Читать книгу: «Max Carrados», страница 7
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the man who is now on the stairs is a policeman or has worn the uniform. If he stops at your door – ”
The heavy tread ceased. Then came the authoritative knock.
“Wait,” muttered Carrados, laying his hand impressively on Straithwaite’s tremulous arm. “I may recognize the voice.”
They heard the servant pass along the hall and the door unlatched; then caught the jumble of a gruff inquiry.
“Inspector Beedel of Scotland Yard!” The servant repassed their door on her way to the drawing-room. “It is no good disguising the fact from you, Mr Straithwaite, that you may no longer be at liberty. But I am. Is there anything you wish done?”
There was no time for deliberation. Straithwaite was indeed between the unenviable alternatives of the familiar proverb, but, to do him justice, his voice had lost scarcely a ripple of its usual sang-froid.
“Thanks,” he replied, taking a small stamped and addressed parcel from his pocket, “you might drop this into some obscure pillar-box, if you will.”
“The Markham necklace?”
“Exactly. I was going out to post it when you came.”
“I am sure you were.”
“And if you could spare five minutes later – if I am here – ”
Carrados slid his cigarette-case under some papers on the desk.
“I will call for that,” he assented. “Let us say about half-past eight.”
“I am still at large, you see, Mr Carrados; though after reflecting on the studied formality of the inspector’s business here, I imagine that you will scarcely be surprised.”
“I have made it a habit,” admitted Carrados, “never to be surprised.”
“However, I still want to cut a rather different figure in your eyes. You regard me, Mr Carrados, either as a detected rogue or a repentant ass?”
“Another excellent rule is never to form deductions from uncertainties.”
Straithwaite made a gesture of mild impatience.
“You only give me ten minutes. If I am to put my case before you, Mr Carrados, we cannot fence with phrases… To-day you have had an exceptional opportunity of penetrating into our mode of life. You will, I do not doubt, have summed up our perpetual indebtedness and the easy credit that our connexion procures; Stephanie’s social ambitions and expensive popularity; her utterly extravagant incapacity to see any other possible existence; and my tacit acquiescence. You will, I know, have correctly gauged her irresponsible, neurotic temperament, and judged the result of it in conflict with my own. What possibly has escaped you, for in society one has to disguise these things, is that I still love my wife.
“When you dare not trust the soundness of your reins you do not try to pull up a bolting horse. For three years I have endeavoured to guide Stephanie round awkward comers with as little visible restraint as possible. When we differ over any project upon which she has set her heart Stephanie has one strong argument.”
“That you no longer love her?”
“Well, perhaps; but more forcibly expressed. She rushes to the top of the building – there are six floors, Mr Carrados, and we are on the second – and climbing on to the banister she announces her intention of throwing herself down into the basement. In the meanwhile I have followed her and drag her back again. One day I shall stay where I am and let her do as she intends.”
“I hope not,” said Carrados gravely.
“Oh, don’t be concerned. She will then climb back herself. But it will mark an epoch. It was by that threat that she obtained my acquiescence to this scheme – that and the certainty that she would otherwise go on without me. But I had no intention of allowing her to land herself – to say nothing of us both – behind the bars of a prison if I could help it. And, above all, I wished to cure her of her fatuous delusion that she is clever, in the hope that she may then give up being foolish.
“To fail her on the occasion was merely to postpone the attempt. I conceived the idea of seeming to cooperate and at the same time involving us in what appeared to be a clever counter-fraud. The thought of the real loss will perhaps have a good effect; the publicity will certainly prevent her from daring a second ‘theft.’ A sordid story, Mr Carrados,” he concluded. “Do not forget your cigarette-case in reality.”
The paternal shake of Carrados’s head over the recital was neutralized by his benevolent smile.
“Yes, yes,” he said. “I think we can classify you, Mr Straithwaite. One point – the glove?”
“That was an afterthought. I had arranged the whole story and the first note was to be brought to me by an attendant. Then, on my way, in my overcoat pocket I discovered a pair of Stephanie’s gloves which she had asked me to carry the day before. The suggestion flashed – how much more convincing if I could arrange for her to seem to drop the writing in that way. As she said, the next box was empty; I merely took possession of it for a few minutes and quietly drew across one of her gloves. And that reminds me – of course there was nothing in it, but your interest in them made me rather nervous.”
Carrados laughed outright. Then he stood up and held out his hand.
“Good-night, Mr Straithwaite,” he said, with real friendliness. “Let me give you the quaker’s advice: Don’t attempt another conspiracy – but if you do, don’t produce a ‘pair’ of gloves of which one is still suggestive of scent, and the other identifiable with eucalyptus!”
“Oh – !” said Straithwaite.
“Quite so. But at all hazard suppress a second pair that has the same peculiarity. Think over what it must mean. Good-bye.”
Twelve minutes later Mr Carlyle was called to the telephone.
“It is eight-fifty-five and I am at Charing Cross,” said a voice he knew. “If you want local colour contrive an excuse to be with Markham when the first post arrives to-morrow.” A few more words followed, and an affectionate valediction.
“One moment, my dear Max, one moment. Do I understand you to say that you will post me on the report of the case from Dover?”
“No, Louis,” replied Carrados, with cryptic discrimination. “I only said that I will post you on a report of the case from Dover.”
THE LAST EXPLOIT OF HARRY THE ACTOR
The one insignificant fact upon which turned the following incident in the joint experiences of Mr Carlyle and Max Carrados was merely this: that having called upon his friend just at the moment when the private detective was on the point of leaving his office to go to the safe deposit in Lucas Street, Piccadilly, the blind amateur accompanied him, and for ten minutes amused himself by sitting quite quietly among the palms in the centre of the circular hall while Mr Carlyle was occupied with his deed-box in one of the little compartments provided for the purpose.
The Lucas Street depository was then (it has since been converted into a picture palace) generally accepted as being one of the strongest places in London. The front of the building was constructed to represent a gigantic safe door, and under the colloquial designation of “The Safe” the place had passed into a synonym for all that was secure and impregnable. Half of the marketable securities in the west of London were popularly reported to have seen the inside of its coffers at one time or another, together with the same generous proportion of family jewels. However exaggerated an estimate this might be, the substratum of truth was solid and auriferous enough to dazzle the imagination. When ordinary safes were being carried bodily away with impunity or ingeniously fused open by the scientifically equipped cracksman, nervous bond-holders turned with relief to the attractions of an establishment whose modest claim was summed up in its telegraphic address: “Impregnable.” To it went also the jewel-case between the lady’s social engagements, and when in due course “the family” journeyed north – or south, east or west – whenever, in short, the London house was closed, its capacious storerooms received the plate-chest as an established custom. Not a few traders also – jewellers, financiers, dealers in pictures, antiques and costly bijouterie, for instance – constantly used its facilities for any stock that they did not requite immediately to hand.
There was only one entrance to the place, an exaggerated keyhole, to carry out the similitude of the safe-door alluded to. The ground floor was occupied by the ordinary offices of the company; all the strong-rooms and safes lay in the steel-cased basement. This was reached both by a lift and by a flight of steps. In either case the visitor found before him a grille of massive proportions. Behind its bars stood a formidable commissionaire who never left his post, his sole duty being to open and close the grille to arriving and departing clients. Beyond this, a short passage led into the round central hall where Carrados was waiting. From this part, other passages radiated off to the vaults and strong-rooms, each one barred from the hall by a grille scarcely less ponderous than the first one. The doors of the various private rooms put at the disposal of the company’s clients, and that of the manager’s office, filled the wall-space between the radiating passages. Everything was very quiet, everything looked very bright, and everything seemed hopelessly impregnable.
“But I wonder?” ran Carrados’s dubious reflection; as he reached this point.
“Sorry to have kept you so long, my dear Max,” broke in Mr Carlyle’s crisp voice. He had emerged from his compartment and was crossing the hall, deed-box in hand. “Another minute and I will be with you.”
Carrados smiled and nodded and resumed his former expression, which was merely that of an uninterested gentleman waiting patiently for another. It is something of an attainment to watch closely without betraying undue curiosity, but others of the senses – hearing and smelling, for instance – can be keenly engaged while the observer possibly has the appearance of falling asleep.
“Now,” announced Mr Carlyle, returning briskly to his friend’s chair, and drawing on his grey suede gloves.
“You are in no particular hurry?”
“No,” admitted the professional man, with the slowness of mild surprise. “Not at all. What do you propose?”
“It is very pleasant here,” replied Carrados tranquilly. “Very cool and restful with this armoured steel between us and the dust and scurry of the hot July afternoon above. I propose remaining here for a few minutes longer.”
“Certainly,” agreed Mr Carlyle, taking the nearest chair and eyeing Carrados as though he had a shrewd suspicion of something more than met the ear. “I believe some very interesting people rent safes here. We may encounter a bishop, or a winning jockey, or even a musical comedy actress. Unfortunately it seems to be rather a slack time.”
“Two men came down while you were in your cubicle,” remarked Carrados casually. “The first took the lift. I imagine that he was a middle-aged, rather portly man. He carried a stick, wore a silk hat, and used spectacles for close sight. The other came by the stairway. I infer that he arrived at the top immediately after the lift had gone. He ran down the steps, so that the two were admitted at the same time, but the second man, though the more active of the pair, hung back for a moment in the passage and the portly one was the first to go to his safe.”
Mr Carlyle’s knowing look expressed: “Go on, my friend; you are coming to something.” But he merely contributed an encouraging “Yes?”
“When you emerged just now our second man quietly opened the door of his pen a fraction. Doubtless he looked out. Then he closed it as quietly again. You were not his man, Louis.”
“I am grateful,” said Mr Carlyle expressively. “What next, Louis?”
“That is all; they are still closeted.”
Both were silent for a moment. Mr Carlyle’s feeling was one of unconfessed perplexity. So far the incident was utterly trivial in his eyes; but he knew that the trifles which appeared significant to Max had a way of standing out like signposts when the time came to look back over an episode. Carrados’s sightless faculties seemed indeed to keep him just a move ahead as the game progressed.
“Is there really anything in it, Max?” he asked at length.
“Who can say?” replied Carrados. “At least we may wait to see them go. Those tin deed-boxes now. There is one to each safe, I think?”
“Yes, so I imagine. The practice is to carry the box to your private lair and there unlock it and do your business. Then you lock it up again and take it back to your safe.”
“Steady! our first man,” whispered Carrados hurriedly. “Here, look at this with me.” He opened a paper – a prospectus – which he pulled from his pocket, and they affected to study its contents together.
“You were about right, my friend,” muttered Mr Carlyle, pointing to a paragraph of assumed interest. “Hat, stick and spectacles. He is a clean-shaven, pink-faced old boy. I believe – yes, I know the man by sight. He is a bookmaker in a large way, I am told.”
“Here comes the other,” whispered Carrados.
The bookmaker passed across the hall, joined on his way by the manager whose duty it was to counterlock the safe, and disappeared along one of the passages. The second man sauntered up and down, waiting his turn. Mr Carlyle reported his movements in an undertone and described him. He was a younger man than the other, of medium height, and passably well dressed in a quiet lounge suit, green Alpine hat and brown shoes. By the time the detective had reached his wavy chestnut hair, large and rather ragged moustache, and sandy, freckled complexion, the first man had completed his business and was leaving the place.
“It isn’t an exchange lay, at all events,” said Mr Carlyle. “His inner case is only half the size of the other and couldn’t possibly be substituted.”
“Come up now,” said Carrados, rising. “There is nothing more to be learned down here.”
They requisitioned the lift and on the steps outside the gigantic keyhole stood for a few minutes discussing an investment as a couple of trustees or a lawyer and a client who were parting there might do. Fifty yards away, a very large silk hat with a very curly brim marked the progress of the bookmaker towards Piccadilly.
The lift in the hall behind them swirled up again and the gate clashed. The second man walked leisurely out and sauntered away without a backward glance.
“He has gone in the opposite direction,” exclaimed Mr Carlyle, rather blankly. “It isn’t the ‘lame goat’ nor the ‘follow-me-on,’ nor even the homely but efficacious sand-bag.”
“What colour were his eyes?” asked Carrados.
“Upon my word, I never noticed,” admitted the other.
“Parkinson would have noticed,” was the severe comment.
“I am not Parkinson,” retorted Mr Carlyle, with asperity, “and, strictly as one dear friend to another, Max, permit me to add, that while cherishing an unbounded admiration for your remarkable gifts, I have the strongest suspicion that the whole incident is a ridiculous mare’s nest, bred in the fantastic imagination of an enthusiastic criminologist.”
Mr Carrados received this outburst with the utmost benignity. “Come and have a coffee, Louis,” he suggested. “Mehmed’s is only a street away.”
Mehmed proved to be a cosmopolitan gentleman from Mocha whose shop resembled a house from the outside and an Oriental divan when one was within. A turbaned Arab placed cigarettes and cups of coffee spiced with saffron before the customers, gave salaam and withdrew.
“You know, my dear chap,” continued Mr Carlyle, sipping his black coffee and wondering privately whether it was really very good or very bad, “speaking quite seriously, the one fishy detail – our ginger friend’s watching for the other to leave – may be open to a dozen very innocent explanations.”
“So innocent that to-morrow I intend taking a safe myself.”
“You think that everything is all right?”
“On the contrary, I am convinced that something is very wrong.”
“Then why – ?”
“I shall keep nothing there, but it will give me the entrée. I should advise you, Louis, in the first place to empty your safe with all possible speed, and in the second to leave your business card on the manager.”
Mr Carlyle pushed his cup away, convinced now that the coffee was really very bad.
“But, my dear Max, the place – ‘The Safe’ – is impregnable!”
“When I was in the States, three years ago, the head porter at one hotel took pains to impress on me that the building was absolutely fireproof. I at once had my things taken off to another hotel. Two weeks later the first place was burnt out. It was fireproof, I believe, but of course the furniture and the fittings were not and the walls gave way.”
“Very ingenious,” admitted Mr Carlyle, “but why did you really go? You know you can’t humbug me with your superhuman sixth sense, my friend.”
Carrados smiled pleasantly, thereby encouraging the watchful attendant to draw near and replenish their tiny cups.
“Perhaps,” replied the blind man, “because so many careless people were satisfied that it was fireproof.”
“Ah-ha, there you are – the greater the confidence the greater the risk. But only if your self-confidence results in carelessness. Now do you know how this place is secured, Max?”
“I am told that they lock the door at night,” replied Carrados, with bland malice.
“And hide the key under the mat to be ready for the first arrival in the morning,” crowed Mr Carlyle, in the same playful spirit. “Dear old chap! Well, let me tell you – ”
“That force is out of the question. Quite so,” admitted his friend.
“That simplifies the argument. Let us consider fraud. There again the precautions are so rigid that many people pronounce the forms a nuisance. I confess that I do not. I regard them as a means of protecting my own property and I cheerfully sign my name and give my password, which the manager compares with his record-book before he releases the first lock of my safe. The signature is burned before my eyes in a sort of crucible there, the password is of my own choosing and is written only in a book that no one but the manager ever sees, and my key is the sole one in existence.”
“No duplicate or master-key?”
“Neither. If a key is lost it takes a skilful mechanic half-a-day to cut his way in. Then you must remember that clients of a safe-deposit are not multitudinous. All are known more or less by sight to the officials there, and a stranger would receive close attention. Now, Max, by what combination of circumstances is a rogue to know my password, to be able to forge my signature, to possess himself of my key, and to resemble me personally? And, finally, how is he possibly to determine beforehand whether there is anything in my safe to repay so elaborate a plant?” Mr Carlyle concluded in triumph and was so carried away by the strength of his position that he drank off the contents of his second cup before he realized what he was doing.
“At the hotel I just spoke of,” replied Carrados, “there was an attendant whose one duty in case of alarm was to secure three iron doors. On the night of the fire he had a bad attack of toothache and slipped away for just a quarter of an hour to have the thing out. There was a most up-to-date system of automatic fire alarm; it had been tested only the day before and the electrician, finding some part not absolutely to his satisfaction, had taken it away and not had time to replace it. The night watchman, it turned out, had received leave to present himself a couple of hours later on that particular night, and the hotel fireman, whose duties he took over, had missed being notified. Lastly, there was a big riverside blaze at the same time and all the engines were down at the other end of the city.”
Mr Carlyle committed himself to a dubious monosyllable. Carrados leaned forward a little.
“All these circumstances formed a coincidence of pure chance. Is it not conceivable, Louis, that an even more remarkable series might be brought about by design?”
“Our tawny friend?”
“Possibly. Only he was not really tawny.” Mr Carlyle’s easy attitude suddenly stiffened into rigid attention. “He wore a false moustache.”
“He wore a false moustache!” repeated the amazed gentleman. “And you cannot see! No, really, Max, this is beyond the limit!”
“If only you would not trust your dear, blundering old eyes so implicitly you would get nearer that limit yourself,” retorted Carrados. “The man carried a five-yard aura of spirit gum, emphasized by a warm, perspiring skin. That inevitably suggested one thing. I looked for further evidence of making-up and found it – these preparations all smell. The hair you described was characteristically that of a wig – worn long to hide the joining and made wavy to minimize the length. All these things are trifles. As yet we have not gone beyond the initial stage of suspicion. I will tell you another trifle. When this man retired to a compartment with his deed-box, he never even opened it. Possibly it contains a brick and a newspaper. He is only watching.”
“Watching the bookmaker.”
“True, but it may go far wider than that. Everything points to a plot of careful elaboration. Still, if you are satisfied – ”
“I am quite satisfied,” replied Mr Carlyle gallantly. “I regard ‘The Safe’ almost as a national institution, and as such I have an implicit faith in its precautions against every kind of force or fraud.” So far Mr Carlyle’s attitude had been suggestive of a rock, but at this point he took out his watch, hummed a little to pass the time, consulted his watch again, and continued: “I am afraid that there were one or two papers which I overlooked. It would perhaps save me coming again to-morrow if I went back now – ”
“Quite so,” acquiesced Carrados, with perfect gravity. “I will wait for you.”
For twenty minutes he sat there, drinking an occasional tiny cup of boiled coffee and to all appearance placidly enjoying the quaint atmosphere which Mr Mehmed had contrived to transplant from the shore of the Persian Gulf.
At the end of that period Carlyle returned, politely effusive about the time he had kept his friend waiting but otherwise bland and unassailable. Anyone with eyes might have noticed that he carried a parcel of about the same size and dimensions as the deed-box that fitted his safe.
The next day Carrados presented himself at the safe-deposit as an intending renter. The manager showed him over the vaults and strong-rooms, explaining the various precautions taken to render the guile or force of man impotent: the strength of the chilled-steel walls, the casing of electricity-resisting concrete, the stupendous isolation of the whole inner fabric on metal pillars so that the watchman, while inside the building, could walk above, below, and all round the outer walls of what was really – although it bore no actual relationship to the advertising device of the front – a monstrous safe; and, finally, the arrangement which would enable the basement to be flooded with steam within three minutes of an alarm. These details were public property. “The Safe” was a showplace and its directors held that no harm could come of displaying a strong hand.
Accompanied by the observant eyes of Parkinson, Carrados gave an adventurous but not a hopeful attention to these particulars. Submitting the problem of the tawny man to his own ingenuity, he was constantly putting before himself the question: How shall I set about robbing this place? and he had already dismissed force as impracticable. Nor, when it came to the consideration of fraud, did the simple but effective safeguards which Mr Carlyle had specified seem to offer any loophole.
“As I am blind I may as well sign in the book,” he suggested, when the manager passed to him a gummed slip for the purpose. The precaution against one acquiring particulars of another client might well be deemed superfluous in his case.
But the manager did not fall into the trap.
“It is our invariable rule in all cases, sir,” he replied courteously. “What word will you take?” Parkinson, it may be said, had been left in the hall.
“Suppose I happen to forget it? How do we proceed?”
“In that case I am afraid that I might have to trouble you to establish your identity,” the manager explained. “It rarely happens.”
“Then we will say ‘Conspiracy.’”
The word was written down and the book closed.
“Here is your key, sir. If you will allow me – your key-ring – ”
A week went by and Carrados was no nearer the absolute solution of the problem he had set himself. He had, indeed, evolved several ways by which the contents of the safes might be reached, some simple and desperate, hanging on the razor-edge of chance to fall this way or that; others more elaborate, safer on the whole, but more liable to break down at some point of their ingenious intricacy. And setting aside complicity on the part of the manager – a condition that Carrados had satisfied himself did not exist – they all depended on a relaxation of the forms by which security was assured. Carrados continued to have several occasions to visit the safe during the week, and he “watched” with a quiet persistence that was deadly in its scope. But from beginning to end there was no indication of slackness in the business-like methods of the place; nor during any of his visits did the “tawny man” appear in that or any other disguise. Another week passed; Mr Carlyle was becoming inexpressibly waggish, and Carrados himself, although he did not abate a jot of his conviction, was compelled to bend to the realities of the situation. The manager, with the obstinacy of a conscientious man who had become obsessed with the pervading note of security, excused himself from discussing abstract methods of fraud. Carrados was not in a position to formulate a detailed charge; he withdrew from active investigation, content to await his time.
It came, to be precise, on a certain Friday morning, seventeen days after his first visit to “The Safe.” Returning late on the Thursday night, he was informed that a man giving the name of Draycott had called to see him. Apparently the matter had been of some importance to the visitor for he had returned three hours later on the chance of finding Mr Carrados in. Disappointed in this, he had left a note. Carrados cut open the envelope and ran a finger along the following words: —
“Dear Sir, – I have to-day consulted Mr Louis Carlyle, who thinks that you would like to see me. I will call again in the morning, say at nine o’clock. If this is too soon or otherwise inconvenient I entreat you to leave a message fixing as early an hour as possible. to leave a message fixing as early an hour as possible.
Yours faithfully,
Herbert Draycott.”
“P.S.– I should add that I am the renter of a safe at the Lucas Street depository. H. D.”
A description of Mr Draycott made it clear that he was not the West-End bookmaker. The caller, the servant explained, was a thin, wiry, keen-faced man. Carrados felt agreeably interested in this development, which seemed to justify his suspicion of a plot.
At five minutes to nine the next morning Mr Draycott again presented himself.
“Very good of you to see me so soon, sir,” he apologized, on Carrados at once receiving him. “I don’t know much of English ways – I’m an Australian – and I was afraid it might be too early.”
“You could have made it a couple of hours earlier as far as I am concerned,” replied Carrados. “Or you either for that matter, I imagine,” he added, “for I don’t think that you slept much last night.”
“I didn’t sleep at all last night,” corrected Mr Draycott. “But it’s strange that you should have seen that. I understood from Mr Carlyle that you – excuse me if I am mistaken, sir – but I understood that you were blind.”
Carrados laughed his admission lightly.
“Oh yes,” he said. “But never mind that. What is the trouble?”
“I’m afraid it means more than just trouble for me, Mr Carrados.” The man had steady, half-closed eyes, with the suggestion of depth which one notices in the eyes of those whose business it is to look out over great expanses of land or water; they were turned towards Carrados’s face with quiet resignation in their frankness now. “I’m afraid it spells disaster. I am a working engineer from the Mount Magdalena district of Coolgardie. I don’t want to take up your time with outside details so I will only say that about two years ago I had an opportunity of acquiring a share in a very promising claim – gold, you understand, both reef and alluvial. As the work went on I put more and more into the undertaking – you couldn’t call it a venture by that time. The results were good, better than we had dared to expect, but from one cause and another the expenses were terrible. We saw that it was a bigger thing than we had bargained for and we admitted that we must get outside help.”
So far Mr Draycott’s narrative had proceeded smoothly enough under the influence of the quiet despair that had come over the man. But at this point a sudden recollection of his position swept him into a frenzy of bitterness.
“Oh, what the blazes is the good of going over all this again!” he broke out. “What can you or anyone else do anyhow? I’ve been robbed, rooked, cleared out of everything I possess,” and tormented by recollections and by the impotence of his rage the unfortunate engineer beat the oak table with the back of his hand until his knuckles bled.
Carrados waited until the fury had passed.
“Continue, if you please, Mr Draycott,” he said. “Just what you thought it best to tell me is just what I want to know.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” apologized the man, colouring under his tanned skin. “I ought to be able to control myself better. But this business has shaken me. Three times last night I looked down the barrel of my revolver, and three times I threw it away… Well, we arranged that I should come to London to interest some financiers in the property. We might have done it locally or in Perth, to be sure, but then, don’t you see, they would have wanted to get control. Six weeks ago I landed here. I brought with me specimens of the quartz and good samples of extracted gold, dust and nuggets, the clearing up of several weeks’ working, about two hundred and forty ounces in all. That includes the Magdalena Lodestar, our lucky nugget, a lump weighing just under seven pounds of pure gold.
