Number Six and the Borgia/Chapter 15

Cæsar Valentine received the note written from Bilton's Hotel, and was considerably annoyed to discover that the signature was T. B. Smith. It was a note at once peremptory and reassuring, for Smith had made no reference to the deplorable happenings at Babbacombe on the previous day.

Cæsar came to Bilton's Hotel and went straight up to Smith's room. Remarkably enough it was Ross' old room, but Cæsar did not seem to notice this. Smith was sprawling in an armchair, smoking a pipe.

“Hullo! You back?” greeted Cæsar. “I expected you at Portland Place.”

“Shut the door and sit down,” said Smith, “I am not returning to Portland Place. I think this little caravansary is safer.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Cæsar with a smile.

“I mean, Valentine, that you've tried to double cross me, and it's the last time you'll do it. I'm talking to you as man to man, and get all that I say into your mind and memory. I came in with you on the understanding that we were going to play fair all round, that there were to be no mysteries and no secrets. Now, you know my record and I pretty well know yours, and I want the whole facts of certain circumstances and certain relationships of yours in the past, before I go any further.”

“Suppose I refuse to offer you my confidence?” asked Cæsar. “Are you going to the police or something?”

“I am not going to the police, and I'm not particularly afraid of the police coming to me,” said Smith. “You have nothing against me.”

“Except a murder in Paris,” suggested Cæsar.

“Oh, that!” Smith shrugged his shoulders. “Paris is Paris, and London is London. Cæsar, you tried yesterday morning to put me out of action. Don't lie about it; I know just the strength of that affair, and I've had the coffee analyzed.”

“Coffee analyzed?” said Cæsar with a puzzled air.

“Come off it!” said Smith crudely. “Let's get down to facts. There's a pretty big combination against you, and probably against me. I think it's stronger against you than me. Now you know just how much you have to fear, and I think if you let your mind wander round, you'll guess the identity of your weird enemy.”

“You mean Number Six?” said Cæsar sharply. “It must either be Welland or—or”

“Or?” said Smith.

“Or the Gale boy.”

“Let us hear all about the Gale boy,” said Smith, “because this is something I have not heard before from you.”

Cæsar thought for a moment.

“Well, you might as well know,” he said. “George Gale, the bank manager, had a son. I believe after the tragedy he went to the Argentine, and I am under the impression that he is still there. In fact, I seem to remember your telling me as much.”

Smith nodded.

“Why should you fear Gale's son?” he asked, and Cæsar did not reply. “What is the truth about that Gale case, Cæsar? I can't go on much longer unless I know just what difficulties I have to face.”

“Gale died,” said Cæsar sullenly.

“His death was providential, I gather,” said Smith.

“In a way it was,” said Cæsar. “I owed him a lot of money; in fact, I had put him in wrong. If he had opened his mouth I should have been arrested for fraud, and on the day of his death he had practically decided to make a statement to the police. I knew of his practice of taking a nerve tonic at midday, and managed to get hold of one of his empty bottles and substituted it for the one in his study.”

“And that empty bottle contained something particularly noxious in the way of acids, I presume?” said Smith steadily.

“Hydrocyanic,” replied Cæsar. “Now you know the whole truth of it. I'm not going to explain to you the nature of the fraud, but it was a pretty bad one, and the old man was, of course, not in it.”

Smith did not reply. He sat hunched up in his chair, looking at the carpet.

And Cæsar went back to Portland Place cursing himself that he had been so communicative. As for Smith, he was interviewing Detective Steele, who had occupied the next room and had taken a shorthand note of the conversation.

It is history now that Cæsar Valentine was arrested as he was entering his house and taken to Marlborough Street police station, and charged with murder and attempted murder. He was relieved to discover a handcuffed Smith waiting in the charge room to share his ignominy. They were rushed before the magistrate, charged and remanded, and for seven days these two men occupied adjoining cells in Brixton Gaol, and enjoyed the extraordinary privilege of meeting together in the exercise ground. Then one morning Smith disappeared, and Cæsar did not see him again until he stepped on to the witness stand at the Old Bailey and began his evidence thus:

“My name is John Gale. I am an officer of the Criminal Investigation Bureau, and I am known in the official records as Number Six”

A week after the trial and its inevitable ending, John Gale, alias Smith, alias Number Six, met a pretty girl in the tea room of the Piccadilly Hotel.

“I suppose you're awfully glad it's over?” said the girl, and Gale nodded.

“There's one thing I wanted to know from you,” he said, “I've never understood your attitude to me, Stephanie.”

“Haven't you?” she said demurely. “I thought I'd been rather nice.”

“I don't mean that. I mean, when you were watching Cæsar Valentine in Paris, you were the witness of what was apparently a terrible crime on the Quai des Fleurs.” She nodded. “Yet you never showed the horror and the loathing which one would have expected a properly constituted girl would have expressed for a man who had been guilty of such a vile deed.”

The girl laughed. “When I looked over the parapet,” she said, “I really did think a murder had been committed. But when I saw the two boats with the French police picking up the murdered man, and heard him using terrible language about the necessity for jumping in the Seine at midnight, I knew the whole scene had been carefully staged in order to bring you into close contact with Cæsar Valentine. If I had any doubt at all,” she said, “that doubt was dissipated when you let me out of the room in Portland Place, and I saw you scribbling your message on an envelope.”

“It was the only possible way I could get into close touch with Cæsar, as soon as I found he had taken an interest in me, as I knew he would, after the stories I had carefully circulated through Chi So's about my depravity. I had those boats and that 'murdered man' waiting on the Quai des Fleurs night after night until a favorable opportunity occurred. You see, I'm only an amateur detective, but I have wonderful ideas.”

“What I admire about you,” she smiled, “is your extreme modesty.” Then, more seriously: “Have you discovered my father?”

“I found him weeks ago,” he said.

“But don't you think you've been rather cruel in keeping him away from mother and me?” she asked. “Surely there is no reason why we cannot see him at once?”

“There is a very great reason,” he said quietly. “In three weeks' time I will bring you to your father, who is wholly ignorant of the fact that you and his wife are alive.”

“But why in three weeks?” she persisted.

“That is my secret and his,” said John Gale quietly and the girl did not pursue the subject.

Cæsar Valentine was destined to meet his enemy first. On a certain morning they aroused him from a deep sleep, and he woke to find that the convict clothes he had been wearing the day before had been taken away, and that the suit he had worn at his trial had been substituted.

He rose and dressed, and refused the ministrations of the chaplain, and ate a hearty breakfast. At a quarter to eight came the governor, and behind him John Gale.

“Hullo, Gale!” Cæsar greeted him. “This is the end of the road. It has been a most amusing experience. Take my advice,” he said. “Have a hobby; it keeps you out of mischief. Even if it's only button-making, eh?”

Gale made no response, and the governor signaled to somebody at the door, and a man walked in with the straps of his office in his hand.

“Excuse me,” said Cæsar, and to everybody's surprise he fell on his knees by the side of his box and buried his face in his hands.

Then he rose, turned, and faced—Welland.

“My God!” he breathed, and he seemed to have a difficulty in talking. “You—the hangman!”

“I have waited for this day,” Welland said, and deftly strapped Cæsar's hands behind him.

“You have waited in vain,” said Cæsar loudly. “Look there, my clever fellow. How many buttons are there on my coat?”

Welland looked and saw that a thread was hanging where a button had been.

“Cyanide of potassium and a little gum make an excellent button,” mumbled Cæsar, and collapsed in the arms of the warders.

They laid him down on the bed, but he was dead.