The Ringer/Chapter 17

T was no tree or leaf or bough that Alan Wembury had seen. It was, indeed, a reckless man who for one second had ventured his head and shoulders against the light, and, recognizing his folly, had instantly drawn back.

Mr. Haggitt had a pressing engagement that night. The rattler left at a quarter past eleven for Liverpool, and he was one of the merry and optimistic band who were going forth into the boundless spaces of the West to seek the fortune which had been denied him in the old and effete countries of Europe. And that this last reproach should be removed from the older civilization he was engaged, in the short space of time at his disposal, in salving those souvenirs which might make Europe and the homeland a more tender memory.

The souvenir that Mr. Haggitt most earnestly desired was contained in a metal cash box in the second drawer of Mr. Meister's desk. That exasperating man had given him little or no opportunity during the day for even examining the lock of the drawer, and Sam Haggitt, usually a chivalrous man, had turned woman-hater when Mary Lenley had occupied the room during the short periods of Meister's absence.

The grille which covered the window offered no barrier; he had cleaned the windows that morning to some purpose, and had baffled the simple mechanism which locked the grille with two pieces of steel wire which had their loose ends, a pull of which would send the spring lock back as easily as if he were in possession of the key. He would have preferred to secure an entrance through the mystery door in the garden gate, but the mystery door was bolted on the inside, and the garden gate was fastened with a patent lock. On the whole the window was best.

He sat crouched, listening to Mr. Meister, and though the lawyer was in his more talkative mood, Sam Haggitt was not entertained. The norther was bringing great spots of rain, wind-blown into small sheets of water that wetted where they touched. There were long intervals of silence in the room, and nearly a quarter of an hour had passed since he had heard Meister lock the door, when, his ear pressed to the lowest pane, he heard a long, rumbling snore of a drunken man. He waited no longer. That morning he had oiled the window sash, and now he raised it without noise, felt for the wires, pulled them gently, and the grille opened a little. He listened: the snores were unchecked, and in an instant he was in the room.

Mr. Meister lay back in his armchair, his mouth open, an unpleasant sight. His big blotting pad was sodden where a glass had overturned, and the room reeked with the smell of whisky. Sam no more than glanced at the little table near the settee which was so obviously set for supper. Tiptoeing across the room, he reached for the switch and turned out the lights.

The fire had burnt low; but he was a famous night worker, and by touch located the drawer, fitted the little instrument he carried into the lock, and pulled. The drawer opened, and his hand groped in the interior. He found the cash box instantly, but there were other treasures. A small cupboard under the disused buffet held certain priceless articles of Georgian silver. He went back to the window, lifted inside his portmanteau and packed until the case could hold no more. Lifting the suitcase, he stepped softly back towards safety, and was nearly opposite the mystery door when he heard a faint click, and stood, petrified, all his senses alert.

It might have been a cooling cinder in the fire. He moved stealthily, one hand extended before him, an instinctive gesture common to all who work in the dark. He was opposite the mystery door, when suddenly a cold hand closed on his wrist!

He set his teeth, stifled the cry which rose, and then, with a quick jerk, wrenched free. Who was it? He could see nothing, could only hear quick breathing, and darted for the window. In a second he was on the leads and in another he was racing across the lawn, expecting every minute to hear an outcry behind him; but no sound came.

The stable door was locked; he had left it ajar. Perhaps the wind had blown it close. Fumbling in his pocket, he found the key he had secured that day with such labour, and in a few minutes he was walking jauntily down High Street, Deptford, towards the nearest cab-rank. Jauntily he walked, but his heart thumped painfully, and the clammy touch of the cold hand clung to his wrist and could not be removed. He was rubbing his hand impatiently all the way to Euston....

An hour later he came indignantly, almost virtuously, into the charge room of Harlboro' Street in the grip of a detective.

"What's the great idea, Wembury?" he asked indignantly. "Can't a fellow go to see his friends off on the rattler without having a perishin' lot of busies come messing him about? God bless my life and soul—you fellows won't give a man a chance when he's trying to go straight."

The unemotional detective detailed his charge.

"I was on duty at Euston Station and saw this man boarding the Canadian boat train for Liverpool. Knowing he was a convict on licence and that he had no permission to sleep out of London, I asked him to accompany me to the station, and on his refusal I arrested him."

"What, me!" said Sam in surprise. "Going to Canada! Why, I've never heard of such a thing in my life! It's the one country I don't hold with. I went down to Euston to say good-bye to a friend of mine who's been driven out of this country by the perishin' police"

"Now, now," said Wembury good-naturedly, "give the poor old police a rest."

"Mr. Wembury, you know me," said Haggitt, pained. "Am I the sort of man who'd go to Canada?"

"You're the sort of man who wouldn't go to Canada—not if the Canadians knew you were coming," said Alan with a smile.

Sam turned triumphantly to his captor.

"There you are—an alibi by Wembury himself! The fact is"—he addressed Alan over the rails—"I went to see off a friend of mine, and I was just saying good-bye when up come this busy and pulled me. Is that the truth or is it not? Don't perjure yourself, constable."

Wembury shook his head reproachfully.

"You don't need to take a suitcase to see off your friend, do you, Sam?" and Mr. Haggitt looked at the tell-tale grip in consternation and surprise.

"It's a funny thing about that case" he began.

"Aha!" said the sergeant satirically.

"What are you 'aha-ing' about? "demanded the indignant Haggitt. "What I was going to say was"

"That you found it," said Alan. Sam shook his head. "Or that somebody gave it to you."

"That's it," said Sam. "Bless my life, you're a thought reader! A man came up to me, just as I was going into the station, and said, 'Do you mind holding this?'"

"Let's see what's inside," said the unimpressed Sergeant Carter.

The first thing revealed was the cash box. Sam had not had time to throw it away. The sergeant opened it, took out a thick wad of notes and laid them on the desk.

"Old Meister's cash box!" Sam's tone was one of horror and amazement. "Now how did that get there? There's a mystery for you, Wembury! That ought to be in your memories when you write them for the Sunday newspapers. Strange and mysterious discovery of a cash box!"

"There's nothing mysterious about it," said Wembury. "Anything else?"

One by one they produced certain silver articles which were very damning.

"And the man gave you this case to hold!" bantered Alan. "A tall, dark man, with patent shoes? I've met him before; he is usually the man who is seen driving away from a murder in a big gray motor-car. A tall, solemn-looking man, eh?"

"With a black moustache," suggested Sam, and shrugged his shoulders. "It's a cop," he said philosophically. "You've spoilt the best honeymoon I'm ever likely to have—that's what you've done, Wembury. Who shopped me! That perishin' little nose, Peter? I saw him in the street just now, hanging about like a young bloodhound."

"Nobody shopped you," said the sergeant, and Haggitt sneered.

"Just put him inside for a little while," Wembury nodded to the jailer. "We'll bring him out and charge him after we've got in touch with Meister."

They were yanking Haggitt out of the pen when he beckoned Wembury.

"No, I won't tell you what I was going to say. You needn't take the trouble to call Meister, sergeant; he's too soused to come, anyway. This is his stuff. Put in a word for me, Wembury. I've been doing honest work, and don't forget I've got a wife and family."

Alan chuckled.

"You seem to have forgotten the fact. Where is your wife, Haggitt?"

"She's doing three months' hard labour in Holloway," said Haggitt calmly. "And as you helped to put her there I don't see why you ask me. My girl's in the workhouse, so they're both provided for."

He went out, complaining to the jailer of the bad ventilation of cells in general and of Harlboro' Street cells in particular.

"Get Meister," said Wembury.

Getting Meister was a difficulty. For five minutes the sergeant tried.

"Funny thing the old man hasn't reported his loss."

"He's probably too drunk to notice. Haggitt seems to know that. What number are you calling?"

"Meister's."

Wembury was examining the cash box.

"He kept this box in the drawer of his desk. He must have been pickled if he didn't hear Sam."

"Can't you get that number, miss?" asked the sergeant plaintively. "Well, try 'em again." And then wearily: "Oh, yes, there's somebody there."

As he waited, elbow on desk, receiver at ear, he looked pensively at the ceiling.

"I can't get that little fellow out of my mind—Peter. Lord! I've never seen a man so paralysed with fright. I thought he was going to have a fit. And Meister was almost as bad."

The reference to Peter reminded the detective, and he went out through the door. It was raining heavily now—coming down in sheets, the door policeman warned him.

Yes, there was Peter, not fifty yards away from the station. Wembury's keen eyes recognized the stooping shoulders and the slouch of the informer as he walked. Yet Peter had been so terribly anxious to get away. He was puzzled. Perhaps there was something in what he had said: he had the nose instinct in his blood. Whilst the first law of nature urged him to safety and the sweetness of the Devonshire upland, curiosity, the nose instinct, kept him chained to where danger lurked in every shadow.

He heard the sergeant talking and turned back.

"He's too drunk to hear the bell. I'm calling a little shop at the corner of the street. I made arrangements that they would send a message to Atkins if it was necessary. Peter and Meister are alike—these people are the slaves of their fancies, inspector. In all probability the Ringer's quite a harmless sort of bird."

Wembury was facing the desk, and blotted out from the sergeant's vision the door of the inspector's room. The handle was turning and it was opening slowly. From where he stood, Alan Wembury, had he been looking, would have seen the edge of a threadbare sleeve, a tattered shirt-wrist, a long, bony hand, and no more. A hand, four inches of sleeve and cuff ... and yet an imaginative painter could have sketched the bent head of the gaunt man as he listened.

"I wouldn't call the Ringer harmless," said Wembury dryly. "I don't suppose you would, either. He's a bad man all right. I don't wonder Peter's afraid of him."

"Hallo!" said the sergeant, suddenly brightening up. "It's Sergeant Carter speaking. Will you take a message, please, for Mr. Atkins! ... Thank you. Ask him to find out whether Mr. Meister has lost his cash box or anything else. Have you got that—whether Mr. Meister has lost his cash box—you understand? ... And ask the sergeant to ring me up ... thank you very much." He hung up the receiver.

"We shan't get Mr. Meister to-night," said Wembury. "I think it will be safe to charge Haggitt. He has practically confessed."

Even as he turned, his door closed. All visible evidence of the listening man had gone. The sergeant touched a bell.

"Bring up Haggitt," he said.

Mr. Haggitt swaggered into the charge room and took his place in the steel pen.

Alan at that moment was opening the door of his room. He stepped back with a frown. Switching on the light, he uttered a gasp. The window at the far end of the room was wide open. A strong current of air was blowing through, and had scattered his papers on the floor. He turned to the sergeant.

"Have you been in my room?"

"No, sir."

"Somebody has: the window's open."

"The Ringer maybe," said the sergeant, but Alan was not amused.

He closed the window and returned to hear the formal charge of unlawful possession, and learnt that Mr. Haggitt's name was Samuel Johnson Haggitt.

"I'm named after the celebrated poet, but I'm no relation."

He gave his amusing address as Buckingham Palace, and described himself as a painter, until he remembered that winter was near at hand.

"Stoker," he said emphatically. "Do you know what old Meister gave me for minding him? Ten shillings. I'd have chucked it in his eye, only it was paper. That's sweating. No wonder us workers are going Red!"

"Search him," said the sergeant.

"And mind how you do it," warned Haggitt, as the officer ran his hands scientifically down waistcoat and trousers. "I've lost money before in a police station. Count it in front of my eyes." And, when the patient officer obeyed, and demanded with a snarl if he was satisfied, Haggitt looked at him admiringly, and asked him where he had learnt sleight-of-hand.

"You took the stuff?" said Wembury.

"Of course I took it!" said the other contemptuously. "I'd have had more if it hadn't been for the hand."

"The hand?"

Haggitt nodded.

"I'm going to tell you something that will make you jump, Mr. Wembury," he said.

Slowly and impressively—for Wembury somehow felt that he was speaking the truth—he told the story of the cold hand that had come out of the darkness and gripped his.

"Was it Meister's?"

"Meister's? No, it wasn't his! He was snoring at the fireplace. I'd just the presence of mind to snatch my hand away and get to the window, and I was in the garden before you could say 'knife.' What do you think of that for a story?"

"Is this true?" asked Wembury sternly.

"If I drop dead it's true."

Surely he was speaking the truth. He heard the quick step of the doctor, and when Alan looked round he was hanging up his shining mackintosh.

"Are you interested in the psychic, doctor?" he asked.

"I'm a gross materialist." For once Dr. Lomond was irritable. "I'm so much a materialist that I object to being brought out of bed to certify degrees of intoxication. Where is the inebriated ruffian, sergeant?"

The sergeant shook his head.

"I didn't send for you, doctor."

"It was I," said Alan quietly. "The inebriate was my invention."

"If it is your idea of a practical joke" began Lomond.

"I'll tell you, doctor," said Wembury earnestly. "I brought you out because I've got a feeling that something is going to happen and that you'll be wanted. Maybe I'm going to earn your curses; I'll not object to a few in advance," he added as he saw Lomond's eyes light up. "My hunch may be wrong and you're for a most unromantic night. But I've a feeling ... indescribable...."

And then he became aware of the presence of Haggitt and stopped.

"Do I get bail?" asked that preposterous man. Before he could answer, the telephone bell rang and the sergeant replied. He talked for a moment, and then, with a serious face:

"It's Atkins, sir. He's been to the house and he can't make Meister hear. His door is locked, and Atkins says there's no sound inside."

Wembury looked hard at the prisoner.

"Haggitt, they can get no answer from Meister's room," he asked sternly. "What did you do?"

The man was pale, but somehow Alan knew he was speaking the truth.

"If I never move, I didn't touch him, Mr. Wembury. What I told you—happened. He was alive when I was in the room and alive when I left."

"How long ago were you there?"

"Not more than an hour ago. I went straight to the station by taxi."

"We'll see," said Alan. And, to Haggitt's custodian: "I want you to bring this man along. Handcuff him to you so that he doesn't get away!"

"What do you think has happened?" asked Lomond.

"I don't know—I'm afraid to guess." Alan Wembury was troubled. "But I shall want you. It may be the first of the mad goose chases that I've started you on—I hope to God it is!"

"I told you the truth, Mr. Wembury," protested Haggitt as the detective was snapping the bracelet on his wrist. "Why should I have told you anything?"

"To establish the fact that somebody else was in that room besides yourself," said Alan shortly.

The door policeman, wet and gleaming, had been standing in the shadow of the doorway, taking occasional excursions of inspection into the rain. He came back now with a grin on his face.

"There's a drunk coming to give himself up, sergeant," he said.

What made Alan interest himself in the "drunk" he never knew. Walking to the door, he went out bareheaded into the downpour, and for a long time did not see the figure that was crawling along in the shadow of the wall. Presently it reeled to the side walk, to stagger back again against the wall, and fall on its knees. In another instant it was up, and then Wembury recognized the figure. It was Peter.

He ran down the steps and caught the man by the arm.

"What's wrong with you, Peter?" he asked. "Have you been drinking?"

Peter made no reply. His chin was on his breast, his head waggled to and fro like a man in a helpless stage of intoxication. Alan assisted him up the steps into the charge-room, and then he crumpled up face downward on the floor with a groan. The sergeant bent over him.

"Get up, Peter. What's the matter with you?"

"Bring him over here," said Wembury, pulling a form away from the wall. "Lift him."

Sergeant Carter was looking queerly at the little man.

"I've seen drunks, but I've never seen a drunk like this," he said. "Good God!"

And then Alan followed the direction of his startled eyes.

"Blood!" he whispered.

In a second he had turned the inanimate figure on its back.

"Doctor, quick!"

Lomond was already on his knees by the side of the still figure, his quick hands loosening the dirty shirt which hid the wound.

"Ring an ambulance!" snapped Wembury over his shoulder. "Peter! Peter, do you hear me? Who did this? Doctor, for God's sake keep him alive until I get him to talk!"

But Dr. Lomond knew that Peter had nosed for the last time, would speak no more, well or ill, of any man.