The Ringer/Chapter 5

HE RINGER was back. All London knew it. Flanders Lane whispered the news under its breath; carried the tidings to sick men hiding in darkened and foul attics; to men who were not sick but must needs be hidden. And Flanders Lane believed it. The Ringer was back. "God help Meister," said somebody.

They discussed it in low tones, squatting on their steps despite the drizzle.

"He'll use a knife; he always uses a knife. Never known him to use a gun in my life," said one who had the proud distinction of having worked in a minor capacity with the redoubtable criminal.

"What's Haggitt doing down there?" asked a voice in the darkness.

There was a little ripple of laughter.

"Minding," was the laconic reply. "Old Meister's scared. Haggitt's mustard in a rough house. You wouldn't think so—used to be a boxer when he was a kid, and when they pinched him down at Purley for knocking off silver from the Conservative Club it took four busies and a copper to get him to the station."

The talk drifted irresponsibly to the prowess of Haggitt and the curious fact that the wiry ones were better mixers than the big 'uns. No breath of the talk could reach Mr. Meister across that high wall and the barred door. His slatternly housekeeper moved about the kitchen in her slippers, mumbling to herself. Haggitt sat in his room, smoking a rank pipe and meditating upon a Canadian El Dorado. The gaunt man, watching the house, had his own thoughts interrupted rudely by the soft-footed arrival of a policeman.

"Hullo, young feller, what are you doing here?"

The uniformed man looked suspiciously at the other.

"Just loafing around."

"You've been loafing around here for a few hours: I've been watching you," said Constable Harrap, a notable character in these parts. "What's your lay?"

"I've got no lay." The gaunt man turned to go.

"Here!" An authoritative voice summoned him back. "What are you doing watching this house?"

"Me?" A harsh little laugh. "Oh, I'm a detective."

"A what!" Constable Harrap, who was hardened to bizarre excuses, reached out his hand. "Let me see your card, officer," he said sarcastically.

"Haven't got it with me."

"Private, eh? Now, young man, take a word of advice—hop it!"

Without a word the gaunt man turned and went swiftly down the street and was lost in the shadows. Constable Harrap spent the rest of his duty debating whether or not he should have held the man on suspicion.

The gaunt stranger went over the bridge into Trafalgar Road—Greenwich is loyal to the memory of its great admiral—and turning round by the church where Wolfe is buried, though few know it (it is a long way from the heights of Quebec to the church where the cars stop), crossing the road, went up a little street, and, stopping before the last house, opened the door and went in.

Ten minutes later he came out again, so completely changed in appearance that even Harrap's sharp eyes did not recognise him, though the man passed him at the foot of the bridge. This time the stranger avoided the front of the house. Turning down on the alley, which was flanked on one side by the wall of Mr. Meister's garden and on the other by a row of small houses, he came to Little Holland Street, which runs parallel with Flanders Lane. Here Meister's wall turned abruptly. Halfway up was a high gate, the top bristling with spikes. In olden days this was the entrance to the stables, long since converted into a potting shed. Like most stable entrances, it had a smaller door cut into one of the gates.

The stranger looked up and down the dark road. In point of poverty Little Holland Street had been one grade lower than Flanders Lane until some enterprising property speculator had bought up the cottages and converted them into lock-up garages for the use of tradesmen in the neighbourhood.

All was still and quiet. A light showed at a window halfway up the street; the quarters of some chauffeur who had come home early. Taking a key from his pocket, the stranger tried the door; the lock turned smoothly, and in another second he was in Meister's garden and had closed the door behind him.

He went forward cautiously, feeling for the obstruction of wire or thread, but evidently the lawyer had not yet taken the precaution of wiring his grounds, and in a minute the man stood in view of the house. Mr. Meister was in: the black shadows of the newly fixed bars showed through the chintz curtains. He heard a raucous voice near at hand singing a popular song in the most doleful manner. Haggitt, he guessed, and presently caught a glimpse of Mr. Meister's new attendant through the barred windows of the scullery.

Keeping close to the shadow of the rhododendrons, he picked his way across the lawn and came at last to the spot beneath the window of the big room. Here a square brick structure protruded from the main building. The top was flat, and formed the leads outside the study window. For the moment he had no desire to make a nearer inspection of Meister.

Keeping close to the wall, he reached a door, and, producing a flash lamp, he examined the lock carefully. It was the kind of door that had been frequently used. It only needed a short examination to tell him that. He tried key after key unsuccessfully in the patent lock, and at last gave up the attempt.

Crouching, he leapt up and caught the edge of the guttering which surrounded the flat roof, expecting it to give way under his weight. But the guttering held, and with a strength remarkable in so frail a man, he drew himself on to the flat roof and sat down to recover his breath.

From where he sat he could hear the murmur of voices behind the glass, and presently he rose and walked noiselessly till he came to the window. It was fastened, automatically he guessed, and the bars were visible now. The curtain had been drawn over them....

"My dear, to me you're the one bright spot in life ... you're the most wonderful..."

The voice dwindled away into a rumble of sound. It was Meister. He was drunk, or near drunk, the man guessed, and grinned.

Meister had overpowered his terror of The Ringer with strong drink, and could allow his tender fancy wider play, unhampered by the grim spectre which stood at his side.

The eavesdropper listened, expecting to hear the girl's voice, though he was surprised that she should have returned: he had seen her leave. The girl was certainly going to be a complication, he thought. But there was no other voice....

"You're wonderful... you're the loveliest... listen, angel, I'm talking to you. Old Meister, the clever one ... too clever for 'em, dearie. Old Meister...!"

He heard the click [sic] of glass against glass. Meister was alone, and was talking to himself! There was nobody else in the room. He remembered that this was peculiar to the lawyer: a habit which he had never shaken off.

Alone! The stranger showed his teeth in a mirthless grin, and peered more closely at the window fastening. There were no burglar alarms, no wires. But the grille was a sufficient protection. It might be opened after hours, perhaps days, of reconnaissance, and then only if the old fool committed the gross error of leaving his room empty. He had Haggitt sleeping in the house, and it was likely, if he had the brain of a rabbit, that Haggitt would occupy this room after Meister had done with it.

The lawyer was singing quietly to himself, and the listener heard the thud of a bottle falling to the floor, and a burst of stupid laughter.

"... seven years for Johnny. A lot can happen in seven years, my boy ..."

And then his voice grew unintelligible. After listening for another quarter of an hour the man was moving stealthily away, when, without warning, the curtains of the room were wrenched back and he saw the face of Meister staring out into the darkness. As quick as a flash the intruder flung himself face downwards on the roof. Looking out from the lighted room, it would be difficult in any circumstances to detect him, and Meister was under the additional handicap of liquor.

For full five minutes the lawyer stood in silence, gripping the bars and glaring out into the night, and then, as abruptly as he had come, he went, and the curtains were drawn. A few minutes later the lights went out in his room.

The stranger dropped into the garden and hurried into Little Holland Street. Meister was going to be easier than he had thought.

A free-for-all fight in Mill Lane in the early hours of the morning brought Alan Wembury from his bed, and incidentally gave Dr. Lomond his first peek of romance.

"And it is certainly worse than Young described," he said disgustedly, as he walked back in the cool of the morning with Alan to the station-house. "What cattle these people are! Whilst I was bandaging a man he was trying to bite me!"

Alan smiled to himself, having very few illusions about the romance of police work.

They went into the station house together, and the night orderly produced two large jugs of coffee, which were very welcome and helped to wash away the taste of the den in which they had spent two hours.

"Anything in, sergeant?"

The desk sergeant closed his eyes and shook his head with gentle melancholy, for he of all men regarded police work as a business which flourished or declined according to the number of arrests a night produced.

"Things are getting so quiet in Deptford that there won't be any policemen here soon," he said regretfully. "I have known the time when you couldn't take the charges fast enough."

He was an elderly man with a white moustache and a figure inclined to corpulence.

"Surely you're glad of that, sergeant?" asked the doctor, sipping his coffee.

"Why should I be, doctor?" demanded the official. "Crime is normal, the condition of all society—I read that bit in a book and it sounds true to me. If crime drops below normal, there's something wrong."

The telephone bell rang and he pulled the instrument towards him with a bored air, and his "Hallo!" had a touch of menace.

"Who is it?"

"Haggitt."

"Haggitt!" said Alan quickly. "What's the matter with him?" He glanced up at the clock: it was half-past five.

"Whom do you want to talk to?" demanded the sergeant truculently. "And what do you mean by ringing up the police station at this hour of the morning? I thought you were in prison."

He handed the instrument to the patient Wembury.

"What is the matter, Haggitt?"

"He's shouting blue murder in his room and I can't get in," said Haggitt's voice urgently. "I don't want to get into any trouble over this old law hound, so I thought I'd ring you up."

"Is anybody there with him? Can you hear other voices?" asked Alan quickly.

"You couldn't hear them if they were there," was the reply. "He's shouting 'murder' and 'fire' and""

"I'll be round immediately." Alan dropped the instrument and turned to the doctor. "Will you come along?" he asked. "It's Meister, a gentleman of whom you may have heard."

"The name is familiar. I think Dr. Young told me something about him."

But Alan was halfway out of the station house by now, and Dr. Lomond had to run to overtake him.

In a quarter of an hour Wembury was pressing the bell in the black door. It was opened immediately by Haggitt, dressed in shirt and trousers, his teeth chattering, a look of genuine concern on his face.

"I haven't heard a sound for ten minutes," he said. "He gave me a fright, I can tell you!"

"Is the housekeeper up?" asked Alan as he ran up the stairs.

"She?" said Haggitt contemptuously. "Nothing short of a dynamite charge would wake her!"

The lawyer's bedroom was locked, and Wembury shook the handle.

"Open the door!"

There was no answer. The detective threw his weight against the door, but it did not yield.

"Bolted," said Haggitt. "He had new ones fixed yesterday."

"Have you an axe?" asked Alan.

"You needn't worry about an axe. I got an idea I can get into the room through the window. The room next door is empty, and I think I could reach from one sill to another."

Alan looked at the man keenly.

"Have you been taking a professional survey?" he asked.

"In a sense," said Haggitt, by no means offended. "If you can't keep your hand in, keep your eye in, that's my motto."

They passed into the next room, and Haggitt, throwing up the window, leaned out and made an examination.

"I can do it," he said, and before they realised what had happened he had slipped out, and, gripping the sill with one hand, had swung himself to the next. Alan watched him with some anxiety, although the fall was not a very long one even if he had missed his hold.

But Haggitt was too sure-handed for that to happen. He pulled himself up to the sill level, pushed up the window sash, and in another instant was looking through into Meister's room. Returning to the landing, they heard the bolts shot back.

"He's alive all right," said Haggitt, standing in the doorway.

Mr. Meister lay on his tumbled bed, breathing stertorously, his face purple, his hands clutching at the silken coverlet.

"What kind of romance is this?" asked Alan, after silently surveying the unwholesome sight.

"Drink, I think," said Dr. Lomond, and loosened the pajama collar.

A commonplace, sordid ending to what promised to be high tragedy, thought Alan.

And at that moment something gripped his heart, as though an instinctive voice whispered tremendously that in this end to his first scare was the beginning of the drama which would involve not only Lewis Meister, but the girl who was to him something more than the little carriage child who passed and who swung on the gate of his father's cottage, something more than the sister of the man he had arrested, something more than he dared confess to himself.