CHAPTER VII

AMBER GOES TO SCOTLAND YARD

Peter Musk had the entire top floor of 19, Redcow Court, and was accounted an ideal tenant by his landlord, for he paid his rent regularly. Of the three rooms, Peter occupied one, Amber (“My nephew from the country,” said Peter elaborately) the other, and the third was Peter’s “common room.”

Peter had reached the most exciting chapter in the variegated career of “Handsome Hike, the Terror of Texas,” when Amber came in.

He came in hurriedly, and delivered a breathless little chuckle as he closed the door behind him.

Peter looked up over his spectacles, and dropped his romance to his lap. “In trouble?” he demanded eagerly, and when Amber shook his head with a smile, a disappointed frown gathered on the old man’s face.

“No, my Peter,” said Amber, hanging up his hat, “I am not in trouble--to any extent.” He took from his pocket two flat packages and laid them on the table carefully. They were wrapped in newspaper and contained articles of some heavy substance. Amber walked over to the mantelshelf, where an oil lamp burnt, and examined his coat with minute interest.

“What’s up, Amber? What are you looking for?”

“Blood, my Peter,” said Amber; “gore--human gore. I was obliged to strike a gentleman hard, with a knobby weapon--to wit, a fist.”

“Hey?” Peter was on his feet, all eagerness, but Amber was still smiling.

“Go on with your reading,” he said, “there’s nothing doin’.”

That was a direct and a sharp speech for Amber, and Peter stared, and only the smile saved it from brusqueness.

Amber continued his inspection, removing his coat, and scrutinizing the garment carefully.

“No incriminating stains,” he retorted flippantly, and went to the table, where his packages lay. He had resumed his coat, and, diving into one of the pockets, he produced a flat round leather case. He pressed a spring, and the cover opened like the face of a watch.

Peter was an interested spectator. “That is a compass,” he said.

“True, my Peter; it is a compass--but it has the disadvantage that it does not cump: in other words, it is a most unblushing liar of a compass; a mis-leader of men, my Peter; it is the old one who is the devil of compasses, because it leadeth the feet to stray--in other words, it’s a dud.”

He shook it a little, gave it a twist or two, and shook his head severely. He closed it and put it on the table by his side. Then he turned his attention to the other packages. Very gingerly he unwrapped them. They were revealed as two flat plates of steel, strangely engraved. He leant over them, his smile growing broader and broader, till he broke into a gleeful little laugh.

He looked up to meet the troubled and puzzled eyes of Peter, and laughed out loud.

“Amber, there’s a game on,” said Peter gloomily; “there’s a dodge on, and I’m not in it. Me that has been with you in every dodge you’ve worked.”

This was not exactly true, but it pleased Peter to believe that he had some part in Amber’s many nefarious schemes.

“It’s a Dodge _and_ a Game, my Peter,” said Amber, carefully wrapping up the plates. “It’s this much of a game, that if the police suddenly appeared and found these in my possession I should go down to the tombs for seven long bright years, and you for no less a period.”

It may have been an effect of the bad lighting of the room, but it seemed that Peter, the desperate criminal, went a little pale at the prospect so crudely outlined.

“That’s a bit dangerous, ain’t it?” he said uncomfortably. “Takin’ risks of that kind, Amber,--what is it?”

“Forgery,” said the calm Amber, “forgery of Bank of England notes.”

“Good gaw,” gasped Peter, and clutched the edge of the table for support.

“I was thinkin’ the same,” said Amber, and rose. “I am going to take these precious articles of virtue and bigotry to a safe place,” he said.

“Where?--be careful, ol’ man--don’t get yourself into trouble, an’ don’t get me into trouble--after me keepin’ clear of prison all these years,--chuck ’em into the river; borrer a boat down by Waterloo.”

He gave his advice in hoarse whispers as Amber left the room, with a little nod, and continued it over the crazy balustrades, as Amber went lightly down the stairs.

He turned into the Borough, and walked quickly in the direction of London Bridge. He passed a policeman, who, as bad luck would have it, knew him, and the man looked at him hard, then beckoned him.

Amber desired many things, but the one thing in the world that he did not wish was an interview with an inquisitorial policeman. To pass on, pretending not to have noticed the summons, would annoy the man, so Amber stopped, with his most winning smile.

“Well, Mr. Amber,” bantered the constable, “I see you’re out--going straight now?”

“So straight, my constable,” said Amber earnestly, “that you could use my blameless path as a T square.” He observed the quick, professional “look over” the man gave him. The plates were showing out of his pocket he knew, and the next remark might easily be a request for information regarding the contents of the flat package. His eye roved for a means of escape, and a slow-moving taxi-cab attracted him. He raised his hand and whistled.

“Doin’ the heavy now, are you?” asked the constable disapprovingly.

“In a sense I am,” said Amber, and without moving he addressed the chauffeur, who had brought his machine to the kerb.

“I want you to take me to New Scotland Yard,” he said; then addressing the policeman, he asked, “Do you think Chief Inspector Fell will be on duty?”

“Inspector Fell”--there was a note of respect in the constable’s voice--“I couldn’t say, we don’t know very much about the Yard people--what are you going to see him about?”

“I am afraid I cannot appease your curiosity, my officer,” said Amber as he stepped into the cab, “but I will inform the chief inspector that you were anxious to know.”

“Here, Amber, none of that!” said the alarmed policeman, stepping to the edge of the pavement, and laying his hand upon the door. “You’re not going to say that?”

“Not a bit,” Amber grinned, “my little joke; honour amongst policemen, eh?”

The cab made a wide circle, and Amber, looking back through the little back window, saw the policeman standing in that indefinable attitude which expresses doubt and suspicion.

It was a close shave, and Amber breathed a sigh of relief as the danger slipped past. He had ten minutes to decide upon his plan. Being more than ordinary nimble of wit, his scheme was complete before the cab ran smoothly over Westminster Bridge and turned into New Scotland Yard. There was an inspector behind a desk, who looked up from a report he was writing.

“I want to see Mr. Fell,” said Amber.

“Name?”

“Amber.”

“Seem to know it,--what is the business?”

For answer, Amber laid one hand on the polished counter that separated him from the officer, and placed two fingers diagonally across it.

The inspector grunted affirmatively and reached for the telephone.

“An outside--to see Mr. Fell.... Yes.” He hung up the receiver.

“Forty-seven,” he said; “you know your way up.”

It happened that Amber did not possess this knowledge, but he found no difficulty in discovering number forty-seven, which was a reception-room.

He had a few minutes to wait before a messenger came for him and showed him into a plainly furnished office.

Very little introduction is needed to Josiah Fell, who has figured in every great criminal case during the past twenty years. A short, thickset man, bald of forehead, with a pointed brown beard. His nose was short and retroussé, his forehead was bald, the flesh about his mild blue eyes was wrinkled and creased by much laughter. He was less like the detective of fiction than the unknowledgable would dare imagine.

“Amber, by heavens!” said the detective. He had a habit of using strong and unnecessary language.

“Amber, my boy, come in and firmey la porte. Well----?”

He unlocked a drawer and produced a box of cigars. He was always glad to meet his “clients,” and Amber was an especial favourite of his. Though, when he came to think about the matter, he had not met Amber professionally.

“You’ll have a cigar?”

“What’s wrong with ’em?” asked Amber, cautiously selecting one.

“Nothing much,” and as Amber lit the cheroot he had taken--“What do you want? Confession, fresh start in life--oh! of course, you’ve got somebody to put away; they telephoned up that you were doing outside work.”

Amber shook his head.

“I told ’em that because I knew that would get me an interview without fuss,--an old convict I met in prison gave me the sign.”

He took the packages from his pocket and laid them on the table.

“For me?” queried the officer.

“For you, my Hawkshaw,” said Amber.

The detective stripped the paper away, and uttered an exclamation as he saw what the parcels contained.

“Gee--Moses!” He whistled long and softly. “Not your work, Amber? Hardly in your line, eh?”

“Hardly.”

“Where did you get them?” Fell looked up quickly as he asked the question.

“That’s the one thing I’m not going to tell you,” said Amber quietly, “but if you want to know how I got them, I burgled an office and found them in a safe.”

“When?”

“To-night.”

The inspector pressed a bell and a policeman came into the room.

“Send an all station message: In the event of an office burglary being reported, keep the complainant under observation.”

The man scribbled the message down and left.

“I send that in case you won’t alter your mind about giving me the information I want.”

“I’m not likely to tell you,” said Amber decisively. “In the first place, it won’t help you much to know where they came from, unless you can find the factory.” The inspector nodded. “When a gang can do work like this, they usually possess more than ordinary resources. If you went for them you’d only bite off a bit of the tail, but the rest of the body would go to earth quicker than money melts.”

“I could put them under observation----” began the inspector.

“Pouf!” said Amber scornfully, “pouf, my inspector! Observation be blowed! They’d twig the observer in two shakes; they’d recognize his boots, and his moustache, and his shaven chin. I know your observers. I can pick ’em out in a crowd. No, that’s not my idea.” Amber hesitated, and appeared to be a little ill at ease.

“Go on, have another cigar, that will help you,” encouraged Fell, and opened the box.

“I thank you, but no,” said Amber firmly. “I can talk without any such drastic inducement. What I want to say is this; you know my record?”

“I do,” said Fell; “or I think I do, which amounts to the same thing.”

“My Chief Inspector,” said Amber with some severity, “I beg you to apply your great intellect to a matter which concerns me, as it concerns you. A flippant and a careless interest in the problem I am putting forward may very well choke the faucet of frankness which at present is turning none too easily. In other words, I am embarrassed.”

He was silent for awhile; then he got up from the other side of Fell’s desk, where he had sat at the detective’s invitation, and began to pace the room.

“It’s common talk throughout the prisons of England that there is a gang, a real swell gang, putting bank-notes into circulation--not only English but foreign notes,” he began.

“It is also common talk in less exclusive circles, Amber, my dear lad,” said Fell dryly; “we want that gang badly.” He picked up a plate, and held it under the light. “This looks good, but until we ‘pull’ it I cannot tell how good.”

“Suppose”--Amber leant over the table and spoke earnestly--“suppose it is the work of the big gang,--suppose I can track ’em down----”

“Well?”

“Would you find me a billet at the Yard?”

They looked at each other for a space of time, then the lines about the inspector’s eyes creased and puckered, and he burst into a roar of laughter.

“My Chief Detective Inspector,” said Amber reproachfully, “you hurt me.”

But Amber’s plaintive protest did not restore the detective’s gravity. He laughed until the tears streamed down his face, and Amber watched him keenly.

“Oh dear!” gasped the detective, wiping his eyes. “You’re an amusing devil--here.” He got up, took a bunch of bright keys from his pocket and opened a cupboard in the wall. From a drawer he took a sheet of foolscap paper, laid it on his desk and sat down.

“Your convictions!” he scoffed.

The paper was ruled exactly down the centre. On the left--to which the detective pointed, were two entries. On the right there was line after line of cramped writing.

“Your imprisonments,” said the detective.

Amber said nothing, only he scratched his chin thoughtfully.

“By my reckoning,” the detective went on slowly, “you have been sentenced in your short but lurid career to some eighty years’ penal servitude.”

“It seems a lot,” said Amber.

“It does,” said the detective, and folded the paper. “So when you come to me and suggest that you would like to turn over a new leaf; would like, in fact, to join the criminal investigation department, I smile. You’ve pulled my leg once, but never again. Seriously, Amber,” he went on, lowering his voice, “can you do anything for us in this forgery business?--the Chief is getting very jumpy about the matter.”

Amber nodded.

“I think I can,” he said, “if I can only keep out of prison for another week.”

“Try,” said Fell, with a smile.

“I’ll try,” said Amber cheerfully.