The Greatest Thrillers of Edgar Wallace. Edgar Wallace
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subordinate.
“Run across to Miller’s in Regent Street — the electrician — and ask Mr Miller to come here at once.”
He was still standing gazing at the telephone when the electrician arrived.
“Mr Miller,” said Falmouth slowly, “what has happened to this telephone?”
The electrician adjusted his pince-nez and inspected the ruin.
“H’m,” he said, “it rather looks as though some linesman had been criminally careless.”
“Linesman? What do you mean?” demanded Falmouth.
“I mean the workmen engaged to fix telephone wires.” He made another inspection.
“Cannot you see?”
He pointed to the battered instrument.
“I see that the machine is entirely ruined — but why?”
The electrician stooped and picked up the scorched wire from the ground.
“What I mean is this,” he said. “Somebody has attached a wire carrying a high voltage — probably an electric-lighting wire — to this telephone line: and if anybody had happened to have been at — —” He stopped suddenly, and his face went white.
“Good God!” he whispered, “Sir Philip Ramon was electrocuted!”
For a while not one of the party spoke. Then Falmouth’s hand darted into his pocket and he drew out the little notebook which Billy Marks had stolen.
“That is the solution,” he cried; “here is the direction the wires took — but how is it that the telephone at Downing Street was not destroyed in a similar manner?”
The electrician, white and shaking, shook his head impatiently.
“I have given up trying to account for the vagaries of electricity,” he said; “besides, the current, the full force of the current, might have been diverted — a short circuit might have been effected — anything might have happened.”
“Wait!” said Falmouth eagerly. “Suppose the man making the connection had bungled — had taken the full force of the current himself — would that have brought about this result?”
“It might — —”
“‘Thery bungled — and paid the penalty,’” quoted Falmouth slowly. “Ramon got a slight shock — sufficient to frighten him — he had a weak heart — the burn on his hand, the dead sparrows! By Heaven! it’s as clear as daylight!”
Later, a strong force of police raided the house in Carnaby Street, but they found nothing — except a half-smoked cigarette bearing the name of a London tobacconist, and the counterfoil of a passage ticket to New York.
It was marked per RMS ‘Lucania’, and was for three first-class passengers.
When the Lucania arrived at New York she was searched from stem to stern, but the Four Just Men were not discovered.
It was Gonsalez who had placed the ‘clue’ for the police to find.
The End
The Mind of Mr. J. G. Reeder (1925)
Chapter 1
The Poetical Policeman
The day Mr. Reeder arrived at the Public Prosecutor’s office was indeed a day of fate for Mr. Lambton Green, Branch Manager of the London Scottish and Midland Bank.
That branch of the bank which Mr. Green controlled was situate at the corner of Pell Street and Firling Avenue on the ‘country side’ of Ealing. It is a fairly large building and, unlike most suburban branch offices, the whole of the premises were devoted to banking business, for the bank carried very heavy deposits, the Lunar Traction Company, with three thousand people on its payroll, the Associated Novelties Corporation, with its enormous turnover, and the Laraphone Company being only three of the L. S.M.’s customers.
On Wednesday afternoons, in preparation for the pay days of these corporations, large sums in currency were brought from the head office and deposited in the steel and concrete strongroom, which was immediately beneath Mr. Green’s private office, but admission to which was gained through a steel door in the general office. This door was observable from the street, and to assist observation there was a shaded lamp fixed to the wall immediately above, which threw a powerful beam of light upon the door. Further security was ensured by the employment of a night watchman, Arthur Malling, an army pensioner.
The bank lay on a restricted police beat which had been so arranged that the constable on patrol passed the bank every forty minutes. It was his practice to look through the window and exchange signals with the night watchman, his orders being to wait until Malling appeared.
On the night of October 17th Police Constable Burnett stopped as usual before the wide peephole and glanced into the bank. The first thing he noticed was that the lamp above the strongroom door had been extinguished. The night watchman was not visible, and, his suspicions aroused, the officer did not wait for the man to put in an appearance as he would ordinarily have done, but passed the window to the door, which, to his alarm, he found ajar. Pushing it open, he entered the bank, calling Malling by name.
There was no answer.
Permeating the air was a faint, sweet scent which he could not locate. The general offices were empty and, entering the manager’s room in which a light burnt, he saw a figure stretched upon the ground. It was the night watchman. His wrists were handcuffed, two straps had been tightly buckled about his knees and ankles.
The explanation for the strange and sickly aroma was now clear. Above the head of the prostrate man was suspended, by a wire hooked to the picture-rail, an old tin can, the bottom of which was perforated so that there fell an incessant trickle of some volatile liquid upon the thick cotton pad which covered Malling’s face.
Burnett, who had been wounded in the war, had instantly recognised the smell of chloroform and, dragging the unconscious man into the outer office, snatched the pad from his face and, leaving him only long enough to telephone to the police station, sought vainly to bring him to consciousness.
The police reserves arrived within a few minutes, and with them the divisional surgeon who, fortunately, had been at the station when the alarm came through. Every effort to restore the unfortunate man to life proved unavailing.
‘He was probably dead when he was found,’ was the police doctor’s