CHAPTER XIV

EXASPERATION OF MR. TEAL

James Mattock read the second proclamation of the Alpha Triangle in his morning paper.

It was headed in the flamboyant fashion of the first, but it was much less circumlocutory. Its comparative brevity lent it a force which had been lacking in its predecessor--a force which gained much from the incidents which had come between the two, and which was emphasised by the account of the Battle of Billingsgate and the subsequent escape of the thirteen prisoners, a scoop that occupied the place of honour next to the manifesto itself.

SECOND MANIFESTO

_by the Lord of the Alpha Triangle, in Council, to the Parliament and People of the United Kingdom._

WHEREBY it is announced as follows:

Seeing that Our first Manifesto has been ignored, We find it necessary to increase the arguments we have already advanced, why it will be advisable for the Government to accede to Our Terms. And this We do according to this Warning: That, until Our receipt of official notification of the Government's acceptance of the aforementioned and previously detailed Terms, We shall destroy the undernamed Objects of Public Property, at intervals of two days from the date hereof, in the order given below.

The New Underground Junction at Piccadilly Circus. The Albert Hall. The National Gallery and the Nelson Monument. The British Museum. St. Paul's Cathedral. The Houses of Parliament.

Concurrently with this Campaign, Our already initiated Policy of Terrorism will be continued and augmented.

GIVEN by Our Hand this Day, (Signed)

Followed, in the facsimile which was blazoned across the front page of the _Mercury_, the sign of the Alpha Triangle.

Mattock read the whole epistle through a second time. Not that it interested him--he already knew it by heart--but because for the first time he had been struck by an almost insignificant detail of the layout. Searching in his wallet for the clipping of the first manifesto, he compared the two, and the confirmation of his idea made him sit very still for some time.

When he reached the Cockspur Street office that morning, he found that Raegenssen had not arrived, and the police were in possession. Shortly afterwards, Inspector Teal himself entered, and promptly buttonholed the ex-convict.

"The last time your boss was in was yesterday, wasn't it?" he drawled.

"Yes."

"What business did he do that day?"

Mattock looked at the detective.

"I've no right to talk about my employer's business," he said.

"No-o?" Teal's voice was silky. "But we want to know all about it--we're just buzzing with interest, in fact--and you look most like the man who's going to tell us."

"I'm sorry about that."

"What did Raegenssen do yesterday?"

"Rotten weather, isn't it?" said Mattock absently, and turned the papers on his desk.

Teal shifted his chewing-gum with a deliberate clamp of his jaws.

"Did he go to the bank by any chance?"

"I suppose," murmured Mattock, staring reflectively out of the window, "I suppose the ducks like it."

"You listen to me, and look at this! You know a warrant by this time, don't you? And d'you know what you'll get, with your record, if I use it? Marchmont Avenue, Hampstead, at the house of Oscar Raegenssen--burglary and assault--five years."

Mattock regarded the paper in the detective's hand calmly. Then he looked at Teal. James Mattock, convicted criminal and sometime jail-bird though he was, had once been a gentleman, according to Teal's own description, and the fact gave him an immeasurable pull over the detective. Teal, blunt and burly, a man of the people who had won his rank from the academy of the beat, felt uncomfortable under the steady once-over of the self-possessed clerk.

"You know," said Mattock kindly, "your tact would make an angel weep."

Teal had one pose which never failed to conceal his embarrassment. His heavy-lidded eyes half-closed, his whole figure relaxed--he looked as if he were on the point of falling asleep on his feet. Everything in the world seemed to bore him to tears.

"All right, Jimmy," he said wearily. "We can't make you squeal if you don't want to. The only thing that struck me was that giving us a bit of help now would cut a lot of ice. I mean, we could give you a hand in return--maybe go blind a trifle the next time you skated near trouble."

"There won't be a next time," was Mattock's uncompromising retort.

"All clear, then, Jimmy. But don't forget what I said. The offer's always open."

It seemed to Teal that Mattock had watched the whole performance with cynical enjoyment, and the clerk's answer verified that impression.

"If _you're_ ever in trouble, Teal," he said, "go along to a music-hall manager. If you get an audition, and your form's up to to-day's, your fortune's made."

Feeling that he had not had the best of the encounter, Teal stalked into the inner office, where detectives were already at work examining the filing cabinets and the drawers of the roll-top desk. Mr. Teal's attention, however, was attracted by the massive safe, and he stood for a time before it, hands in the pockets of his waterproof, his lower jaw functioning monotonously.

Then he turned to one of the men.

"Has this been touched, Topham?"

"No, sir."

"Not a hand been laid on it?"

Topham appealed to his colleagues, and the reply was a fairly confident negative.

"Of course, it's difficult to swear that nobody's touched it without thinking."

Teal nodded.

From his waistcoat pocket he produced a powerful lens in a chamois bag, polished it on his handkerchief, and subjected the surface of the door to a prolonged scrutiny. Secondly, he studied the lock, and then he called one of the men over.

"Take a look at it," he advised. "Now, you see the faint scratches by the keyhole? D'you notice any new ones?"

"Two or three," was the result after a short examination. "There's also some marks inside the edges of the keyhole itself. They're all very new; in this weather the brass would tarnish quickly, and these marks are perfectly bright."

"Would a key be likely to leave those inside scratches?"

The man shook his head.

"I'm not an expert, sir, but I should say not, unless the original key had been lost and a carelessly made substitute used."

"Thank you," said Teal, and sank upon his knees as if in prayer.

He made a number of deep obeisances before the huge steel box, and then regained his feet with a sigh.

"Keep off this bit of carpet," he ordered. "We shall want an expert on this."

The expert was on the spot within fifteen minutes of Teal's telephone summons, and he came to a decision in a very short time.

"This is either Prester John's or Grantor's work," he pronounced, and Teal was too hardened to the daily miracles of the police records department to show any surprise at the definiteness of his Holmesian piece of deduction.

A number of micro-photographs were taken, and the fine specks of metallic dust which Teal had discovered on the carpet in his supplicatory attitude were carefully brushed up and placed in an envelope. The safe was also tested for finger-prints, the expert in that science going over it minutely with his grey powder and camel's hair brush, but nothing whatever rewarded his labours.

"The extraordinary thing," he said, "is that there's no mark of any kind. If Raegenssen had touched the safe at all recently, he either wore gloves or wiped it with a rag afterwards."

In an hour the plates had been developed and compared with similar close-ups classified in the colossal card-index system of the Records Office, and the unhesitating verdict was phoned through to Mr. Teal.

The vote went to Prester John, and the somnolent detective became a perplexed and irritated man, for the fact upset every single one of his theories and dizzied him completely out of his bearings.

After three thoughtful slabs of chewing-gum he rang up Storm, obtained permission, and then got through to the Yard and demanded the attendance of a third expert--a gentleman who in the past years had earned a comfortable income from his knowledge of safes until a false step and a term of confinement at His Majesty's expense had exacted from him due labour of hire already received, and (unusually enough) instilled into the said gentleman an enthusiasm for a more restful, if less remunerative and spectacular, employment on the lee side of the Law. On occasion, however, the ex-yegg had opportunities for the exercise of his craft without fear of retribution, and this was one of those occasions.

"Open that money box," commanded Teal without preface, and the expert, after a practised survey, grinned superciliously.

"This is degradin' an honourable perfession," he complained. "A blind elepeptic palarytic could open this tin wiv an 'air-pin an' a corkscrew. I suppose," went on the uncertain vocabularian, warming to his topic, "it ain't to be dammagid? Becos, if you ain't particulant, an' there 'appens to be a sardine opener on the presimes----"

"Get on with it," said the detective testily, for he was not feeling humorous at the moment.

The expert got to work with a pained air, first experimenting with three skilfully twisted lengths of steel wire, and then filing a key with the result of his investigations to guide him.

At the end of half an hour:

"An' 'ere we are. All chynge for Charing Cross an' the Pink Elephant an' Castrol. Pass dahn the car, please! An' I may say, Mr. Charman, that a softer crib 'as yet to be builded. Why, if the game 'ad bin so elemtenary in my days, when I was an exterp at the skience, I'd've bin a blinkin' millionanthropist by now, I would. Drivin' abaht Myfair in a calabriot, wiv all the flatties touchin' their 'ats to me an' 'opin' I'd put a monkey in their Christmas Box. That's the narks all over. One lore for the rich an' another fer the porous. An' no gratootooies--'cept from those 'oo make them big enough." He regarded the confounded detective in wonder. "Well, well, Mr. Teal--wot's the matter? Ain't nothink there? Well, wot did jer expect ter find? A leopotamosceraffe or a box o' pink pills? This ain't Masculine's, yer know. No conjuratin' in this gallery."

"Shut up, Nosey," said Teal rudely. "You can leg it now--we shan't want you any more. Oh, leave that key behind you. I want to shut this thing up again when I've finished."

When the "exterp" had taken his departure Teal sat back on the desk and stared at the open safe. Empty, vacuously empty, it stared back at him--one of the most annoying voids he had ever seen. The rows of steel shelves were bare. The only souvenir that Prester John had left behind him was the cardboard replica of the Triangle badge which Teal had managed to conceal from the roving eye of the ex-yegg.

Teal went back to the outer office and interrupted Mattock from the work of balancing a bulky ledger.

"When were you last here?" demanded the detective.

"Yesterday," said Mattock, without looking up.

"Did you go into that inner office?"

"Yes."

"What time was this?"

"About eleven-thirty."

"P.m.?" asked Teal sleepily.

Mattock raised his eyes with a tired expression.

"Oh, are you still here?" he sighed.

"Pip emma?" repeated Teal.

Mattock closed the ledger and pushed back his chair. His face was a picture of long-suffering tolerance.

"Is this a new kind of round game?" he inquired politely. "Because, if so, can't you get a detective or some other imbecile to play with you?"

"No--you'll do. Is Prester John a friend of yours?"

"I seem to have read about him. Did he write a book or something?"

Teal played his penultimate card.

He leaned over the desk and addressed Mattock in a confidential undertone.

"Listen here," he said. "Joan's in the Triangle--you know that, don't you? And you're fond of a Joan. So am I. A nice kid. It's only circumstances make a crook of her. I'd hate to see her follow the rest of the Triangle into stir, and she will, in time, if one of you hasn't a pull somewhere. You're independent now, but I guess there's a day coming when you'll be glad of a friend or two on the Embankment.".

Mattock studied his finger-nails.

"When we sink as low as that," he said carefully, "I'll let you know."

Inspector Teal straightened himself and shrugged. He walked over to the door of the inner office and called one of his men, and together they returned to the clerk.

"Arrest that man," said Teal, and Mattock rose to his feet with a charming smile.

"The charge?" he asked pleasantly.

"Burglary and assault at the house of Oscar Raegenssen on the fourteenth instant. Accessory before and after the fact in the burglary committed in this office last night. Suspected of concealing knowledge of the whereabouts of Oscar Raegenssen, who is wanted on a warrant issued last night. I warn you that anything you say may be taken down and used as evidence against you."

Mattock bowed.

"Thanks for being so lucid. But you've got the last part of it wrong, you know. The correct formula is, _used as evidence at your trial_."

"As evidence at your trial," Teal corrected himself testily. "Take him away."

"One moment." Mattock stopped him. "The third charge falls to the ground, naturally. You've only asked me about Raegenssen's past movements--not about his present whereabouts."

"That'll keep," said Teal viciously. "Try it on the jury."

He was feeling rather fed up with Mattock's imperturbable assurance.

They took Mattock to Headquarters, and the formal charge was made. The same mocking tolerance permeated the man's demeanour when the usual questions were asked.

"Name?"

"James Norman Mattock."

"Age?"

"Fifty-seven years, eight months, one week, four days"--he looked at his watch--"eleven hours and about forty minutes."

"Address?"

"I decline to answer that question."

His tone encouraged no insistence on the inquiry, and they let it go at that.

They were taking him to his cell when he called Inspector Teal.

"I suppose I'll have to stop behind bars for a bit to satisfy your vanity," he said, "but I don't want it to be too long. So you might get hold of Captain Arden when you have the chance, and ask him if he'll see me."

"I'll find out how his temper is this morning," Teal promised him, and Mattock passed on with a courteous word of thanks.

In Storm's room, however, the detective found something else to occupy his mind, and it temporarily eclipsed his concern as to the fate of James Norman Mattock.

"I've got hold of a copy of the deed of sale of that sawmill," Kit said. "It's signed by Raegenssen, more or less, but there's something wrong with the signature--it doesn't agree with the writing on the papers they brought in from his office. Men with two handwritings make me take notice!"

Teal looked at the parchment, and particularly at the date.

"Two months ago. That's about when the reformation set in," he observed.

In the City and Continental office, Joe Blaythwayt was inclined to be taciturn about his client's business until the importance of his coöperation was pointed out to him, and duly signed authorisation produced.

"No, that's not his ordinary signature," he said as soon as he saw the conveyance. "I'll get you some genuine specimens."

He returned almost immediately with a bundle of cancelled cheques, and these Storm compared with the signature of the deed. The two were totally dissimilar. Whereas the writing on the parchment was small and neat, all the cheques were signed in a thick, sprawling hand.

The latest cheque attracted his attention for another reason.

"That's a lot of money to draw in cash," he remarked. "How did he take it?"

"Fivers. It wasn't the first time--I think you'll find two others made out for large sums, though that one is easy the largest he's ever put through."

Teal nodded.

"One way he is Triangular, the other way he isn't," he said peevishly. "That man's the two horns of a fat dilemma, all right. That sawmill wasn't really his, then!"

Storm rang up the other party to the sale, and found him after some trouble--the managing director of a firm of paper manufacturers with an office close by. Having found that the man was disengaged, Teal and he went round and interviewed him.

The result was not satisfactory.

"I remember the transaction distinctly; I should have remembered it, anyway, even if it hadn't been so recent, because of the way payment was made."

"How?" asked Teal perfunctorily, for the trial did not seem to him to be leading anywhere.

"In notes of four different countries," was the reply. "All denominations, big and small. United States dollars, the new Reichmarks, Spanish pesetas, and Italian lire. I didn't want to take them because of the Exchange risk--something considerable in a sum as long as this one--but he promptly added a five per cent. allowance to cover that."

"That must have cost him something."

The director nodded.

"Next, I was afraid of forgeries, but there again he met me. He went round with me to the bank and was present while the notes were examined and passed."

Teal, interested, suspended chewing for a moment while he put a question.

"Hard to describe," said the director. "Nothing noticeable about him, except his height. Past middle age, I should say. Grey hair, eyes light blue, lined face, walked like a much younger man. Very well built, small iron-grey moustache----"

"Beard?"

"No."

"Any kind of accent?"

"None at all. He spoke English perfectly. I'd take my oath he was an Englishman."

"Raegenssen himself without face fungus!" exclaimed Teal. "I always thought that accent of his was a fake--it sounded too much like the cheap revue idea of a Dutchman. It was Raegenssen."

"Or Mattock cleverly padded," added the sceptical Kit. "If you were going to do a deal in my name wouldn't you try to make up to look like me in a general description?"

The mention of Mattock recalled to Teal his prisoner's request, and he would have mentioned it as they returned to the Yard, but Storm was already off on another tack.

"You remember Miss Hawthorne told me over the phone she'd recognised someone in that getaway? Well, she won't pass the glad news on unless I promise she's to have a part in the play. Rat all women!"

"Arrest her as an accessory," suggested Teal sardonically.

"I'd be happier if she was inside! _Kill H_.... Teal, if you go down and break the neck of that constable who fell over himself last night I'll guarantee to rescue you from the gallows! He's put everything back by weeks. By the way, did that ad. go in the _Era_?"

"To-morrow," said Teal. "I put it over on Birdie all right. Mattock said I was a great actor," he added reminiscently, and recollected his promise.

Teal waited in the charge room while Storm paid a visit to the clerk's cell, and picked up a newspaper to while away the time.

In those days the Press was so full of the Triangle that most other information was crowded away into obscure paragraphs in small type which few people ever read. Teal, having a single-track mind, rarely had time to assimilate any news which did not bear directly on the case in hand, and politics concerned him not at all.

But he already knew the Triangle news by heart, and the second manifesto was by then as familiar to him as his own face. Consequently, he broke his usual habits and cast an eye over the other happenings of the world. And one section fairly leapt to his eye.

DEATH OF A GREAT SCIENTIST DEPORTED AUSTRIAN CHEMIST COMMITS SUICIDE UNCOMPLETED WORK

(_Daily Mercury Special Correspondent_)

VIENNA, Tuesday, June 3rd.

A drama of real life is locked up in the news of the death of the Austrian scientist, Carl Schewesen, who was deported from England some years ago. Schewesen's clothes were found on the banks of the Danube, together with a note explaining that he was taking what seemed to him to be the only way out of a hopeless existence.

Schewesen was known to have been making researches into the possibility of stabilising Nitrogen Trichloride (NCl3), the most powerful explosive known to science, but, as far as contemporary methods of preparation have progressed, entirely without practical use, since even particles of dust settling upon it from the atmosphere are sufficient to detonate it. Schewesen had announced a few days before his death that his experiments promised an epoch-making success. He has left no notes behind, however, and it is to be feared that his knowledge has died with him.

Teal read the paragraph a second time, for this premature obituary notice did not appeal to his sense of humour. He was quite certain that Carl Schewesen was alive and in London, and, Storm returning with Mattock at that moment, he pointed to the column and vented his surmise.

Storm read it through, and looked grave.

"NCl3," he murmured. "That sounds like more fun!"

"Is it very powerful?" asked Teal, and Storm smiled.

"If a small saltspoonful went off between us now, they'd be able to bury us in matchboxes!" he said.

It was then that Teal noticed the presence of Mattock, and turned to scowl at the man. Mattock had been looking over the detective's shoulder unobserved, and his smile showed that he had heard the conversation.

"I know all about Carl," Mattock said. "But the problem ought to amuse the flatties for some time. Flatties, I think, was the term Nosey used?"

Teal was struck by the change in the man's manner since he had met him in Walton Street Police Station. Then, Mattock had had the truculence which comes of an inferiority complex; but that had now dispersed as though it had never existed. In spite of the shabbiness of his clothes and the ugly lines which prison had cut in his face, he bore himself with a calm confidence that annoyed Teal. It annoyed him because he could not understand it. It was so out of keeping with the part of the lag under supervision. Truculence was regular, and cringing was also in order, though less common. So, too, was friendliness. But superiority--no.

"You look pleased with yourself," said Teal glutinously, falling back into his _rôle_ of _ennui_ personified.

"So I feel," agreed Mattock. "Captain Arden has very kindly permitted me to be released." He glanced at his wrist. "It's just lunch time. Thank the Lord I'm spared the culinary abortions you serve to persons in custody."

Teal's jaw dropped.

"Is that true?" he asked, and Storm nodded.

"I'm sorry, Inspector," he said officially. "I don't think any of the charges against this man will stand. You will, however, keep him under observation."

"I will!" asserted Teal grimly.

Mattock raised his hat and sauntered to the door with a smile. There, he paused.

"I should keep an eye on Uncle Joe, too," was his parting shot.

Teal stared sombrely at the door through which the man had passed. He shook his head sorrowfully.

"And there, by the Grace of the Devil," he muttered, "goes a man who knows far, far more about the Triangle than I shall ever find out."

"I've also cancelled the warrant that's out against Raegenssen," Storm said. "I don't think any charge will stand against him, either, yet. It's easy to prove that the signature to that deed isn't his, and there's no chance of tracing those foreign bills. You won't even get him by identification--nor will you get Mattock, for the matter of that. Neither of 'em fit exactly."

He was tapping a cigarette on his case when the telephone rang, and he was told that the call was for him. When he came back, the light of war was in his eyes.

"Now we shall see some more battle, murder and sudden death!" he said. "That was to say Mecklen's better. I'm going to get him to court to-morrow, if there's a whole army of Triangles in the way! And then we'll see if he'll squeak."

"He isn't the Triangle, anyway," said Teal gloomily. "Is it Mattock?"

Storm did not answer.

"Or is it Uncle Joe?"

Storm was intent upon the feat of throwing his cigarette high in the air and catching it between his lips--a piece of amateur juggling which he performed with skill.

"Then it must be Raegenssen," Teal said dreamily.

"Keep on guessing," Storm encouraged.

Mr. Teal shook his head and nipped the end from a rank cigar.

"You're so close, you'd make an oyster look like a yawning whale," he protested in despair. "Now, why let Mattock out? I'll bet that man knows all the things we want to know about Alphas and Apexes."

"Speak for yourself," murmured Storm, concluding his exhibition of sleight-of-hand by throwing his cigarette over his shoulder from the back and trapping it faultlessly.

Teal did not applaud.

"He must have had something exciting to tell you," he pondered aloud. "Was it absolutely necessary to release him?"

Storm, who was striking a match, watched it flare, and then looked up with his quick smile.

"Oh--sure!" he drawled. "He's going to kill Raegenssen!"