terry Weston’s,” he smirked.

Then, without waiting for her to speak: “What have you been doing in this part of the world?”

“I’ve been down to see my furniture loaded. It was in a repository,” she said.

She felt it was not the moment to challenge his right to speak to her without an introduction, or to stand on ceremony of any kind. In a few moments the block would break and her car would move on.

“Where was that, now?” asked Mr. Tetley. “Rotherhithe eh?” when she told him. “That’s a nasty place! Didn’t see anybody you knew, did you? There’s some bad characters around there.”

She shook her head. “No, I didn’t see anybody I knew. I hardly expected to.”

“I don’t know,” he said, still watching her with his ferret eyes. “There’s something queer about Rotherhithe: you’re always meeting people you’ve met before – it’s almost a saying.”

“It isn’t my saying,” she said, and at that moment the taxi moved on.

She dimly remembered now having seen the man. He had come to the house once, after Mr. Decadon’s death. How odd of him to accost her in the street! She wondered if she would tell Terry…

She heaved a long, impatient sigh. “You’re a fool, Leslie Ranger. Keep your mind off policemen.”

The taxi set her down in Cavendish Square and she got out. The driver, after the manner of his kind, came down to the pavement to stretch his legs.

“Hullo!” he said. “What’s the lark?”

She followed the direction of his eyes. Pasted on the top of the cab was a white circle. When he pulled it off the gum was still wet. He walked round the taxi: there was another white circle behind, and a third on the opposite side.

“They weren’t there when we left Rotherhithe,” he said. “I wonder if that chap on the bicycle…”

For some reason or other which she could not explain, a cold shiver ran down Leslie Ranger’s spine, and for a second she had a panic sense of fear which was inexplicable, and therefore all the more distressing.

When she had successfully negotiated the hire of her flat she was terribly tempted to go into the nearest call box and ring up Terry. There must be some good excuse for ringing him up, and it seemed to her that she had half a dozen.

Chapter IV

Terry hurried back to Scotland Yard for the secret conference which was to be held that morning. At that time the Commissioner was Sir Jonathan Goussie, a military man who all his life had lived according to regulations and had succeeded in reaching the highest rank by the careful avoidance or delegation of responsibility. He was a fussy, nervous man, in terror of Press criticism, and just now he had completely lost his head. It was a shocking discovery to his executive that this suave, easy-going, and rather amusing gentleman could so lose his balance and nerve that he was almost incapable of leadership at a critical moment.

He sat at the end of the long table and glowered left and right.

“This is a fine state of affairs!” There was agitation in his voice. “The finest police force in the world, baffled and beaten by a gang of murdering ruffians…”

“Well, sir, what are we going to do about it?”

It was Wembury, Assistant Commissioner, brisk, brusque, who broke in upon the tirade.

“I’m not suggesting that every precaution wasn’t taken,” said the Commissioner. “Tetley, I’m sure, did everything that ingenuity could suggest.”

“I did my best,” said Tetley.

He was a favourite with the old man and, though he had no right to be in the meeting of the inner council, in the circumstances Wembury had called him.

“I don’t want to make any complaint,” he went on, “but there was a lot of interference which there shouldn’t have been.” He glanced malevolently at Jiggs. “American methods are all very well in their way, but you can’t expect American police officers to understand the routine of work in London.”

“What interference?” demanded Terry wrathfully. “He gave you every assistance…”

“We don’t want any wrangling,” said Sir Jonathan testily. “The point is, we’ve got to find some method by which a recurrence of this ghastly affair can be avoided, and I think Inspector Tetley’s suggestion is an excellent one.”

Terry looked at Wembury. Wembury looked at him. It was the first news they had had that a system had been devised. “I don’t mind any suggestions,” said Wembury gruffly, “but I hardly like to have them sprung on me at a meeting. What is Tetley’s idea?”

“Mr. Tetley’s idea,” said Sir Jonathan, “is that we should issue a notice giving an enormous reward for information that will lead to the arrest of the murderers, and that the reward should not, as is usually the case, be confined to people outside the police force.”

“That seems fairly original, sir,” said Wembury coldly, “but I doubt very much if it’s of much value. We shall have to take every case individually and on its merits. Nothing is more certain than that there will be a regular flooding of London with these notices – ‘Pay or be killed’.”

“One has been received this morning,” said Sir Jonathan soberly. “I have it in my pocket.” He searched in his pocket and produced a folded sheet. From where he sat Terry saw that it was printed in blue. “It came to a very dear friend of mine, or rather the nephew of a dear friend of mine, and he particularly requested that I should make no announcement whatever to my colleagues, and certainly not to the public, as to who he was.”

Terry stared at the old chief, amazed. “Do you mean to say that you’re not telling us, sir?”

“I mean to say that I’m not telling you or anybody else,” said Sir Jonathan stiffly. “I’ve practically pledged my word of honour on the telephone that I wouldn’t reveal the name of the recipient.”

Jiggs sniffed. “Will they keep his name secret at the inquest?” he asked, and Sir Jonathan glowered at him.

“There will be no inquest, sir,” he rasped. “If the police do their duty, and if our newly-found allies really are the clever people they’re supposed to be…”

“I’m all that,” interrupted Jiggs.

Wembury, white with anger, broke in.

“I don’t think you quite realise what you’re saying, sir. This man, whoever he is, will have to have some form of protection, and we can’t protect him unless we know who he is. I must insist on knowing his name and where he lives.”

The old soldier sat bolt upright, and in his eyes was a court martial and a firing squad.

“No person insists when I’m in the saddle, sir,” he said, and Terry groaned inwardly, for he knew that when Sir Jonathan talked about being ‘in the saddle’ the situation was hopeless. The conference broke up soon afterwards, with a mysterious hint from the Commissioner that he intended issuing a statement to the Press.

After the party dispersed there was a private conference in the Assistant Commissioner’s office.

“We’ve got to stop that statement going out to the Press until we’ve seen it,” said Wembury. “The old man has never been particularly clever, but now he’s gone stark, staring mad. I’m going over to the Home Office to see the Home Secretary, and I’m chancing ignominious dismissal from the service for going behind my superior’s back.”

His interview with the Home Secretary, however, did not take place. The Minister of State was not in London, though at the Home Office they had had a telegram from him that he was hurrying back to town.

“Perhaps,” said the permanent under-secretary, “if you saw Sir Jonathan and had a private talk with him…”

“I’d sooner see Balaam’s ass and have a private talk with him,” said the exasperated Assistant Commissioner.

Nevertheless, when he returned to the Yard he sought an interview which, however, was refused.

At four o’clock that day the afternoon newspapers carried the Commissioner’s ‘official statement,’ which he had carefully penned at his club during the lunch-hour. This statement will go down to history as the most extraordinary document that has ever been issued from Scotland Yard. It ran:

“Two desperate crimes, which may or may not have a connection, have been committed in the Metropolitan police area during the past week, and have followed the receipt of threatening communications in which the writer has demanded a large sum of money, failing which the recipient would be killed. There is reason to believe that the killing of Mr. Salaman at Marble Arch was a direct consequence of one of these threats. The writer of the letter has stated that if any communication is made to the police, directly or indirectly, the person who receives the message will be murdered. Despite this threat, the Commissioner of Police earnestly requests any person who receives such a communication, whether accompanied by threats of murder or otherwise, to forward it immediately to Scotland Yard, and to communicate by telephone with the Assistant Commissioner that the letter has been forwarded. If the threatened person desires to remain anonymous his wishes will be respected. It may be perhaps advisable that the police should know his name, his address, and his movements. In a fight against organised crime it necessarily follows that there must be occasions when the threat will be executed, and the Commissioner is not able to guarantee, either on his own behalf, or on behalf of the Metropolitan police, complete immunity to any person who forwards particulars of these communications, but every effort will be made to afford protection to law-abiding citizens.”

It was signed with the Commissioner’s name and all his titles. Jiggs was the first to get a copy of the paper, and he hurried to the Assistant Commissioner’s office and found Terry and the big man in conference.

“Read that.”

Wembury read it through quickly, and his jaw dropped.

“For the love of Mike!” he said softly.

“You know what that means, don’t you?” said Jiggs. “This old boy has told the world that Scotland Yard is unable to protect people whose lives are threatened.”

Wembury snatched up the paper and raced along the corridor to the Commissioner’s room. He was just coming out, and with him was Inspector Tetley.

“Well, well, well?” he asked.

“It isn’t well at all,” said Wembury. “Is this your communication to the Press?”

The old man fixed his glasses deliberately and read the paragraph from end to end while Wembury fretted himself hot with impatience.

“Yes, that is my communication.”

“I’m taking it to the Home Secretary at once,” said Wembury. “You’ve given murder a licence – told these thugs in so many words that they can go right ahead and that we’re not in a position to protect their victims.”

“I wrote that after full consideration…” began Sir Jonathan.

The telephone in his room was ringing.

“Answer that, Mr. Tetley,” he said and, turning to Wembury: “You understand this is a gross act of insubordination on your part, and it’s a matter which must be reported to the highest quarters.”

Tetley appeared in the doorway. “It’s for you, sir.”

The old man went back. His conversation was a short one. Wembury heard him answering, “Yes, sir,” and, “No, sir” and knew he was speaking to the Home Secretary. He started some sort of explanation, which was evidently cut short. When he came out of his room he was very white.

“I’m going to the Home Office,” he said. “The matter had better remain in abeyance until I return.” He never did return. Ten minutes after he was ushered into the room of the Secretary of State he came out again, and the late editions of the newspapers that night carried the bald announcement, without any equivocation, that Sir Jonathan Goussie had been dismissed from his office.

“They didn’t even let him resign,” said Terry.

“Hell! Why should they?” growled Jiggs. “It’s the same thing, ain’t it?”

They were having a late tea in Terry’s office, and the inspector remembered his conversation with Eddie Tanner that morning, and related the interview.

“Maybe he’s genuine,” said Jiggs. “There are funny streaks of generosity in Eddie.”

Terry shook his head. “I couldn’t make myself believe that he killed his uncle in cold blood…” he began.

Jiggs scoffed. “Kill him in cold blood? You don’t understand these fellows, boy!” he said. “That’s just the way they kill. There’s no emotion in it, no hate, no hot blood at all. They treat human beings the same as the stockyard butchers in Chicago treat hogs! Do you hate a fly when you swat it? No, sir! The fact that old man Decadon was his uncle and was old, wouldn’t make any difference to Eddie or to any of that crowd. Killing to them is just brushing your coat or putting your tie straight.” He thought a moment. “Naturally he wants the girl out of the house. All the other servants will go too. His own crowd’s there by now, I’ll bet you. Do you know the names of any of the other servants besides…well, she wasn’t a servant exactly.”

“There’s a boy called Danes, an under footman,” said Terry after a moment’s consideration.

Jiggs reached for the phone and dialled a number. After a while: “I want to talk to Danes, the under-footman – that is Mr. Tanner’s house, isn’t it?”

He listened for a few seconds. “Is that so?” he said at last, and hung up the receiver. “Danes left this afternoon. What did I tell you?” He took a cigar from his waistcoat pocket, bit off the end and lit it.

“You couldn’t expect anything else. Eddie couldn’t have that house run by a bunch of servants he knew nothing about.”

“He’ll have his own crowd in?” suggested Terry.

“Not on your life,” chuckled Jiggs. “That’d be too easy. No, he’ll get a lot of daily folks in – people who sleep home at night. Maybe he’ll have a ‘secretary,’ but if you go to the house and ask for him you’ll find he’s just gone out. He’ll have a couple of workmen fixing bells and things. They’ll be there most of the time, but if you ask for them they’ll not be there – they’ll just have gone out to lunch. You’ll find the only person he hasn’t fired is the cook.”

“Why?” asked Terry.

“Because she’s a daily woman anyway, and lives in the basement and never comes up, and she cooks good stuff. Now, about this young lady you’re in love with…”

“I’m not in love with her at all,” protested Terry loudly.

“Your ears have gone red,” said the calm Jiggs, “which means either that you’re in love or you’re conscious that you’re telling a lie! Anyway, what’s her name? Leslie Ranger. There may be a lot in what Eddie said. They might pick her up any night and find out things that she knows without knowing she knows.”

“If she told them,” said Terry.

Jiggs smiled grimly. “She’d tell ’em all right. You don’t know these guys, Terry! You’ve heard the expression about people stopping at nothing – well, that’s them! You look up any old book on the way mediaeval executioners got people to talk, and that won’t be the half of it. These birds have improved on Nuremburg – especially with a woman. I could tell you stories that’d make your hair pop out of your head, follicles an’ everything! There was a gang in Michigan that was after a member of another gang, and they picked up his girl – a reg’lar redhead and full of fight – and like a fool she said she knew, but she wasn’t going to tell where her John was.”

He took the cigar out of his mouth and looked at it. “Well, maybe I’d better not tell you. Anyway, she told them! They got her John in a Brooklyn speakeasy. The girl was dead when we found her, but there were a lot of signs. They had no feelings against her, you understand – they just wanted to know. And they hadn’t any feelings against the guy they bumped – they just had to kill him, and that’s all there was to it.”

He thought for a moment, and consulted his cigar again. “Pretty girl, too.”

“The one that was killed?” asked Terry.

Jiggs shook his head. “I didn’t see her till after she was dead, and she wasn’t pretty then! No, this Leslie girl. I’ve seen her twice – she’s lovely. Where’s the old boy?”

“The Commissioner? He’s gone home. Wembury’s seen him, and tried to get him to give the name of the man who’s been threatened. All he could find out was that the old man had advised this fellow to keep absolutely quiet and slip away to Scotland tonight.”

Jiggs groaned. “Well, there must have been lots of other letters received by people in London. Have you heard about them?”

Terry shook his head. He was uneasy. “No, we haven’t had one case reported, and I’m a little worried. Orders have been given to all the men on duty – the uniformed policemen, I mean – to report any house that shows a candle tonight.”

Jiggs shook his head. “There’ll be no candle. This is a blue assignment.”

“There may be green as well,” said Terry. “We can’t keep track of the phone calls, but we can watch for the candles.”

Jiggs got up.

“I’ll be changing my hotel from tonight,” he said. “I’m a bit too conspicuous and easy to get at, and if any of these guys have got an idea that I’m being useful to Scotland Yard I shall hear from them! If nobody tries to kill me in the next fortnight I’m going to feel mighty insulted!”

He left Scotland Yard and went on foot down Whitehall to his hotel. His hands were in his coat pockets and the cigar between his teeth and the rakish set of his hat contributed to the picture of a man who found life a very amusing experience. But the hand in each pocket gripped an automatic, and under the brim of the down-turned hat which shaded his eyes was a sliver of mirror.

Whitehall was filled with junior Civil Servants homeward bound. Trafalgar Square a whirling roundabout of traffic. He crossed Whitehall where the Square and that thoroughfare meet, and without any warning of his intention suddenly swung himself on to a westward-bound bus. Five minutes later he passed through the door of his hotel. He had not told Terry that he had already changed his place of residence, though he had notified the telephone exchange at Scotland Yard where he could be found.

He went up to the first floor, where his suite was, unlocked the door and, reaching in his hand, switched on the light. The next second he was lying half-stunned on the floor, covered with plaster and the debris of a smashed party wall. The hotel rocked with the crash of the explosion. When he got painfully to his feet he saw the door hanging on its hinges, and clouds of smoke were coming out of the room.

The right hand which had turned on the switch had escaped miraculously. He examined it carefully: there was a scratch or two, but no serious damage. All the lights in the corridor were out. Indeed, for five minutes the whole hotel was in darkness.

He heard shouts below; the loud gong of the fire-alarm was ringing, and voices were coming to him up the stairs.. He took a flat torch from his hip pocket and sent a ray into the room. It was wrecked. Part of the ceiling had fallen in, the windows had been blown into the street. The wreckage of a table was scattered round the room, and pieces of chairs with torn upholstery lay about the floor. Jiggs stared and blinked.

“Pineapples and everything!” he said. The bomb had been placed on the table, and had been connected with the electric light. If Jiggs had gone into the room before he had turned the switch, he must have been killed.

The clang of fire-engines came to him as he walked back along the littered corridor. At the head of the stairs he met the manager, pale, almost speechless. “It was only a bomb,” said Jiggs. “Go along and see if anybody’s hurt in the other rooms.”

Fortunately at this hour of the day the rooms were empty. His own sitting- room was immediately above an hotel cloakroom, the ceiling of which had been blown in but, except for a slight cut, the attendant had been uninjured.

After the firemen had come and extinguished an unimportant blaze Jiggs inspected his own bedroom. The wall had been breached; a two-foot jagged hole showed where the wardrobe had been.

“I shall have very little to pack,” said Jiggs philosophically.

He tried to phone Scotland Yard, but the whole telephone system of the hotel was out of action.

A huge crowd had collected in front of the building, and crowds at the moment were fairly dangerous. Jiggs went out the back way, found a call box and acquainted Terry.

“Would you like to be host to a homeless American copper, who has one pair of burnt pyjamas and a mangled tooth-brush?”

Terry gave his address. “I’ll come round and pick you up,” he said.

“Take the back way,” warned Jiggs. “There’s a crowd of guns in front.”

Here he may have been exaggerating but, as he told Terry later, one gun in the hands of an expert chopper can be as deadly as fifty.

They drove back to Scotland Yard with such of Jiggs’ luggage as could be retrieved.

“Pineapples, eh?” said Jiggs as they drove along. “I wondered if they’d use ’em.”

“By ‘pineapple’ you mean ‘bomb?’”

“By ‘pineapple’ I mean ‘bomb’,” said Jiggs gravely. “It’s part of the racketeer’s equipment.”

Then suddenly he brightened up. “That’s a compliment, anyway. These birds think I mean something! Who’s in charge?” he asked suddenly.

“Tetley,” said Terry. “The Assistant Commissioner brought him into the Yard for special duty. Tetley’s a pretty shrewd kind of fellow,” he explained, “with a more or less good record. He’s too well off to please me, but he may have got it honestly.”

“Sure he may,” said Jiggs sardonically. “But what he’s got now will be nothing to what he’ll have this time three months – if he gets right away with it, and that’s doubtful.”

Later in the evening fragments of the bomb were brought to Scotland Yard to be examined by the experts.

“Good stuff, well made,” was Jiggs’ verdict. “They’ve got a factory somewhere in London, but the bomb itself was cast in America. I think your chemists will find that when they start analysing it.”

Tetley, who had brought the pieces, made a brief but not particularly illuminating report. Nobody had been seen to enter the room, and three-quarters of an hour before Jiggs return a chambermaid had been in and seen nothing unusual. “Here’s a list of all the guests in the hotel,” said Tetley, and laid a typewritten paper on the table. “You see, sir, I’ve divided them into floors – on Mr. Jiggs’…”

“Captain Allerman,” said Jiggs.

“I beg your pardon. On Captain Allerman’s floor there were Lady Kensil and her maid, Mr. Braydon of Bradford, Mr. Charles Lincoln, the American film actor, and Mr. Walter Harman and family, from Paris.”

Jiggs bent over and looked at the list. “And Mr. John Smith of Leeds,” he said. “You seem to have forgotten him, Inspector.”

Tetley looked round at him. “That’s the list that was given to me.”

“And Mr. John Smith of Leeds,” repeated Jiggs. “I’ve been on the phone to the manager and got the list of the people on my floor, and it included Mr. John Smith.”

“He didn’t tell me,” said Tetley quickly.

“He not only told you” – Jiggs’ tone was deliberate and offensive – “but he also said that he was rather suspicious of Mr. John Smith, who spoke with a curious accent.”

There was a dead silence. “Yes, I remember now,” said Tetley carelessly. “In fact, he talked so much about him that I forgot to put him down.”

He scribbled in the name.

“Did he tell you,” Jiggs went on, “that Mr. John Smith was the only person he hadn’t seen since the explosion, and that when he opened the door of his room he could find no baggage?”

“Did he?” demanded Wembury when Tetley hesitated.

“No, sir,” said the Inspector boldly. “He may have told Captain Allerman that, but he didn’t tell me. As a matter of fact, I haven’t finished my investigations. I thought you wanted the pieces of the bomb over as quickly as you could get them.”

“Go and find John Smith – of Leeds,” said Wembury curtly.

Jiggs waited till the door had closed on the inspector.

“I don’t want to say anything about the investigating methods of Scotland Yard, Chief,” he said, “but it seems to me that that is a piece of information that should have been reported.”

Wembury nodded. “I think so,” he said.

“Did the Commissioner tell you the name of the man who’s been threatened?” asked Terry.

“No – I don’t know why, but he flatly refused. When I say I don’t know why, I’m not quite telling the truth. The old man has got the old Army code, which is a pretty good code in the mess-room, but not so good at Scotland Yard. Apparently he promised this fellow, or his uncle or whoever it was communicating with him, that the name should not be given, and not even the Secretary of State can compel this stubborn old dev – the late Commissioner to give us any information on the subject.”

“That’s tough.” Jiggs shook his head. He looked down at the table thoughtfully.

“Suppose we get somebody under suspicion, what are the rules at Scotland Yard? Do you treat him gently and ask him a few questions, or do you slap his wrist or anything?”

A glint was in Wembury’s eye. “No, we treat them like perfect citizens,” he said, “and if we dare ask them a question or two about their antecedents, somebody gets up in Parliament and that’s the end of the man who asked the question.”

Jiggs nodded slowly. “Is that so? Well, I hope you realise that if you do catch any of this crowd – and you’re pretty sure to – you’re dealing with the toughest bunch of babies that ever shook hands with the yellow jury that acquitted ’em on a murder charge. If that’s the law. Chief, I’m all for breaking it.”

Wembury shook his head.

“I’m afraid you can’t break it here, Jiggs.”

“Maybe I’ll find some place where I can,” said Jiggs, and nobody protested.

He drove home with Terry and was glad to walk into the cosy flat where Terry lived. It was in a block just off the Marylebone Road. Terry kept no staff, except a woman who came in daily to clean for him. Fortunately there was a spare bed made up, for Terry was expecting a visit from an aunt who occasionally stayed with him when she was in London.

“If auntie comes in the middle of the night she’s got to be a loud knocker to wake me,” said Jiggs.

“She won’t. As a matter of fact, I had a telegram from her; today telling me she’s postponed her visit.”

Terry yawned. Neither he nor Jiggs had had two hours of consecutive sleep during the past two days.

“Personally,” said Jiggs, “I don’t believe in sleep. I shut my eyes occasionally as a sort of concession to human practices.”

Yet ten minutes later he was in bed, and was asleep when Terry knocked at his door to ask if he wanted anything.

They both slept heavily, so heavily that the consistent ringing of the telephone failed to waken them for ten minutes. It was Jiggs who heard it first, and by the time he was in the passage Terry was out.

“What time is it?” said Jiggs.

“Half-past two,” said his host.

“Where’s the telephone?”

“In the next room.”

Terry followed him and stood by when Jiggs took up the receiver.

“It’s probably for me,” he said. “I’ve got a few boys looking around on behalf of the Chicago Police Department.” Then “It’s Scotland Yard. All right, I’ll take the message…Yes, Chief Inspector Weston’s here, but it’s Captain Allerman speaking.”

He listened in silence for a long time, then he looked up. “The name of that feller that the Commissioner was so stuffy about is Sir George Gilsant.”

“How do you know?” asked the startled Terry.

“He was picked up by the side of a railway at midnight,” said Jiggs, “in his pyjamas, and chock full of slugs.”

Terry snatched the phone from him.. “That’s all I can tell you, sir,” said the operator. “We got a message in just a few minutes ago from the Hertfordshire police. They found him lying on the bank by the railside. He’d evidently been in bed.”

“Dead?”

“Oh yes, sir. The Hertfordshire police believe he was on the Scottish express. The body was found half an hour after the train passed, by a platelayer.”

“All right,” said Terry after a moment’s pause. “I’ll be down.”

Jiggs squatted down in a chair, his elbows on the table, his head in his hands.

“The old man advised him to go to Scotland, eh?” he said savagely. “He went! Who is Sir George Gilsant?” he asked.

As it happened, Terry was in a position to inform him. Sir George was a very wealthy landowner, who had a big interest in a North Country steel corporation. He himself was of foreign extraction, and had been naturalised a few years previous to the war, when his father had taken out papers. He had a house in Aberdeen.

Jiggs nodded. “He might have been safe if he’d got there,” he said surprisingly. “I think your old man was every kind of a fool, but if you can get any of these threatened men out of London, into the wide open spaces – if you’ll excuse the cinema expression – the gangs aren’t going after them – it’s too dangerous. Open country roads are easy to watch. But if you try to get away from London in a train you’re liable to end in the mortuary. We’ve got to know these fellows – know their names and where they live – the minute the threatening letter reaches them, and then we can save them. When I say we can, I mean we may,” said Jiggs.

He looked at the clock ticking on the mantelpiece. “It’s too late for a morning sensation – or is it?”

Terry shook his head. “No; the last editions go at four o’clock. It’ll be in the morning papers all right.”

He had a bath and dressed, and waited an interminable time till Jiggs was ready.

“You had to wait till a squad car arrived, anyway,” said Jiggs.

“We could have taken a taxi,” said Terry fretfully.

“While you’re talking about taking things, will you take a word of advice, Terry?” Jiggs was very serious. “In no circumstances hire a taxi on the street till this little trouble’s through. And if you don’t follow my advice, maybe you’ll know all about it!”

All Scotland Yard was illuminated as though it were early evening when they reached there. The Assistant Commissioner was in his office, and Terry heard the full story of the murder. It had been compiled by investigators on the spot and by the reports which had been telephoned from Hertford.

Sir George had left his house shortly after ten, accompanied by his valet. He carried two suitcases, and the valet had booked two sleeping- compartments for the ten-thirty to Scotland. They had driven to King’s Cross, arriving there about ten minutes past ten, and Sir George had gone straight to his compartment, and – apparently on the advice of the Commissioner – had locked himself in.

The valet’s compartment was at the farther end of the train. He had waited till the train started, then knocked at the door and had gone in to assist Sir George to retire for the night. During that period the door was locked. He had left his employer at five minutes to eleven and waited until the door was locked after him.

Between Sir George’s sleeping-berth and the next compartment there was a door, which was locked. The next compartment was occupied by an elderly lady, who had booked her compartment in the name of Dearborn. She was apparently an invalid and walked with difficulty and she was attended by a dark and elderly nurse who wore glasses.

After the discovery of the body a telegram had been sent up the line to York, and the station officials and the local police conducted a search of the train. The compartment occupied by the lady was found to be empty. The attendant said that the lady and her nurse had left the train, which had been specially stopped, at Hitchin.

Sir George’s compartment was locked on the inside, and so also was the communicating door. The bed in which the unfortunate baronet had slept bore marks of the tragedy. Pillow, sheets and blankets were soaked with blood. There was blood too, on the window-ledge, but the window itself was closed and the blinds drawn. Also, the report stated, the extra blanket which is carried in the rack had been taken down and covered over the bed, so that at first, when the inspecting officers entered the compartment, they saw no sign of the murder.

The Hitchin railway authorities confirmed the fact that the two women had left the train at that station. A big black car was waiting to receive them. The porter on duty was struck by the fact that neither of them carried luggage.

By the time this information reached Scotland Yard it was too late to establish roadblocks. It was not until the next day that any reliable information came through as to the movements of the black car.

Sir Jonathan Groussie was aroused from his bed in the early-hours of the morning and told of the tragedy. He was shocked beyond measure.

“Yes, that was the gentleman who communicated with me,” he said. “And perhaps…on consideration…it might have been better if I’d broken my word. It was on my advice he went to Scotland…oh, my God! How dreadful!”

They left him, a shattered old man, and came back to Terry’s room as the first light of dawn was showing in the sky.

“Things are certainly moving,” said Jiggs. “I wonder what the rake-off will be today.”

“Do you think they’ve sent to other people?” Jiggs nodded. “And that they’ve paid?”

“Sure they’ve paid,” said Jiggs. “Don’t you see the psychology of it? These guys are not asking for a lot of money. They wanted two thousand from Sir George Gilsant, and he could have paid two thousand pounds without remembering that he ever had it. It isn’t as though they were asking twenty or fifty thousand, or some colossal sum. They’re making reasonable demands – and in two months’ time they’ll make more reasonable demands. Any man they catch for money will be caught again. That’s the art and essence of blackmail. You can always afford to pay once. It’s after you’ve paid about ten times that it becomes monotonous. After this train murder the letters are going out by the hundred.”

“But you don’t suggest,” said Terry hotly, “that Englishmen will submit…”

“Forget all that English stuff, will you?” said Jiggs, scowling at him. “Lose the notion that the English are just godlike supermen that won’t react the same as every other nation reacts. We can sit outside and criticise – say they’re yeller, and that we wouldn’t pay – but our job is to get killed – it isn’t their job. Who was the grandest Englishman that ever lived? Richard Coeur de Lion, wasn’t it? And when that Emperor of Austria, or whatever dump it was, said he’d bump him off unless he paid, didn’t Mr. Lion G. Heart send home and collect all the rates and taxes and babies’ money-boxes and everything to get himself free? Sure he did! People ain’t yeller because they want to live, or else we’re all that colour, boy!”

When Jiggs said he had a few people scouting round for him he spoke no more than the truth. It is true they were not attached, officially or unofficially, to the Chicago Police Department, but they were recruited from a class with which he was very well acquainted. Jiggs’ journey to England had originally been arranged in connection with an international conference of police, to deal with a considerable body of card-sharpers and confidence men which spent its life travelling between the United States and Europe. Jiggs had got in touch with half a dozen right fellows, and was getting useful information from them.

He invited himself to breakfast with one Canary Joe Lieber that morning. Joe lived in good style at a railway station hotel in the Euston Road. It was quiet, a little off the beaten track, and it was the kind of place where he was unlikely to meet anybody with whom he had played cards on his late transatlantic journey.

Lieber was stout, red-faced, slightly bald. He had a sense of humour; but his principal asset lay in the fact that he was well acquainted with the Middle West and its more undesirable citizenry. He looked up as Jiggs walked unannounced into his sitting-room, where he was about to have breakfast.

“Eggs and bacon? That goes for me too, Joe. Anything doing?”

Joe stared at him solemnly. “Seen the morning paper, Jiggs? Put a pineapple on you, didn’t they? Is that the same crowd that bumped off that Sir Somebody?”

Jiggs nodded. “It’s going to be hot for some of us,” he said.

“I guess you’d better count me out as a well of information.”

“Cold feet, Joe?” Jiggs pulled up a chair.

“Why, no, but I’d like ’em to stay warm, Jiggs. I didn’t know the racket was jigging like it is. You’ve got a pretty bad bunch here.”

“Have you seen anybody?” asked Jiggs.

Joe pursed his lips. “Well, I’m not so sure that I want to tell you anything – I never was a stool – but Eddie Tanner’s here, and so is Kerky Smith. You know that, of course?”

Jiggs nodded.

“Any little men?”

“Hick Molasco’s here. His sister’s married to Kerky.”

“She’s got his name anyway,” said Jiggs. “Anybody else?”

Joe leaned back in his chair. “I’m thinking, Jiggs, whether it’s worth while telling you – they’re yeller rats, all of ’em, and I’d sooner see ’em in hell than eat candy. But I’m a married man with a large and hungry family.” He looked round the room. “Just have a peek outside that door, Jiggs.”

A waiter was just coming in in answer to Joe’s bell.

“Order what you want,” said Joe.

When Jiggs had closed the door on the waiter:

“I don’t like them Sicilian-looking waiters,” he said. “Sit down.”

He leaned across the table and lowered his voice.

“Do you remember Pineapple Pouliski – the guy that took a rap for ten to life in Chi?”

Jiggs nodded.

“I knew him,” Joe went on, “because he stood in with the crowd that was working the western ocean twelve – it must be fifteen years ago. Then I heard he’d gone into a racket in Chicago, and met him wearing everything except ear- rings. He was working for the advancement of American labour when the stockyard strike was on…”

“Bombed the State Attorney’s house or sump’n’…” Jiggs nodded. “That’s what he got it for.”

Again Joe looked round then, almost inaudibly: “He’s here.”

“In this hotel, or in London?”

“In London. It’s a funny thing, I saw him in a shop on Oxford Street, buying clothes for his old mother. He didn’t see me, but I heard him tell the girl who was serving.”

“He didn’t see you?” asked Jiggs. His eyes were alight with excitement.

“No, sir.” Joe shook his head.

“Can you remember the store on Oxford Street?”

The other pursed his large lips. “No, sir. Rightly it wasn’t on Oxford Street, it was just off it. As a matter of fact, I was in there getting something for my wife, one of – um…” He made ineffectual gestures.

“Does it matter?” said Jiggs politely. “You don’t remember what he bought?”

“No. They were still handing out stuff to him when I went away.”

He could, however, give a fairly accurate description of where the shop was situated.

“You don’t know where he’s living now?”

“You know all I know, Jiggs,” snapped the other, for once coming out of his genial character. “I tell you, I’ll be glad not to be in on this racket, because it looks mighty dangerous to me. They’re yeller rats – they got my brother-in-law’s home with a pineapple because he wouldn’t join their plumbing association, and I don’t feel very good towards ’em.”

Then, inconsequently: “Pineapple was wearing glasses, and there was a yellow taxi with the wheels painted green waiting for him outside.” Suddenly he struck himself in the mouth with the flat of his hand. “Shut up, will you?” he growled. “Won’t you never learn? At the same time, Jiggs, it mightn’t have been his taxi, but there it was with the flag down.”

Jiggs went back to Terry’s flat and called him on the phone. Briefly he gave the gist of what he had heard, without, however, disclosing the name of his informant.

“You’ve got a taxi department at Scotland Yard…Public Vehicles, is it? Well, can you get on to the fellow in charge and find if he’s heard of such an atrocity as a yellow taxi with green wheels? And listen, Terry, get the Chicago Police Department. Put a transatlantic call in for me, and I’ll be there in your bureau – well, office.”

He had hung up the telephone, when it started ringing again. He thought that the Scotland Yard operator had forgotten to ring off. He picked up the receiver.

“Hullo! Is that you, Jiggs?”

Allerman had not spoken. “Hullo, Kerky! Thought-readin’?”

“No, sir!” He heard a chuckle from the other end of the wire. “Nothin’ mysterious about it. I was trying to get through to you, and maybe I didn’t get tangled up with the last part of your talk with little old Scotland Yard. Everything all right in Chicago? Nobody sick, Jiggs?”

“That’s just what I’m going to find out,” said Jiggs. “How did you know I was here?”

“The operator at Scotland Yard told me,” said Kerky. “Wondered if you might like to come and have lunch with me at the Carlton or any place you like. Nothing’s too swell for you, Jiggs. I’d like to have you meet my wife too.”

“Which one is this?” asked Jiggs rudely.

“Say, listen! If I told her that she’d be so sore! Is it a date?”

“Mark it,” said Jiggs.

If there was one thing more certain than another, it was that Scotland Yard’s very secretive operator had not given Albuquerque Smith the telephone number. Jiggs took the trouble to inquire when he reached headquarters, and had his views confirmed.

“They’re tailing all the time – they knew I was there,” said Jiggs thoughtfully.

When he had come out from seeing his friend of the morning, he had noticed the waiter emerging from the room next to the suite occupied by Joe. Jiggs took a bold step. Accompanied by two officers from Scotland Yard, he went back to the hotel. His friend was out, but he saw the dark-faced waiter who had served them that morning. The manager of the hotel was present at the interview, which took place in Joe’s sitting-room.

“I’m putting this man under arrest on suspicion, and I want you to take one of these officers to his room,” Jiggs said to the manager.

He was drawing a bow at a very large venture. Luck was with him. The waiter, having been at first amused and indifferent, suddenly made a dart for liberty. When he was captured he committed the unpardonable sin from a policeman’s point of view; he pulled a gun on the detective who held him. Jiggs knocked it out of his hand, and they put the irons on him.

In his room was a half-finished letter, written in English. It began without any preliminary compliment.

“Jiggs came up to see Canary Joe Lieber and they had a long talk. Joe said something about Pouliski-Pineapple Pouliski. I could not hear; they were talking in a very low voice.”

Jiggs read the letter and put it in his pocket. “Don’t take that man to the Yard, take him to Mr. Weston’s house,” he said. “Frisk him first, and then take the irons off him. We don’t want to attract any attention.”

He walked out arm in arm with his prisoner, and came to Terry’s flat without any unusual incident.

“You two boys can wait outside while I talk to this feller,” said Jiggs, and a look of alarm came to the dark man’s face.

The two officers demurred, but they retired.

“Now, sonny boy,” said Jiggs, “I’ve got a very short time to get the truth from you, but I want to know just where you were sending that letter.”

“That I shall not tell,” said the man, who called himself Rossi.

“Ever heard of the third degree, kid?” asked Jiggs. “Because you’re going to get it. Where was that letter going?”

“I’ll see you in hell…” began the man passionately.

Jiggs yanked him on to his feet again by his collar.

“Let’s talk as brothers,” he said kindly. “I don’t want to beat you up. It breaks my heart to do it. But I’ve got to know just where that letter was going.”

The trembling youth thought awhile. “All right,” he said sulkily. “It is for a young lady I make these notes. Her name is Miss Leslie Ranger.”

Jiggs gaped at him. “For who?” he asked incredulously.

“Miss Leslie Ranger.” Then, to Jiggs’ astonishment, he gave Leslie’s address.

“Do you send it to her?”

“No, mister.” The young man shook his head. “A boy comes for it and he takes it to her.”

Jiggs heaved a sigh. “Oh, just that! Now, what boy comes for it, and when?”

Here Rossi could tell him nothing except that those were the orders he had received on the night before. He was told by a compatriot on the telephone – Rossi was a Sicilian – to keep an eye on the guest, to note the names of his visitors and to hear, if he possibly could, any conversation between them. The compatriot had invoked the sacred name of a common society, and Rossi had obeyed.

“A very simple little story,” said Jiggs. “Now perhaps you’ll explain why you carried a gun loaded in every chamber, and why you pulled it on the officer who arrested you? What were you expecting?”

The man was silent here. “Are you going to talk?” asked Jiggs wearily.

Ten minutes later Rossi broke and, after allowing him time to compose himself, Jiggs took him off to Scotland Yard and handed him over to the station sergeant at Cannon Row. He reported to the Assistant Commissioner.

“There’s a member of the gang in every big hotel. As a matter of fact, there’s one on every floor. This boy Rossi is from New Orleans, of all places in the world. He was doing badly and was tipped off there was good money in England. He reported to the chief of his society in New York and got his assignment right away – there’s some arrangement by which countries exchange waiters, and Rossi was put into this particular job. The gunplay was easy to explain. He’s served one term, having been sentenced to from one year to twenty for unlawful wounding – he’s not a fully-fledged gunman, but he’s got the makings.”

“What about his passport?”

“It’s in order,” nodded Jiggs. “No, we’ve got nothing on him and we can’t connect him with anybody in town – doesn’t know Eddie Tanner or Kerky or any of them. If he had he’d have spilt it, because he’s soft.”

Wembury looked at Jiggs suspiciously. “Did you get all this as a result of questions?” he asked.

“More or less,” said Jiggs.

Then, suddenly, leaning over the table: “Listen, Chief: you’ve had five people killed in less than five days, and there’s a whole lot of people who are due for the death rap. Are you putting the tender feelings of this wop before the lives of your friends and fellow citizens? Is that the way it goes in England, that you mustn’t hurt this kind of dirt?”

“It’s a rule, Jiggs,” said the Assistant Commissioner. Jiggs nodded.

“Sure it’s a rule. Get yourself assassinated like gentlemen, eh? You can’t fight machine-guns with pea-shooters. Chief, nor with pillows. I just slapped his wrist and he fell. If he’d got his finger inside the trigger-guard of his Smith-Wesson one of your detectives would either be dead or feeling more hurt than Rossi is.”

The argument was unanswerable. “You’d better have a talk with Terry,” said Wembury. “I couldn’t say any more to you without approving, and that I mustn’t do.”

Jiggs had hardly been in Terry’s office five minutes when the transatlantic call came through. In another second he heard a familiar voice.

“Oh, Hoppy!” he hailed him joyfully. “It’s Jiggs speaking, from London, England. Listen – don’t waste your time on all that ‘sounds like in the next room’ stuff. Remember Pineapple Peter Pouliski?…Sure. Isn’t he in Joliet?…”

Terry saw him pull a long face.

“Is that so? Have you got a good picture of him?…Yeah, that’ll do. Send it down to the Western Union and have ’em telegraph it across. If they haven’t got an instrument they’ll tell you where you can get it. When did he come out of Joliet?…Only served two years? Poor soul!”

Terry Weston had Inspector Tetley with him when he went up for the preliminary hearing of the inquest on Sir George Gilsant. By a special Home Office order the inquiry had been moved from Hertford to London.

“Life,” said Tetley, “is just one darned inquest after another.” He fingered his little moustache and grinned expectantly.

“When you say anything funny I’ll laugh, Tetley,” said Terry. “At the moment it’s taking a hell of a lot to amuse me.”

“You take things too seriously,” said the inspector. “After all, you can’t help crimes like this being committed, and the great thing is not to lose your head. If Sir George had taken our advice…”

“By ‘our’ I presume you mean the Commissioner and yourself?”

Tetley nodded. “We wanted him to go out of town by car.”

“Did he tell you – the old man?” Tetley nodded. He was rather proud of himself. “Yes, sir, he told me. In fact, I’m the only person he did tell that it was Sir George who was threatened.”

Terry Weston said nothing; he could hardly think about the blunder without wanting something particularly exciting to happen to the late Commissioner.

Tetley was right. He saw before him a ghastly procession of inquests. That on the detectives and Salaman had been adjourned. The coroner who was inquiring into the latest fatality only heard formal evidence of identification, and agreed to an adjournment of a fortnight. Terry stayed behind to talk to him and to make arrangements for future sittings. “I suppose you’ll want more than a fortnight, Inspector?”

“It looks as if we’ll want years,” said Terry ruefully. “Unless we get a lucky break I can’t tell you when we shall want the next sitting.”

The coroner scratched his chin. “It’s a curious business,” he said. “I met a man this morning, “a very rich man called Jenner, who’s in a terrible state. He shook like a leaf when I talked to him, and it occurred to me that he might have had one of these letters.”

“Really?” Terry was interested. “I think I know the man you mean – Turnbull Jenner, the coal man?”

“That’s the chap,” said the coroner. “He was saying what a disgraceful thing it was that Scotland Yard couldn’t give protection to people. He was quoting the Commissioner’s letter.”

“That will be quoted for a long time,” said Terry grimly.

When he came out of the court he saw Tetley speaking very earnestly to a man who was a stranger to him. He was fair enough to be described as an ash blond. His long face and his heavy chin made him memorable to Terry. As they were speaking a third man passed them, turned back and said a few words to the two. He was a round, plump-faced man below middle height; he wore horn-rimmed glasses and was carefully tailored. The two men went off together, and Tetley strolled back towards the courthouse. He was visibly disconcerted to see Terry watching him.

“Hullo, Chief! I’ve just been talking to those fellows. They wanted to know which was the nearest way to Highgate, and as they seemed foreign I improved the shining moment, so to speak, by asking them who they were.”

“I didn’t even notice them,” said Terry, and he saw a look of relief on the other’s face. “You can take the police car back to headquarters, Tetley,” he said. “I shall want to see you this evening.”

“I thought if you drove me back in your car we might talk things over,” began Tetley.

“Go the way I suggest,” said Terry, and the Inspector’s face went livid with fury.

“You’re not talking to a flat-footed copper, you know, Weston,” he said. “All this high-hat business…”

“When you speak to me, say ‘sir’,” said Terry. “Will you remember that, Inspector?”

He left the man so shaken with rage that he could not have spoken even if he had thought of an appropriate answer.

Terry got back to headquarters just before five. He was a very tired man, in no physical condition to undertake any further investigation. He had promised himself that he would seek out Leslie Ranger. He knew she was moving that day, and up to the moment had received no information as to her new address.

Jiggs came in, looking as if he had just woken up and had all the day before him. He could do no more than point to a chair. “Sit down, and don’t be energetic. I’m all in.”

Jiggs relit the stump of his cigar. “I hear that picture has come through on the television apparatus or whatever you call it – the picture of Pineapple Pouliski. The funny thing that, though I pinched him, I don’t remember what he looked like – I’m confusing him with somebody else all the time. How much did they ask from Sir George Gilsant?”

“Two thousand pounds,” said Terry, and took up the phone. “That reminds me,” he said. “Is the Assistant Commissioner here?…Can I speak to him?”

“He’s on his way down to you, sir,” said the secretary’s voice, and at that moment the Chief came in.

“What are we going to do?” said Terry. “A man named Jenner has been threatened – at least, the coroner thinks so.

Wembury nodded and dropped into a chair.

“That’s what’s worrying me. I’ve had a tip about another man who has had a letter of demand and hasn’t contacted Scotland Yard. What are we to do? If we start making inquiries we’re responsible for the man’s death, supposing he’s killed. I think we’ve got to make it a rule, Terry, that we don’t move in any of these cases until we are requested to do so by the threatened party. It’s an act of cowardice, I admit, but what are we to do? We can’t be responsible for the lives of these people, and for the moment I certainly can think of no method of offering them protection. That man you put into Cannon Row, Jiggs, has asked to see a lawyer. He has also complained to the station sergeant and the divisional surgeon that you beat him up.”

“I’ll talk to him,” said Jiggs.

It was at that moment that a messenger came in with a photograph in his hand. “This has come over the wire, sir. The man who brought it is outside.”

“Show him in.”

The operator was admitted, and carefully stripped the cover from the photograph, which was still a little wet.

“That’s the boy,” said Jiggs. “Why, how could I forget him! Pineapple Pouliski!”

He handed the photograph across the table to Terry, and the Chief Inspector gasped, for the photograph was the picture of the little man who had spoken to Tetley that afternoon outside the coroner’s court!