Part 9

He did not seem greatly interested in a matter which excited Peter Dawes to an unusual extent. He had little else to say, and when Peter Dawes left him, he lay wearily down on the plank bed.

Peter was talking for some time with the inspector in charge of the station, when the gaoler called him.

“I don’t know what was the matter with that prisoner, sir,” he said, “but, looking through the peephole about two minutes ago, I saw him pulling the buttons off his coat.”

Peter frowned.

“You’d better change that coat of his,” he said, “and place him under observation.”

They all went back to the cell together. Lord Claythorpe was lying in the attitude in which Peter had left him, and they entered the cell together. Peter bent down and touched the face, then, with a cry, turned the figure over on its back.

“He’s dead!” he cried.

He looked at the coat. One of the buttons had been wrenched off. Then he bent down and smelt the dead man’s lips, and began a search of the floor. Presently he found what he was looking for--a section of a button. He picked it up, smelt it, and handed it to the inspector.

“So that’s how he did it,” he said gravely. “Claythorpe was prepared for this.”

“What is it?” asked the inspector.

“The second button of his coat has evidently been made specially for him. It is a compressed tablet of cyanide of potassium, coloured to match the other buttons, and he had only to tear it off to end his life.”

So passed Lord Claythorpe, a great scoundrel, leaving his title to a weakling of a son, and very few happy memories to that obscure and hysterical woman who bore his name. Peter’s work was done, save for the mystery of Four Square Jane, and even that mystery was exposed. The task he had set himself now was a difficult one, and one in which he had very little heart. He obtained a fresh set of warrants, and accompanied by a small army of detectives who watched every exit, made his call at the hotel at which Steele and his wife were staying.

He went straight up to the room, and found Joyce and her husband at breakfast. They were both dressed; the fact that several trunks were packed suggested that they were contemplating an early move.

Peter closed the door behind him and came slowly to the breakfast table, and the girl greeted him with a smile.

“You’re just in time for breakfast,” she said. “Won’t you have some coffee?”

Peter shook his head. Steele was eyeing him narrowly, and presently the young man laughed.

“Joyce,” he said, “I do believe that friend Dawes has come to arrest us all.”

“You might guess again, and guess wrong,” said Peter, sitting himself down and leaning one elbow on the table. “Mr. Steele, the game is up. I want you!”

“And me, too?” asked the girl, raising her eyebrows.

She looked immensely pretty, he thought, and he had a sore heart for her.

“Yes, you, too, Mrs. Steele,” he said quietly.

“What have I done?” she asked.

“There are several things you’ve done, the latest being to embrace your husband in the vestibule of the hotel when we had arrested him for being in possession of an emerald necklace, and in your emotion relieving him of the incriminating evidence.”

She laughed, throwing back her head.

“It was prettily done, don’t you think?” she asked.

“Very prettily,” said Peter.

“Have you any other charge?”

“None, except that you are Four Square Jane,” said Peter Dawes.

“So you’ve found that out, too, have you?” asked the girl. She raised her cup to her lips without a tremor, and her eyes were dancing with mischief.

Peter Dawes felt that had this woman been engaged on a criminal character instead of devoting her life to relieving the man who had robbed her of his easy gains, she would have lived in history as the greatest of all those perverted creatures who set the law at defiance.

Steele took a cigarette from his pocket, and offered his case to the detective.

“As you say, the jig is up,” said he, “and since we desire most earnestly that there should be no unpleasant scene, and this is a more comfortable place to make a confession than a cold, cold prison cell, I will tell you that the whole scheme of Four Square Jane was mine.”

“That’s not true,” said the girl quietly. “You mustn’t take either the responsibility or the credit, dear.”

Steele laughed as he held a light to the detective’s cigarette.

“Anyway, I planned some of our cleverest exploits,” he said, and she nodded.

“As you rightly say, Dawes, my wife is Four Square Jane. Perhaps you would like to know why she took that name?”

“I know--or, rather, I guess,” said Peter. “It has to do with four squares in London.”

Steele looked surprised.

“You’re cleverer than I thought,” he said. “But that is the truth. Joyce and I had been engaged in robbing Claythorpe for a number of years. When we got some actual, good money from him, we held tight to it. Jewels we used either to send in to the hospitals----”

“That I know, too,” said Peter, and suddenly flung away his cigarette. He looked at the two suspiciously, but neither pair of eyes fell. “Now then,” said Peter thickly. “Come along. I’ve waited too long.”

He rose to his feet and staggered, then took a halting step across the room to reach the door, but Steele was behind him, and had pinioned him before he went two paces. Peter Dawes felt curiously weak and helpless. Moreover, he could not raise his voice very much above a whisper.

“That--cigarette--was--drugged,” he said drowsily.

“Quite right,” said Steele. “It was one of my Never Fails.”

Peter’s head dropped on his breast, and Steele lowered him to the ground.

The girl looked down pityingly.

“I’m awfully sorry we had to do this, dear,” she said.

“It won’t harm him,” said Steele cheerfully. “I think we had better keep some of our sorrow for ourselves, because this hotel is certain to be surrounded. The big danger is that he’s got one of his gentleman friends in the corridor outside.”

He opened the door quietly and looked out. The corridor was empty. He beckoned the girl.

“Bring only the jewel-case,” he said. “I have the money and the necklace in my pocket.”

After closing and locking the door behind them, they passed down the corridor, not in the direction of the lift or the stairs, but towards a smaller pair of stairs, which was used as an emergency exit, in case of fire. They did not attempt to descend, but went up three flights, till they emerged on a flat roof, which commanded an excellent view of the West End of London.

Steele led the way. He had evidently reconnoitred the way, and did not once hesitate. The low roof ended abruptly in a wall on to which he climbed, assisting the girl after him. They had to cross a little neck of sloping ledge, before they came to a much more difficult foothold, a slate roof, protected only by a low parapet. They stepped gingerly along this, until they came to a skylight, which Steele lifted.

“Down you go,” he said, and helped the girl to drop into the room below them.

He waited only long enough to secure the skylight, and then he followed the girl through the unfurnished room into which they had dropped, on to a landing.

In the meantime, Peter’s assistant had grown nervous, and had come up to the room, and knocked. Getting no answer, he had broken in the door, to find his chief lying still conscious but helpless where he had been left. The rough-and-ready method of resuscitation to which the detective resorted, shook the drugged man from his sleep, and a doctor, hastily summoned, brought him back to normality.

He was still shaky, however, when he recounted the happenings.

“They haven’t passed out of the hotel, that I’ll swear,” said the detective. “We’re watching every entrance, including the staff entrance. How did it occur?”

Peter shook his head.

“I went like a lamb to the slaughter,” he said, smiling grimly. “It was the promise of a confession, and my infernal curiosity which made me stay--to smoke a doped cigarette, too!” He thought a moment. “I don’t suppose they depended entirely on the cigarette, though,” he said. “And maybe it would have been a little more unpleasant for me, if I hadn’t smoked.”

An hour after he was well enough to conduct personally a search of the hotel premises. From cellar to roof he went, followed by two assistants, and it was not until he was actually on the roof that he discovered any clue. It was a small piece of beadwork against the wall which the girl had climbed, and which had been torn off in her exertions. They passed along the neck, and along the sloping roof till they came to the skylight, and this Peter forced.

He found, upon descending, that he was in the premises of Messrs. Backham and Boyd, ladies’ outfitters. The floor below was a large sewing-room, filled with girls who were working at their machines, until the unexpected apparition of a pale and grimy man brought an end to their labours. Neither the foreman nor the forewoman had seen anybody come in, and as it was necessary to pass through the room to reach a floor lower down, this seemed to prove conclusively to Dawes that the fugitives had not made use of this method to escape.

“The only people who have been in the upstairs room,” exclaimed the foreman, “are two of the warehousemen, who went up about two minutes ago, to bring down some bales.”

“Two men?” said Peter quickly. “Who were they?”

But, though he pushed his inquiries to the lower and more influential regions of the shop, he could not discover the two porters. A lot of new men had been recently engaged, said the manager, and it was impossible to say who had been upstairs and who had not.

The door porter at the wholesale entrance, however, had seen the two porters come out, carrying their somewhat awkwardly-shaped bundles on their shoulders.

“Were they heavy?” asked Peter.

“Very,” said the door-keeper. “They put them on a cart, and didn’t come back.”

Now if there was one thing more certain than another in Peter’s mind, it was that Four Square Jane did not depend entirely upon the assistance she received from her husband. Peter recalled the fact that there had once been two spurious detectives who had called on Lord Claythorpe having the girl in custody. They were probably two old hands at the criminal game, enlisted by the ingenious Mr. Steele. This proved to be the case, as Peter was to find later. And either Four Square Jane or he might have planted these two men in an adjoining warehouse with the object of rendering just that kind of assistance, which, in fact, they did render.

Peter reached the streets again, baffled and angry. Then he remembered that in Lord Claythorpe’s desk was a certain bond to bearer for five hundred thousand dollars. Four Square Jane would not leave England until she had secured this; and, as the thought occurred to him, he hailed a taxi, and drove at top speed to the dead man’s house.

Already the news of the tragedy which had overcome the Claythorpe’s household had reached the domestics: and the gloomy butler who admitted him greeted him with a scowl as though he were responsible for the death of his master.

“You can’t go into the study, sir,” he said, with a certain satisfaction, “it has been locked and sealed.”

“By whom?” asked Peter.

“By an official of the Court, sir,” said the man.

Peter went to the study door, and examined the two big red seals.

There is something about the seal of the Royal Courts of Justice which impresses even an experienced officer of the law. To break that seal without authority involves the most uncomfortable consequences, and Peter hesitated.

“Has anybody else been here?” he asked.

“Only Miss Wilberforce, sir,” said the man.

“Miss Wilberforce?” almost yelled Peter. “When did she come?”

“About the same time as the officer who sealed the door,” said the butler. “In fact, she was in the study when he arrived. He ordered her out pretty roughly, too, sir,” said the butler with relish, as though finding in Miss Wilberforce’s discomfiture some compensation for the tragedy which had overtaken his employer. “She sent me upstairs to get an umbrella she had left when she was here last, and when I came down she was gone. The officer grumbled something terribly.”

Peter went to the telephone and rang up Scotland Yard, but they had heard nothing of the sealing of the house and suggested that he should seek out the Chancery officials to discover who had made the order and under what circumstances. Only those who have attempted to disturb the routine of the Court of Chancery will appreciate the unhappy hours which Peter spent that day, wandering from master to master, in a vain attempt to secure news or information.

He went back to the house at half-past four that evening, determined to brave whatever terror the Court of Chancery might impose, and again he was met by the butler on the doorstep, but this time a butler bursting with news.

“I’m very glad you’ve come, sir. I’ve got such a lot to tell you. About half-an-hour after you’d gone, sir, I heard a ripping and tearing in the study, and I went to the door and listened. I couldn’t understand what was going on, so I shouted out: ‘Who’s there?’ And who do you think replied?”

Peter’s heart had sunk at the butler’s words.

“I know,” he said. “It was Four Square--it was Miss Joyce Wilberforce.”

“So it was, sir,” said the butler in surprise. “How did you know?”

“I guessed,” said Peter shortly.

“It appeared she’d been locked in quite by accident by the officer of the Court,” the butler went on, “and she was having a look through his lordship’s desk to find some letters she’d left behind.”

“Of course, sir, everybody knows that Lord Claythorpe’s desk is one of the most wonderful in the world. It’s full of secret drawers, and I remember Miss Joyce saying once that if his lordship wanted to hide anything it would take a month to find it.”

Peter groaned.

“They wanted time--of course, they wanted time!”

What a fool he had been all through! There was no need for the butler to tell him the rest of the story, because he guessed it. But the man went on.

“After a bit,” he said, “I heard the key turn in the lock, and out came Miss Joyce, looking as pleased as Punch. But you should have seen the state of that desk!”

“So she broke the seals, did she?” said Peter, with gentle irony.

“Oh, yes, she broke the seals, and she broke the desk, too,” said the butler impressively. “And when she came out, she was carrying a big square sheet of paper in her hand--a printed-on paper, like a bank note, sir.”

“I know,” said Peter. “It was a bond.”

“Ah. I think it might have been,” said the butler hazily. “At any rate, that’s what she had. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it took a lot of finding.’ ‘Miss,’ said I, ‘you oughtn’t to take anything from his lordship’s study until the law----’ ‘Blow the law,’ said she. Them was her very words--blow the law, sir.”

“She’s blown it, all right,” said Peter, and left the house. His last hope was to block all the ports, and in this way prevent their leaving the country. However, he had no great hopes of succeeding in his attempts to hold the volatile lady whose escapades had given him so many sleepless nights.

* * * * *

Two months later, Peter Dawes received a letter bearing a South American postmark. It was from Joyce Steele.

“You don’t know how sorry I am that we had to give you so much trouble,” it ran; “and really, the whole thing was ridiculous, because all the time I was breaking the law to secure that which was my own. It is true that I am Four Square Jane. It is equally true that I am Four Square Jane no longer, and that henceforth my life will be blameless! And really, dear Mr. Dawes, you did much better than any of the other detectives who were put on my track. I am here with my husband, and the two friends who very kindly assisted us with our many exploits are also in South America, but at a long distance from us. They are very nice people, but I am afraid they have criminal minds, and nothing appals me more than the criminal mind. No doubt there is much that has happened that has puzzled you, and made you wonder why this, or that, or the other happened. Why, for example, did I consent to go to church with that impossible person, Francis Claythorpe? Partly, dear friend, because I was already married, and it did not worry me a bit to add bigamy to my other crimes. And partly because I made ample preparations for such a contingency, and knew that marriage was impossible. I had hoped, too, that Lord Claythorpe would give me a wedding present of some value, which hope was doomed to disappointment. But I did get a lot of quite valuable presents from his many friends, and these both Jamieson and I most deeply appreciate. Jamieson was the doctor who saw me at Lewinstein’s by the way. He has been my right-hand man, and my dearest confederate. Perhaps, Mr. Dawes, you will meet us again in London, when we are tired of South America. And perhaps when you meet us you will not arrest us, because you will have taken a more charitable view of our behaviour, and perhaps you will have induced those in authority to share your view. I am tremendously happy--would you be kind enough to tell my mother that? I do not think it will cheer her up, because she is not that kind.

“I first got my idea of playing Four Square Jane from hearing a servant we once employed--a Jane Briglow--discussing the heroic adventures of some fictional personage in whom she was interested. But it was a mistake to call me ‘Jane.’ The ‘J’ stands for Joyce. When you have time for a holiday, won’t you come over and see us? We should love to entertain you.”

There was a P.S. to the letter which brought a wry smile to the detective’s face.

“P.S. Perhaps you had better bring your own cigarettes.”

[The End]

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ childlike/child-like, dinner-party/dinner party, Ritz-Carlton/Ritz Carlton, etc.) have been preserved.

Alterations to the text:

Add ToC.

Punctuation fixes: some missing periods and commas, and adjust some quotation mark pairings/nestings.

[Chapter I]

Change “She left the room as _noislessly_ as she had entered” to _noiselessly_.

[Chapter II]

“applause for the genius and _presience_ of the little man” to _prescience_.

[Chapter III]

“Mr. _Tressler_ took his loss very calmly until the newspapers” to _Tresser_.

[Chapter V]

“she sticks to it; and maybe _its_ something else” to _it’s_.

“But I’m afraid _its_ no use. This poor fellow has been shot” to _it’s_.

[Chapter VII]

(“Is that so?” he said _increduously_.) to _incredulously_.

[Chapter VIII]

“he unbolted the door, _unbottoned_ the coat, and took out” to _unbuttoned_.

[Chapter IX]

“_Its_ full of secret drawers, and I remember Miss Joyce saying” to _It’s_.

[End of text]