The Secret House. Wallace Edgar
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He has been demanding a modest ten thousand pounds from Lady Constance Dex – Lady Constance being a sister of the Hon. and Rev. Harry Dex, Vicar of Great Bradley. The usual threat – exposure of an old love affair.
"Dex is a large, bland aristocrat under the thumb of his sister; the lady, a masterful woman, still beautiful; the indiscretion partly atoned by the death of the man. He died in Africa. Those are the circumstances that count. The brother knows, but our friend Montague will have it that the world should know. He threatens to murder, if necessary, should she betray his demands to the police. This is not the first time he has uttered this threat. Farrington, the millionaire, was the last man, and curiously, a friend of Lady Dex."
"It's weird – the whole business," mused Ela. "The two men you found in the square didn't help you?"
T. B., pacing the apartment with his hand in his pocket, shook his head.
"Ferreira de Coasta was one, and Henri Sans the other. Both men undoubtedly in the employ of Montague, at some time or other. The former was a well-educated man, who may have acted as intermediary. He was an architect who recently got into trouble in Paris over money matters. Sans was a courier agent, a more or less trusted messenger. There was nothing on either body to lead me to Montague Fallock, save this."
He pulled open the drawer of his desk and produced a small silver locket. It was engraved in the ornate style of cheap jewellery and bore a half-obliterated monogram.
He pried open the leaf of the locket with his thumbnail. There was nothing in its interior save a small white disc.
"A little gummed label," explained T. B., "but the inscription is interesting."
Ela held the locket to the light, and read:
"Immensely patriotic, but unintelligible and illiterate," said T. B., slipping the medallion into his pocket, and locking away the dossier in one of the drawers of his desk.
Ela yawned.
"I'm sorry – I'm rather sleepy. By the way, isn't Great Bradley, about which you were speaking, the home of a romance?"
T. B. nodded with a twinkle in his eye.
"It is the town which shelters the Secret House," he said, as he rose, "but the eccentricities of lovesick Americans, who build houses equally eccentric, are not matters for police investigation. You can share my car on a fog-breaking expedition as far as Chelsea," he added, as he slipped into his overcoat and pulled on his gloves; "we may have the luck to run over Montague."
"You are in the mood for miracles," said Ela, as they were descending the stairs.
"I am in the mood for bed," replied T. B. truthfully. Outside the fog was so thick that the two men hesitated. T. B.'s chauffeur was a wise and patient constable, but felt in his wisdom that patience would be wasted on an attempt to reach Chelsea.
"It's thick all along the road, sir," he said. "I've just 'phoned through to Westminster Police Station, and they say it is madness to attempt to take a car through the fog."
T. B. nodded.
"I'll sleep here," he said. "You'd better bed down somewhere, David, and you, Ela?"
"I'll take a little walk in the park," said the sarcastic Mr. Ela.
T. B. went back to his room, Ela following.
He switched on the light, but stood still in the doorway. In the ten minutes' absence some one had been there. Two drawers of the desk had been forced; the floor was littered with papers flung there hurriedly by the searcher.
T. B. stepped swiftly to the desk – the envelope had gone.
A window was open and the fog was swirling into the room.
"There's blood here," said Mr. Ela. He pointed to the dappled blotting pad.
"Cut his hand on the glass," said T. B. and jerked his head to the broken pane in the window. He peered out through the open casement. A hook ladder, such as American firemen use, was hanging to the parapet. So thick was the fog that it was impossible to see how long the ladder was, but the two men pulled it up with scarcely an effort. It was made of a stout light wood, with short steel brackets affixed at intervals.
"Blood on this too," said Ela, then, to the constable who had come to his ring, he jerked his orders rapidly: "Inspector on duty to surround the office with all the reserve – 'phone Cannon Row all men available to circle Scotland Yard, and to take into custody a man with a cut hand – 'phone all stations to that effect."
"There's little chance of getting our friend," said T. B. He took up a magnifying glass and examined the stains on the pad.
"Who was he?" asked Ela.
T. B. pointed to the stain.
"Montague," he said, briefly, "and he now knows the very thing I did not wish him to know."
"And that is?"
T. B. did not speak for a moment. He stood looking down at the evidence which the intruder had left behind.
"He knows how much I know," he said, grimly, "but he may also imagine I know more – there are going to be developments."
CHAPTER IV
It was a bad night in London, not wild or turbulent, but swathed to the eyes like an Eastern woman in a soft grey garment of fog. It engulfed the walled canyons of the city, through which the traffic had roared all day, plugged up the maze of dark side-streets, and blotted out the open squares. Close to the ground it was thick, viscous, impenetrable, so that one could not see a yard ahead, and walked ghostlike, adventuring into a strange world.
Occasionally it dispersed. In front of the Jollity Theatre numbers of arc-lights wrought a wavering mist-hung yellow space, into which a constant line of vehicles, like monstrous shiny beetles, emerged from the outer nowhere, disgorged their contents, and were eclipsed again. And pedestrians in gay processional streamed across the rudy glistening patch like figures on a slide.
Conspicuous in the shifting throng was a sharp-faced boy, ostensibly selling newspapers, but with a keen eye upon the arriving vehicles. Suddenly he darted to the curb, where an electric coupe had just drawn up. A man alighted heavily, and turned to assist a young woman.
For an instant the lad's attention was deflected by the radiant vision. The girl, wrapped in a voluminous cloak of ivory colour, was tall and slim, with soft white throat and graceful neck; her eyes under shadowy lashes were a little narrow, but blue as autumn mist, and sparkling now with amusement.
"Watch your steps, auntie," she warned laughingly, as a plump, elderly, little lady stepped stiffly from the coupe. "These London fogs are dangerous."
The boy stood staring at her, his feet as helpless as if they had taken root to the ground. Suddenly he remembered his mission. His native impudence reasserted itself, and he started forward.
"Paper, sir?"
He addressed the man. For a moment it seemed as though he were to be rebuffed, then something in the boy's attitude changed his mind.
As the man fumbled in an inner pocket for change, the lad took a swift inventory. The face beneath the tall hat was a powerful oval, paste-coloured, with thin lips, and heavy lines from nostril to jaw. The eyes were close set and of a turbid grey.
"It's him," the boy assured himself, and opened his mouth to speak.
The girl laughed amusedly at the spectacle of her companion's passion for news in this grimy atmosphere, and turned to the young man in evening dress who had just dismissed his taxi and joined the group.
It was the diversion the boy had prayed for. He took a quick step toward the older man.
"T. B. S.," he said, in a soft but distinct undertone.
The man's face blanched suddenly, and a coin which he held in his large, white-gloved palm slipped jingling to the pavement.
The young messenger stooped and caught it dexterously.
"T. B. S.," he whispered again, insistently.
"Here?" the answer came hoarsely.