DETECTIVE HAMILTON CLEEK: 8 Thriller Classics in One Premium Edition. Thomas W. Hanshew
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fishes that hung on the oak-panelled walls.
It still wanted a minute or so of being a quarter-past five when the old man bore in the tea tray itself and set it upon the waiting table; and, little custom though the place enjoyed, Narkom could not but compliment it upon its promptness and the inviting quality of the viands served.
“You may go,” he said to the waiter, when the man at length bowed low and announced that all was ready; then, after a moment, turning round and finding him still shuffling about, “I say you may go!” he reiterated, a trifle sharply. “No, don’t take the cosy off the teapot—leave it as it is. The gentleman I am expecting has not arrived yet, and—look here! will you have the goodness to let that cosy alone and to clear out when I tell you? By James! if you don’t——Hullo! What the dickens was that?”
“That” was undoubtedly the tingle of a handful of gravel against the panes of the window.
“A sign that the coast is quite clear and that you have not been followed, dear friend,” said a voice—Cleek’s voice—in reply. “Shall we not sit down? I’m famishing.” And as Narkom turned round on his heel—with the certainty that no one had entered the room since the door was closed and he himself before it—the tea cosy was whipped off by a hand that no longer shook, the waiter’s bent figure straightened, his pale, drawn features writhed, blent, settled into placid calmness and—the thing was done!
“By all that’s wonderful—Cleek!” blurted out Narkom, delightedly, and lurched toward him.
“Sh-h-h! Gently, gently, my friend,” he interposed, putting up a warning hand. “It is true Dollops has signalled that there is no one in the vicinity likely to hear, but although the maid is both deaf and dumb, recollect that Mrs. Condiment is neither; and I have no more wish for her to discover my real calling than I ever had.”
“Mrs. Condiment?” repeated Narkom, sinking his voice, and speaking in a tone of agitation and amazement. “You don’t mean to tell me that the old woman you employed as housekeeper when you lived in Clarges Street is here?”
“Certainly; she is the landlady. Her assistant is that same deaf and dumb maid-of-all-work who worked with her at the old house, and is sharing with her a sort of ‘retirement’ here. ‘Captain Burbage’ set the pair of them up in business here two days after his departure from Clarges Street and pays them a monthly wage sufficient to make up for any lack of ‘custom.’ All that they are bound to do is to allow a pensioner of the captain’s—a poor old half-witted ex-waiter called Joseph—to come and go as he will and to gratify a whim for waiting upon people if he chooses to do so. What’s that? No, the ‘captain’ does not live here. He and his henchman, Dollops, are supposed to be out of the country. Mrs. Condiment does not know where he lives—nor will she ever be permitted to do so. You may, some day, perhaps——that is for the future to decide; but not at present, my dear friend; it is too risky.”
“Why risky, old chap? Surely I can come and go in disguise as I did in the old days, Cleek? We managed secret visits all right then, remember.”
“Yes—I know. But things have changed, Mr. Narkom. You may disguise yourself as cleverly as you please, but you can’t disguise the red limousine. It is known and it will be followed; so, until you can get another of a totally different colour and appearance I’ll ring you up each morning at the Yard and we can make our appointments over your private wire. For the present we must take no great risks. In the days that lie behind, dear friend, I had no ‘tracker’ to guard against but Margot, no enemies but her paltry crew to reckon with and to outwit. In these, I have many. They have brains, these new foes; they are rich, they are desperate, they are powerful; and behind them is the implacable hate and the malignant hand of——No matter! You wouldn’t understand.”
“I can make a devilish good guess, then,” rapped in Narkom, a trifle testily, his vanity a little hurt by that final suggestion, and his mind harking back to the brief enlightening conversation between Margot and Count Waldemar that night on the spray-swept deck of the Channel packet. “Behind them is ‘the implacable hate and the malignant hand’ of the King of Mauravania!”
“What utter rubbish!” Cleek’s jeering laughter fairly stung, it was so full of pitying derision. “My friend, have you taken to reading penny novelettes of late? A thief-taker and a monarch! An ex-criminal and a king! I should have given you credit for more common sense.”
“It was the King of Mauravania’s equerry who directed that attempt to kill you by blowing up the house in Clarges Street.”
“Very possibly. But that does not incriminate his royal master. Count Waldemar is not only equerry to King Ulric of Mauravania, but is also nephew to its ex-Prime Minister—the gentleman who is doing fifteen years’ energetic labour for the British Government as a result of that attempt to trap me with his witless ‘Silver Snare.’”
“Oh!” said Narkom, considerably crestfallen; then grasped at yet another straw with sudden, breathless eagerness. “But even then the head of the Mauravanian Government must have had some reason for wishing to ‘wipe you out,’” he added, earnestly. “There could be no question of avenging an uncle’s overthrow at that time. Cleek!”—his voice running thin and eager, his hand shutting suddenly upon his famous ally’s arm—“Cleek, trust me! Won’t you? Can’t you? As God hears me, old chap, I’ll respect it. Who are you? What are you, man?”
“Cleek,” he made answer, calmly drawing out a chair and taking his seat at the table. “Cleek of Scotland Yard; Cleek of the Forty Faces—which you will. Who should know that better than you whose helping hand has made me what I am?”
“Yes, but before, Cleek? What were you, who were you, in the days before?”
“The Vanishing Cracksman—a dog who would have gone on, no doubt, to a dog’s end but for your kind hand and the dear eyes of Ailsa Lorne. Now give me my tea—I’m famishing—and after that we’ll talk of this new riddle that needs unriddling for the honour of the Yard. Yes, thanks, two lumps, and just a mere dash of milk. Gad! It’s good to be back in England, dear friend; it’s good, it’s good!”
CHAPTER II
“Five men, eh?” said Cleek, glancing up at Mr. Narkom, who for two or three minutes past had been giving him a sketchy outline of the case in hand. “A goodish many that. And all inside of the past six weeks, you say? No wonder the papers have been hammering the Yard, if, as you suggest, they were not accidental deaths. Sure they are not?”
“As sure as I am that I’m speaking to you at this minute. I had my doubts in the beginning—there seemed so little to connect the separate tragedies—but when case after case followed with exactly, or nearly exactly, the same details in every instance, one simply had to suspect foul play.”
“Naturally. Even a donkey must know that there’s food about if he smells thistles. Begin at the beginning, please. How did the affair start? When and where?”
“In the neighbourhood of Hampstead Heath at two o’clock in the morning. The constable on duty in the district came upon a man clad only in pajamas lying face downward under the wall surrounding a corner house—still warm but as dead as Queen Anne.”
“In his pajamas, eh?” said Cleek, reaching for a fresh slice of toast. “Pretty clear evidence that that poor beggar’s trouble, whatever it was, must have overtaken him in bed and that that bed was either in the vicinity of the spot where he was found, or else the man had been carried in a closed vehicle to the place where the constable discovered him. A chap can’t walk far in that kind of a get-up without attracting attention. And the body was warm, you say, when found. Hum-m! Any vehicle seen or heard in the vicinity of the spot just previously?”
“Not the ghost of one. The night was very still, and the constable must have heard if either cab, auto, carriage, or dray had passed in any direction whatsoever.