CHAPTER XV

ONCE A GENTLEMAN

Storm being an unconventional young man, it was not to be expected that the private report on the Battle of Billingsgate which he sent to Sir John Marker would be strictly in accord with conventional ideas on the correct composition of such documents. Kit Arden had no manner of use for formulas; jargon made him feel ill; in the presence of the bugaboo of official phraseology he positively writhed. He banged out his points with crisp simplicity, and framed them in sentences like bullets.

The letter is worth quoting _in extenso_, for reasons which will be apparent at sight.

When once the door of the sawmill had been opened, and the janitor removed without noise, the fate of the Alpha Triangle hung by a hair. In spite of the telephone call which told the men in the building that their heavily armoured bag had lost its cat, they could not forecast the minute in which the information so gained would be acted upon. The future of the organisation was suspended by that slender thread; our hope of being in amongst them, raising Hell, before they could collect their wits. You already know how that thread was snapped.

Whatever a man's genius, he cannot dream of terrorising a city--as the Apex intends to do--without a large number of assistants. With his young army of helpers locked away, he would have been crippled--perhaps irretrievably.

However, we failed--so that's that. Anyway, all we made was an attempt to maim, when our object is to kill.

One or two details stand over.

(1) Besides myself, two others got into the sawmill. One was Miss Hawthorne, secretary to the late Lord Hannassay, who went simply in search of adventure. The second was Joseph Blaythwayt, manager of the City and Continental Bank, Lombard Street, who in his spare time aspires to sleuthship. He is a friend of Inspector Teal, from whom he had heard unpublished facts about the Triangle which (on his own account) fired him with thoughts of honour and glory as an amateur Sherlock. He is also one of the lives threatened by the Triangle, which fact does not perturb him unduly.

(2) In my opinion, the telephone call which followed our departure came by chance, and was not based on knowledge of any of our plans.

(3) Raegenssen's office was burgled last night, and the safe opened, but I don't know if the men found anything. A lot of attention has centred round Raegenssen lately, so I expect his obituary notice is only a matter of days.

The Billingsgate raid having failed, I am basing my next move on the Era advertisement. It will, of course, be risky; but if anything goes wrong you will know what to do.

I can only guess how the Triangle will continue its campaign. I probably have a better appreciation of that colossal mind than anybody else; but if I gave you a logical prophecy, even you might begin to regard me as an imaginative alarmist. The solid _fact_, which you and everyone else has got to get hold of, is that for the time being all the odds are on the Triangle. They have all the advantage of surprise. Just now, the police aren't prepared. Violent crime isn't familiar to them yet. They can't quite adjust themselves to it--it'll catch them napping, and they'll take time to get busy. There's a genius at the top of the Triangle--or a lunatic, whichever you care to call him--and the police are neither geniuses nor lunatics. They're just plain ornery men dealing with plain ornery crooks, with all the odds on the crook. Crooks catch themselves and each other, but there'll be no nosing the Triangle. It can pay too well, and the little twisters follow the big money. Gangs in the past have gone just because discontented members shopped them. There will be no discontented members of the Triangle--why, their chief can even pull them out of the hands of the police! The rescue of the Billingsgate prisoners will add tremendously to the prestige of the Apex.

I promised you the head of the Apex on a Triangle in a fortnight, and that fortnight still has some time to run.

The brain of the Apex moves in such great leaps that nothing less than genius could anticipate it from pinnacle to pinnacle. Against that there is only one card to play--fear. Even genius has nerves. Even genius can be made to worry about its neck.

I shall win.

The removal of Lew Mecklen from St. George's Hospital to Marlborough Street Police Court was not advertised, but Storm did not doubt that the Intelligence Bureau of the Triangle had its own sources of information. He had asked for, and secured, a special escort from Wellington Barracks, and they were served out with ball ammunition. It was a wise precaution, for the soldier, being a lethal machine, is less chary of using firearms than the London constable, who is a civil institution into whose routine the more effective forms of violence rarely enter. Apparently the Triangle admitted that Mecklen was well guarded, for no attempt was made on the armoured car in which the gunman rode with platoons of scarlet-coated men marching in front and behind.

Lew was taken into the tiny court-room, and a stream of detectives followed him and filled the rest of the space. Outside, uniformed men blocked the tiled hall, and the military escort stood at ease in the road.

The proceedings were brief, for attempted murder offers no option of summary jurisdiction. Mecklen pleaded not guilty and declined to instruct a solicitor. Evidence of arrest was taken, to which the prisoner paid little attention. The verbal proceedings seemed not to interest him, but he studied his surroundings curiously. He did not cross-examine, and made no statement, and the whole business took no more than ten minutes.

"Without a hitch," remarked Storm, in grim reminiscence of the formal Press account of executions--"thanks to the Army!"

Mecklen was committed for trial, and, whilst the necessary papers were being made out and signed, he was taken to a cell in the adjoining police station. It was when they removed him and told him that he would be taken immediately to Brixton Prison that he showed his first sign of uneasiness. He asked if a message had come for him, and, when informed that none had arrived up to that time, he asked to be allowed to see a newspaper. On Storm's authority, the request was refused, and Mecklen was handcuffed and led out between a double rank of policemen. Teal went in front and Storm brought up the rear, and as the cortège came into view of the street Teal halted so suddenly that Storm trod on the prisoner's heels.

Pushing his way to the front, Arden found the detective staring up and down the street with a ludicrously blank expression on his sanguine countenance. Storm looked also, and his lean face hardened. There was a cab rank in the road, and he went over at once and asked a question of one of the drivers.

"About arf an hour ago," said the man. "Just after the man'd bin taken in. A cop comes out an 'ands a note to the orf'cer, an' walks away, an' then the orf'cer shouts _'Shun!_ an' off they goes."

"Did you see the constable's face?" asked Storm, and the chauffeur scratched his head.

"S'pose I must 'ave, but I didn't take much stock of it. You don't inspect every copper's dial wot yer sees--you'd get 'eart failure! Just looked an ord'nary pleeceman to me. 'Ulkin' great feller, oldish, walked as if 'e owned the earth--like they all do."

"Thank you," said Storm bitterly, and returned to the waiting group on the station steps.

By that time the escort would be back in barracks. In the first instance, there had been more than enough red tape, and no little grumbling in high places about troops being called upon to do the work of the police. A fresh escort would not be procured without considerable delay, and perhaps not even then. And yet a military guard Storm was determined to have. As it turned out later, he had made a grave mistake in jumping to the conclusion that the dismissal of the soldiery by means of a forged message was simply a ruse to make him send Mecklen to the prison in the ordinary van and under police escort only. Bearing in mind the Tower Hill affair, this was the explanation he had reached, and it made him doubly set on attempting no such hazard. He had Mecklen taken back to his cell, and ordered a special watch to be mounted over him. Then he rang up the C.O. at the barracks, and found that the two platoons had just returned.

"You might find out if the officer kept my note," he said, and waited until the requisite information was forthcoming. "He has? ... I'm sending a constable round for it now; he'll give his number, which is C2447.... Oh, no, nothing whatever, except that the note happens to be a fake! ... That so? Well, you're not half so sorry as I am."

He listened for a moment, and then replaced the receiver with great care.

"Started to quote me: _If you want a thing done well,_" he explained. "On the whole, the observation's appropriate, but not the way he meant."

Teal was looking glum.

"I don't like it," he confessed. "And yet, on the face of it, Lew's almost as safe here as he'd have been in Brixton. But this Triangle's a shade too snappy for Claud Eustace--they think of things the ordinary crook'd laugh at, and they do 'em, and so far they've got away with them every darned time by sheer nerve."

"There's a special guard," Storm said, "and you can spend the night here yourself if you like. I'll see if I can see Marker and get a special order for another parade to-morrow. We can't do any more. Either the Triangle's thinking of raiding the station, or they're planning to hold up the prison van, and I think the first is the least likely to succeed."

Teal shook his head.

"I agree; but it doesn't make me happy. Triangles have three corners, so I guess they might manage to have a prick waiting in two places," he said prophetically.

Down at the Yard, however, a slight ray of hope awaited them, for the call put out the previous day for Prester John had been successful, and the burglar was even then being detained in Cannon Row pending audience.

The man who had made the arrest foreshadowed the result of the interview in his account.

"I took John in a bar in Camden Tower, where he often goes. He didn't deny the charge, and said he was coming along to see Captain Arden to-day, anyhow."

"He's got his wish, then," said Teal. "Send him up."

The facetious parent who, while replete with beer, had bestowed upon Mr. John the prænomen of Prester must have been gifted with second sight. The celebrated infringer of the laws of property resembled nothing so much as an elderly parson. He was lank and lofty, sallow-complexioned and blue of chin. He affected clothes of clerical hue, wore a high Gladstonian collar and a black bow tie, and generally gave the impression of sanctimoniousness incarnate.

"Good morning, brethren," he said politely. "I heard that my Lords had need of men, and I came."

It was his invariable greeting when summoned before the police to account for his lapses, and he accompanied it with an equally automatic gesture, holding his elbows in to his sides, bringing his forearms horizontal, and spreading out his flat palms in the same plane, a mannerism which the irreverent Inspector Teal described as "John's lo-and-behold mitt-flap."

"Acoustics excellent!" commented Storm. "I hear you visited Mr. Raegenssen last night."

"On business," nodded Prester John.

"And was he pleased to see you?" asked Teal.

"He was--er--unfortunately unable to attend."

Storm passed his cigarette case to the pious one and, when John declined, lighted a cigarette himself.

"How much was Mattock paying you?" he asked, waving his match in the air to extinguish it.

"Mattock?"

"Raegenssen's clerk. He put you on to the job, didn't he?"

"Not that I know of--although, of course, since the name is unfamiliar to me, he may have been the man. May I sit down? It assists the train of thought."

Permission being granted, the man seated himself with a sigh and hitched up his trousers fastidiously. Leaning back, he fixed his eyes on the ceiling and pressed the tips of his fingers together like a pedantic schoolmaster, and after a dramatic pause he deigned to continue.

"The circumstances are--to say the least of it--curious," he said. "To commence, then: I am, as you probably know by now, a member of the society called the Alpha Triangle. You have heard of it, of course?"

"No," said Teal, _sotto voce_.

"Not, you understand, that I associate myself in any way with the outrages which they propose to commit," John explained hastily. "No. I am simply a wage slave--an employee--an hireling. And, in passing, the hire is worthy of the hireling. My employers pay me a salary, which is very comfortable--thank you--and in return I undertake to deal with such refractory locks and so forth as they wish to penetrate. So far I have had little to do, although I was given to understand that there would be an important piece of work for me in the near future. The Bank of England, I think Surcon said--Surcon is the name by which the Apex is known to his men. An assumed name, of course, but we are not encouraged to discover his real one. There was a man named Rodriguez--a Portuguese--who said he was going to find out the real name and put the black--I believe that is the correct slang, Mr. Teal?--and--er--where had I got to? Oh, yes, put the black on. Polite people call it demanding money with menaces. Rodriguez died the other day. Enteric, you know. I'm sure of that, because I was able to take a swab from the hypodermic syringe Mr. Surcon used when he treated Rodriguez to a shot of morphine. Surcon says he qualified as a doctor. So did I. In my leisure moments, I still dabble in bacteriology, and _bacilli typhosi_ are easily recognised under the microscope by the trained observer. So--er--one is not encouraged to be inquisitive, is one?"

"Quite," murmured Storm.

Inspector Teal cleared his throat noisily, fumbled aimlessly in his pockets, and came across a battered cigar. He nipped the end from it, and sought for matches. Instead, he found a virgin packet of spearmint, and abandoned fumigation in favour of mastication. Then, having returned the weary weed to his pocket and posted a wafer of chicle in his mouth, he struck a match and absently wondered why there wasn't anything to light.

Which seems to indicate a certain perturbation.

It does. Mr. Teal was familiar with the vanity of criminals, their affectations and their powers of plausible invention, but the yarn of Prester John was something which failed to enter the borders of his experience. The germ of truth in it stuck out like the Eiffel Tower: he had always known that Prester John had drifted to burglary, not from Borstal, but from Balliol, solely because of the moral kink in his nature. But the lying of criminals--which psychologists will tell you is "pathological," whatever that may mean--is expressly designed for the covering up of their defects and defections--not the revelation of the same. Wherefore Prester John became an interesting specimen.

A fact which seemed to have entered the mind of that oleaginous man, for he allowed an appreciable time to elapse before he resumed his confession--time during which the theatrical atmosphere piled up hand over fist.

"Well--to return," he went on at last. "Last night I received a telephone call in the name of the Apex, instructing me to proceed with all speed to Scandinavia House, Cockspur Street. My lord had need of me, so I went." Interval for the lo-and-behold mitt-flap. "Entering the office to which I had been directed to proceed, I found seated at a desk a masked man--that sounds a bit thick to you, I suppose, Mr. Teal, but you've got to take my word for it. Er--a masked man, as I said. Most extraordinary."

He had a trick of affecting to have lost the thread of his discourse, and finding his place with an exaggerated effort of concentration.

"This man--masked, as I told you--er--where was I? Oh, yes; this man explained to me that in his _rôle_ of Ezra Surcon--did I tell you that the Apex called himself Ezra Surcon?"

"You did," assented Teal patiently. "He explained?"

"That he was, of course, disguised when he appeared before us, and he had not had time to assume his disguise that night. Therefore, with a solicitude for my own safety which, I may say, touched me to the heart--therefore, he had donned a mask. And that was that. He indicated a safe, and invited me to open it. Which, reasonably enough--you understand--I did. And, when I got in"--lo-and-behold--"the cupboard was bare!"

Storm tapped the ash from his cigarette. The revelation affected him less than it did Inspector Teal; for he had already deducted much of what he now heard, and the criminal's story came as little more than a confirmation.

"Well, Mother Hubbard?" he prompted.

"And that was all," Prester John concluded with an eloquent wave of his hand. "Shall I ask you to picture the scene? My masked friend, shaking with baffled rage--quite upset, you know. Some people take things to heart so. It's a thing I--er--as I was saying, shaking with baffled rage; myself, calm and serene, rather like a turf accountant's clerk as the horses pass the post, knowing that whoever may have lost money his own wages are secure. . . . There's an extraordinary attraction for me in gambling--I've always wanted----" He caught a murderous gleam in Inspector Teal's eye, and tactfully returned to the point. "So that was that. Shall I endeavour to picture for you the scene--to--to delineate, so to speak, the situation? Shall I----"

"No," said Teal with determination. "What happened after the tableau?"

John shrugged.

"What would you? I went. My Lord's manner did not give me the assurance which every gentleman requires before he continues to inflict his company on a comrade, that he is welcome. You follow? The moment did not appear propitious for bringing up such sordid topics as my own remuneration. I folded up my wallet and silently stole away."

He uncrossed his legs as though, his mission accomplished, he was about to repeat that man[oe]uvre, but Teal's curiosity was no more than whetted.

"Did you see any Triangles that night?"

"Er--no."

"Not this?" persisted Teal, and produced from his wallet the cardboard insigne he had found in the safe.

Prester John examined it with interest, but he shook his head as he handed it back.

"This is one of the badges which are issued to the inferior members--the rank and file, so to speak," he said. "The higher members have tokens of silver and enamel. My own--er--have you finished with it yet, by the way?"

The question was ignored. Teal and Storm were busy with their own thoughts, and both these ran in the same channel. Storm, who was watching the methods of the two men dispassionately, allowed the detective to give tongue.

"Why have you spun us this yarn?"

"Why? I--er--thought it might possibly be of some assistance," said John deprecatingly. "As a matter of fact, I am giving up my illegal activities altogether, and resigning from the Triangle. I heard this morning that some obscure relative had died and left me money--nothing great, you understand, but sufficient at least to enable me to inhabit once more those haunts of culture and respectability after which my soul hankers."

Teal grunted non-committally and made a mental memorandum to verify this glad news. Prester John read the disbelief on the round red face, and smiled faintly.

"That happens to be true," he said.

"Then can you help us to locate any other members--silver badge size members, I mean--or any boltholes?"

John made a negative gesture regretfully.

"I wish I could," he said. "Unfortunately, I was never taken to any rendezvous but the one at Billingsgate, of which you already know. As for members, I have never--er--been in the habit of associating with gentlemen in the same--er--line of business as myself. Now that I am meditating a return to the straight and narrow path, my chief ambition is to--er--rehabilitate myself with the police, bearing no malice for the many tussles we have had in the past. But my acquaintances are unhappily so useless for your purpose."

Teal knew that this was the truth, for one of Prester John's many peculiarities was that he never mixed with other criminals, planned and executed all his coups single-handed, and disposed of the proceeds through channels unknown to the underworld.

"There's no clue you could give us about the masked man?" said Storm.

"Nothing. In fiction, a scar--a limp--a missing button. In real life, nothing. Tall, and I should think well-built; but since he wore an overcoat I shall not take the risk of--er--perjuring myself on that point."

Storm himself opened the door to the reforming burglar, and, receiving an almost imperceptible signal, followed the man out into the passage.

"All I've told you is blowed-in-the-glass," said Prester John in a rapid undertone, his pose having dropped from him like a cloak. "I am really going straight, and I know no more than I've told you. Except this. I know how it is between you and Miss Hawthorne--why, if a split sneezes it's known all over the underworld in half an hour. The order went out that she's got to go, and Lew's been told off to do it. He's going to escape to-night--I suppose you knew that? But that isn't Lew's way." He looked at Storm steadily. "The difference between Lew and me is that I was once a gentleman--whatever that may mean. But I was. Lew never will be. His mind is so ... vulgar. Take a stable tip."

He held out his hand a little hesitatingly, and smiled when Storm took it.

"Thanks," said Storm. "But why couldn't you say that in front of Teal?"

"My--er--dear sir, one must make good exits--intriguing curtains." He swung his stick, and once more his face was sanctimonious and his voice treacly. "The worthy Inspector Teal has, in his blundering fashion, crossed swords with me on many memorable occasions. Once, he even succeeded in obtaining my--er--incarceration for a period of three years---the only time I have ever been inside. Painstaking--slow and sure--but not brilliant. I have taken a number of years convincing him that the Church was my proper _métier_. His mind is not elastic. I feared that if I--er--removed the mask of the musical comedy parson the shock, you know--terrible, terrible, terrible--all one's ideas dislocated--and so forth. You appreciate my point?" he pleaded, and there was a peep of laughter in Storm's grey eyes as he watched the lank figure pass mincingly down the stone corridor.