The Ringer/Chapter 11

OTHING and nobody," said Sergeant Atkins, in answer to the query. "The only suspicious individual I've seen this day has been Sam Haggitt. I can't understand Sam going honest. It is as unnatural in a thief as it would be for a tailor to become a carpenter, or a ship's captain to give dancing lessons. Haggitt's got some graft."

Wembury shook his head.

"I don't think so. I fancy he is a badly scared man since he learnt that the Ringer was loose. You've seen nothing of the cadaverous gentleman?"

"The fellow that Harrap saw? No. What'll I do when I see him?" he asked dryly.

"It certainly is not an offence to look like a stage villain," admitted Alan, "and unfortunately people do not carry their character in their faces."

"Thank God!" said Atkins piously, for nature had not favoured him in the matter of looks. "The nicest looker I've ever seen murdered his wife and three children and buried them in cement under the kitchen floor. And if you ever saw old Lord Leverthil in the dock, you'd give him ten years on his face alone—and he's done more for infant welfare than any man in the country! Do you know what I often wish, sir?"

Alan suggested increased pay.

"Yes, I could do with that," said Atkins, who was something of a philosopher. "But what I've often thought is, how easy this job would be if things happened like they happen in plays. You know the villain first pop, the moment the curtain goes up; and you know the hero as the first curtain's down. And everybody's the same right through the piece. The heroine never gets a swollen face with toothache, or cusses when the maid drops a milk jug. She's just the lord's little lady from start to finish."

"You've been talking to Doctor Lomond," said Alan good-humouredly. "Dr. Lomond stole all his ideas from Dr. Young—or, let us say, he adjusted them; only he thinks that police work is easy, given the necessary amount of brains, and he's got a scheme for catching the Ringer—been sitting up all night working it out and reducing it to writing. And he's promised to give me first peek!"

Atkins snorted.

Alan crossed the roadway, rang the bell and was admitted to the house, and he came at a propitious moment.

Mr. Meister had come back to the room and he had taken up the conversation where he had broken it off.

"There's one thing I want to tell you, Mary; you needn't depend so much on Wembury. I've told you Wembury thinks your brother is a crook. He did his best this morning to get me to talk about him."

"Mr. Wembury wouldn't do such a thing!" she cried indignantly. "He promised me he was giving Johnny his chance."

"Promised you!" said the man contemptuously. "A policeman's promise! Good God! where have you lived all your life? That is part of their job, promising this and that—anything to gain your confidence."

"Don't let us discuss it."

She turned to go, but he caught her by the arm and swung her round. His face was aflame, his eyes were shining.

"Mary," he breathed, "don't you realize I'm the best friend—your brother could have?"

Tap!—tap!—tap!

He dropped his hands as if he had been shot, and swung round.

Tap!—tap!—tap!

Somebody was knocking at the mystery door. His jaw dropped, he could only stare. Then he heard Wembury's voice in the hall below and came rushing to the head of the stairs.

"Come up!" he yelled.

Wembury went up the stairs two at a time.

"What's the matter?"

The man could only gibber and point to the door.

"Somebody's there!" he gasped. "Somebody on the other side of the door!"

Alan slipped back the bolts, took the key from the hook above the fireplace, and the door swung open. The passage was empty.

"There's nobody here. Look for yourself."

But Meister remained rooted to the spot.

"Arthur will give you a warning: He'll play fair!"

The Ringer's knock; the knock that he gave in the old days when he used to come secretly through the garden and up those stairs, and the two men would be closeted together throughout the night, discussing under their breath the plan which was to make them both millionaires. Three deliberate taps on the panel of the door—the Ringer!

Alan came back, slammed the door and shot the bolts home before he turned the key.

"You must have been dreaming."

"Was she dreaming?" The man almost screamed the question, pointing with a shaking finger at Mary Lenley. "She heard it!"

Alan looked at her and she nodded.

"If I was dreaming, it's the kind of dream I never want again. Nobody there!"

He stepped closer to Wembury and thrust his large face up to the detective's.

"There's a footprint in the dust outside the door. I saw it."

Wembury had seen it too, but said nothing.

"There was no place for a man to conceal himself—not a normal-sized man. I'll have a look in the garden," he said. "Do you still use that back door of yours, by the way? I mean the hole through the gate? It was a very popular entrance with some of your clients in the old days, they tell me."

"They'd tell you anything!" said Meister, stung to offensiveness in his agony of mind.

He waited until Alan had gone, then:

"You heard it?"

"I heard it, Mr. Meister—three taps."

"Tap-tap-tap, eh?" He wiped the perspiration from his forehead. "Dreaming!" He laughed. "That got me, sure! Got me rattled. Just as I was beginning to think that with you by my side I should fear nothing"

"Will you please not discuss that again, Mr. Meister?" pleaded Mary. "I'm sure you really don't mean"

"I mean that when you're with me, I'm a new man, with a new courage."

Before she realized his intention, his arm was round her, his damp face seeking hers.

''Tap! tap! tap!''

With a scream he ran to his desk and wrenched open a drawer, and she saw a long-barrelled Browning in his hand. On his face was a grotesque grin of terror.

He tiptoed to the door, lifted the bar of the little trapdoor noiselessly and wrenched it open.

For a second he stood frozen to the ground. Framed in the opening another face gave grin for grin; the white, drawn face of a sick man, hairy-lipped and hairy-chinned....

Meister's nerveless fingers slipped and the mouth of the trap crashed back in its place. The girl's scream brought Wembury at a rush, and at the sight of the huddled figure on the floor he gave a gasp of dismay. But the Ringer had not struck—Mr. Meister had fallen into a fainting fit, from which he did not recover for an hour.