DETECTIVE HAMILTON CLEEK: 8 Thriller Classics in One Premium Edition. Thomas W. Hanshew
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into him. I dunno wot the Mauravanians is got against him, sir (he never tells nothin’ to nobody, he don’t), but most like it’s summink he done to some of ’em that time he went out there about the lost pearl; but they’re after him, and the Apaches is after him, and between the two!... Guv’ner!”—his voice rose thin and shrill—“guv’ner, if one lot don’t get him, the other may; and—sir—there’s Apaches in London this very night. I know! I’ve seen ’em.”
“Seen them? When? Where?”
“At Charing Cross station, sir, jist before I went to the Yard to see you. As I hadn’t had no telegram from the guv’ner, like I was promised, I went there on the off chance, hopin’ to meet him when the boat train come in. And there I see ’em, sir, a-loungin’ round the platform where the Dover train goes out at nine to catch the night boat back to Calais, sir. I spotted ’em on the instant—from their walk, their way of carryin’ of theirselves, their manner of wearin’ of their bloomin’ hair. Laughin’ among themselves they was and lookin’ round at the entrance every now and then like as they was expectin’ some one to come and join ’em; and I see, too, as they was a-goin’ back to where they come from, ’cause they’d the return halves of their tickets in their hatbands. One of ’em, he buys a paper at the bookstall and sees summink in it as tickled him wonderful, for I see him go up to the others and point it out to ’em, and then the whole lot begins to larf like blessed hyenas. I spotted wot the paper was and the place on the page the blighter was a-pointin’ at, so I went and bought one myself to see wot it was. Sir, it was that there Personal of yours. The minnit I read that, I makes a dash for a taxi, to go to you at once, sir, and jist as I does so, a newsboy runs by me with a bill on his chest tellin’ about the explosion; and then, sir, I fair went off me dot.”
They were back on the pavement, within sight of the limousine, when the boy said this. Narkom brought the car to his side with one excited word, and fairly wrenched open the door.
“To Charing Cross station—as fast as you can streak it!” he said, excitedly. “The last train for the night boat leaves at nine sharp. Catch it, if you rack the motor to pieces.”
“Crumbs! A minute and a half!” commented Lennard, as he consulted the clock dial beside him; then, just waiting for Narkom and Dollops to jump into the vehicle, he brought her head round with a swing, threw back the clutch, and let her go full tilt.
But even the best of motors cannot accomplish the impossible. The gates were closed, the signal down, the last train already outside the station when they reached it, and not even the mandate of the law might hope to stay it or to call it back.
“Plenty of petrol?” Narkom faced round as he spoke and looked at Lennard.
“Plenty, sir.”
“All right—beat it! The boat sails from Dover at eleven. I’ve got to catch it. Understand?”
“Yes, sir. But you could wire down and have her held over till we get there, Superintendent.”
“Not for the world! She must sail on time; I must get aboard without being noticed—without some persons I’m following having the least cause for suspicion. Beat that train—do you hear me?—beat it! I want to get there and get aboard that boat before the others arrive. Do you want any further incentive than that? If so, here it is for you: Mr. Cleek’s in Paris! Mr. Cleek’s in danger!”
“Mr. Cleek? God’s truth! Hop in sir, hop in! I’ll have you there ahead of that train if I dash down the Admiralty Pier in flames from front to rear. Just let me get to the open road, sir, and I’ll show you something to make you sit up.”
He did. Once out of the track of all traffic, and with the lights of the city well at his back, he strapped his goggles tight, jerked his cap down to his eyebrows, and leaned over the wheel.
“For Mr. Cleek—do you hear?” he said, addressing the car as if it were a human being. “Now, then, show what you’re made of! There! Take your head! Now go, you vixen! GO!”
There was a sudden roar, a sudden leap; then the car shot forward as though all the gales of all the universe were sweeping it on, and the wild race to the coast began.
Narkom jerked down the blinds, turned on the light, and flung open the locker, as they pounded on.
“Dip in. Get something that can be made to fit you,” he said to Dollops. “We can’t risk any of those fellows identifying you as the chap who was hanging round the station to-night. Toss me over that wig—the gray one—in the far corner there. God knows what we’re on the track of, but if it leads to Cleek I’ll follow it to the end of time!” Then, lifting his voice until it sounded above the motor’s roar, “Faster, Lennard, faster!” he called. “Give it to her! give it to her! We’ve got to beat that train if it kills us!”
They did beat it. The engine’s light was not even in sight when the bright glare of the moon on the Channel’s waters flashed up out of the darkness before them; nor was the sound of the train’s coming even faintly audible as yet, when, a few minutes later, the limousine swung down the incline and came to a standstill within a stone’s throw of the entrance to the pier, at whose extreme end the packet lay, with gangways down and fires up and her huge bulk rising and falling with the movements of the waves.
“Beat her, you see, sir,” said Lennard, chuckling as he got down and opened the door for the superintendent to alight. “Better not go any nearer, sir, with the car. There’s a chap down there standing by the gangplank and he seems interested in us from the way he’s watching. Jumped up like a shot and came down the gangplank the instant he heard us coming. Better do the rest of the journey afoot, sir, and make a pretence of paying me—as if I was a public taxi. What’ll I do? Stop here until morning?”
“Yes. Put up at a garage; and if I don’t return by the first boat, get back to town. Meantime, cut off somewhere and ring up the Yard. Tell ’em where I’ve gone. Now then, Dollops, come on!”
A moment later the limousine had swung off into the darkness and disappeared, and what might properly have been taken for a couple of English curates on their way to a Continental holiday moved down the long pier between the glimmering and inadequate lamps to the waiting boat. But long before they reached it the figure at the gangplank—the tall, erect figure of a man whom the most casual observer must have recognized as one who had known military training—had changed its alert attitude and was sauntering up and down as if, when they came nearer and the light allowed him to see what they were, he had lost all interest in them and their doings. Narkom gave the man a glance from the tail of his eye as they went up the gangplank and boarded the boat, and brief as that glance was, it was sufficient to assure him of two things: First, that the man was not only strikingly handsome but bore himself with an air which spoke of culture, birth, position; second, that he was a foreigner, with the fair hair and the slightly hooked nose which was so characteristic of the Mauravanians.
With Dollops at his side, Narkom slunk aft, where the lights were less brilliant and the stern of the boat hung over the dark, still waters, and pausing there, turned and looked back at the waiting man.
A French sailor was moving past in the darkness. He stopped the man and spoke to him.
“Tell me,” he said, slipping a shilling into the fellow’s hand, “do you happen to know who that gentleman is, standing on the pier there?”
“Yes, m’sieur. He is equerry to his Majesty King Ulric of Mauravania. He has crossed with us frequently during his Majesty’s sojourn in Paris.”
“Gawd’s truth, sir,” whispered Dollops, plucking nervously at the superintendent’s sleeve as the sailor, after touching his cap with his forefinger, passed on. “Apaches at one end and them Mauravanian johnnies at the other! I tell you they’re a-workin’ hand in hand for some reason—workin’ against him!”
Narkom lifted a silencing hand and turned to move away where there would be less likelihood of anything they might say being overheard; for at that moment a voice had sounded and from a most unusual quarter. Unnoticed until