CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE GET-AWAY

Dearborn slipped the revolver in his pocket, unlocked the door, and stepped out. The little man who acted as porter was standing, his mouth agape.

“What’s wrong?” he said quickly. “Who’s shooting?”

“Go out and fetch the police,” said John Dearborn calmly. “Somebody has been killed.”

“Oh, my heaven!” whispered the little man.

“There are two policemen at the end of the road. Hurry,” said John Dearborn sharply, and listened to the flip-flap of the messenger’s slippers as he shuffled up the street.

Dearborn waited awhile, then entered the front room and closed the door, standing against it listening. He heard the rush of feet, distinguished the policemen, heard them clump through the passage, and the chatter of an idle bystander or two behind them; then he opened the door. A policeman was bending over Blind Jake.

“That’s him all right,” he said. “Jim, clear these people out and stand on duty at the door until the inspector comes. You’d better blow your whistle.”

A police whistle shrilled through Lissom Lane, and the little knot of curiosity-mongers who had been turned unceremoniously from the scene of the tragedy grouped about the door.

“What’s happened?” asked Mr. Dearborn, and the policeman smiled good-naturedly.

“Now, postman,” he said, “you go along and deliver your letters.” And John Dearborn flung his bag over his shoulder.

For he had chosen the uniform of a letter-carrier, and it had proved a most effective cloak. He got away within a few minutes of Larry’s arrival. The detective was on his way to interview Mr. John Dearborn, and the handcuffs he had in his pocket were expressly intended for that gentleman.

Larry saw the little crowd about the door and knew that something unusual had happened. He came to the study and looked silently upon the massive body of his enemy. Blind Jake had died immediately. He had never known what had struck him, or guessed the vile treachery of the employer he had served so well.

“The man must be in the house somewhere, sir,” said the policeman. “This little fellow heard the shots, and the superintendent sent him out to get a policeman. We both came down together, me and my mate.”

“Was the front door left unguarded at all?” asked Larry.

“Only for a second, sir,” said the policeman. “We both came in together.”

“That was the second our friend got away,” said Larry. “I don’t think it’s any use searching the house.”

He was accompanied by the officers who had been charged to effect the arrest of Dearborn, and their inspection and examination of the room produced nothing of importance.

Larry drove back to the Yard and interviewed the Chief Commissioner. Then he went to the girl.

“I’ve heard the news,” she said quietly. “Sergeant Harvey has just been in. Do you think Dearborn’s killed him?”

“Dearborn is David Judd,” said Larry.

“Dr. Judd’s brother?” she said in surprise. “But he’s dead.”

He shook his head.

“That elaborate funeral was well staged, and I am perfectly certain that David even went to the length of providing the body. He is a very thorough gentleman. You remember Lew telling us of his brother who disappeared, a fine-looking fellow with a beard?” She nodded. “That is the man we shall find in David Judd’s grave,” he said.

“Is Dr. Judd----” she began, and there was no need to finish the sentence.

“Dr. Judd is in it up to the neck,” said Larry. “The story of Dearborn is explained very easily. Dearborn was a partner of Judd’s, and something that happened at the office--either some crime or some murder, perhaps, which David had manœuvred in order to draw insurance--had come to the knowledge of one of the clerks. This man stole a large sum of money and went to Montpellier, and from there began to blackmail David. David went after him and shot him. Probably the murder was unpremeditated, because David is not the sort of man who would shoot in the open square. But at any rate he did shoot, and he was seen by Flash Fred, who reached the body in time to learn from the dying man the name of his murderer. To a man of Fred’s calibre, that meant that he had an income for life, and he hastened back to London, saw Dr. Judd, and probably stated the terms on which he would keep his mouth shut. Judd decided that David should conveniently die; and David, you remember, was a fine-looking man with a beard. Of their hirelings or acquaintances they chose Lew’s brother as being the nearest in physical appearance to David, and he was unceremoniously destroyed and buried as David. Incidentally, a very large sum of money was drawn from the underwriters on the heavy insurance policy which had been issued to David.

“They must have had this scheme in mind for some time, for a month before David’s death Dr. Judd had completed the purchase of Todd’s Home. It was not so much a charitable institution as a business proposition, for Todd’s Home had deteriorated into a kind of superior doss-house, frequented by the lowest of the low amongst the blind mendicants of London. It was there that the famous Dark Eyes had their headquarters, and it was from them that David must have learnt of Todd’s.

“The Home was bought, and the day after David’s ‘death’ the Rev. John Dearborn appeared as the new superintendent. It is perfectly true that he cleared out all the bad characters and had certain structural alterations made; but he only did this because he wanted to clear the taint from Todd’s Home, to give it a good character, and to employ the house as his headquarters without fear of police visitations. When the laundry company went broke, it was Judd who bought the premises, and the alterations were carried out by David himself with the assistance of his gang. David, I might remark, is an architect and built the house in which his brother lives. We know they employed foreign workmen, and that that house was built for one specific purpose,” he said gravely.

“With the laundry premises in their possession the Dark Eyes came back to Lissom Lane, and came and went amongst the blind, who could not see them and who were ignorant of their presence.”

“What about Dr. Judd?” she asked.

“I am arresting him,” said Larry. “And I am arresting him in the very place from whence your father disappeared--in that famous Box A at the Macready Theatre.”

“Will he be there?” she asked in surprise.

He nodded.

“He is there almost every evening,” he said quietly.

“But why not take him now?” she asked, puzzled.

“Because Box A and its mystery have yet to be cleared up,” said Larry; “and I have an idea that I shall clear it.”

At eight o’clock that night he walked into the vestibule of the Macready Theatre.

“Dr. Judd, sir?” said the attendant. “Yes, he’s in Box A. Is he expecting you?”

Larry nodded. Harvey was for accompanying him, but the other shook his head.

“I’ll go alone,” said Larry.

He went swiftly down the passage and, stopping only for a second outside Box A, he turned the knob of the door and stepped in.

Dr. Judd’s eyes were fixed on the stage, and the detective had stopped to speak to him when something dropped on his head, something fleecy and warm. It felt like a bag lined with wool. It had been saturated with a chemical which took his breath away and momentarily paralyzed him. Then he felt a string pulled tightly round his neck, and whipped out his pistol. Before he could use it, it was gripped. Something sharp hit the hand that held it, and he let go with a cry of pain, muffled in the bag. Every breath he took choked him. He struck out, but his arms were seized from behind, and he was flung forward on the floor. Dimly he heard the voice of Dearborn:

“The atomizer, Peter!”

A nozzle was pressed under his chin into the bag, and something pungent was sprayed under his nostrils. He tried to fight his way out of their grip, but a knee was in the middle of his back, and then he lost consciousness.

“You’re really a genius, David,” said Dr. Judd almost ecstatically. “So perfectly timed, so beautifully done! Wonderful, dear fellow, wonderful!”

“Open the door and look out, Peter,” said David, and the doctor obeyed.

The passage was empty. Immediately opposite the door of Box A a curtain was draped on the wall, and through this he disappeared, and there came a rush of cold air as he opened the fire-exit door which led to the side street, where a car was waiting.

A minute later David Judd had picked up the detective as easily as though he were a child, had lifted him into the interior of the limousine, and had taken the place at the wheel.

He came to the house in Chelsea, and brought the car with a sweep straight to the closed gates of the covered driveway. In that solid gate were the two big circles, and before David Judd’s car were two steel bars that projected beyond the line of the lamps and just beneath. Slowly and skilfully he brought the car up the inclined slope from the roadway, so that the ends of the two bars rested in the “peep-holes.” Then he drove the machine forward. There was a click and the gates swung open. The car rolled in, and as the wheels passed over a narrow transverse platform that gave slightly under its weight, the doors closed again.

David Judd stopped opposite the door that looked like a window, opened it and, lifting Larry in his arms, passed inside. The lights were burning on the stairs leading to the cell, the doors of which were wide open.

He threw the detective on the bed, picked up the bronze anklet and snapped it about one of Larry’s ankles; and then, and only then, did he pull off the heavy leather bag which covered Larry Holt’s head. It stank of formalhyadine, and he threw it into the bathroom.

Larry’s face was purple; he had all the symptoms of one who had been strangled, but as the night air reached him he gasped. David leant over and felt his pulse, opened his eyelids and smiled.

He went out softly, locking the two doors, and paused at the first landing, to enter what Sergeant Harvey had called the “machinery room.” He turned over a switch and the electric ventilating apparatus hummed drowsily.

David went again into the yard, stopping only to lock the doors behind him. He had no time to lose; the engines of his car were still running, and he jumped into his seat and began to go slowly backward. As the wheels reached the narrow weighbridge, the gates opened again. They would remain open twenty seconds and would then close of themselves; and the car had hardly backed on to the road before they came together noiselessly.

Swiftly the car sped back. This time it turned northward and jolted to a standstill opposite Larry Holt’s flat.