The Ringer/Chapter 6

NCE or twice during the hour of strenuous work which followed, he heard Sam Haggitt's stealthy feet on the stairs, and once caught the glitter of his glasses as he disappeared in a hurry. When he came down it was nearly seven o'clock. Sam, very businesslike in his green baize apron, with a pail of water and a wash-leather in his hand, was industriously cleaning the windows, somewhat hampered by the bars.

"How is he, sir?" he asked.

Alan did not reply. He walked over to the table, picked up one of the two empty bottles, shook the third, which was half empty, and noted the soiled glass which stood on a little table by the side of the armchair.

"Dr. Lomond says there is very little the matter with him except this." He examined the bottle critically. "Now, Haggitt, I'd like to ask you a question or two. Why did you telephone to me?"

"I told you," said Sam doggedly. "He was raising Cain. I didn't know it was drink. Drink never affects me that way: it makes me sort of happy and silly. I proposed to my wife when I was drunk. I'd never have got married if I'd been a teetotaller. These Americans are right about booze—it oughtn't to be allowed."

"You called me because you didn't want to be implicated, eh? That's the worst of having a bad record," smiled Wembury, intent upon his inspection of the apartment.

It was the first opportunity he had had of looking around at his leisure.

"The difference between me and Meister is that I've been found out and he hasn't," said Sam grimly; "and as to having a bad character"

Alan was at the mysterious door, the bolted door that was never opened and led to nowhere. He lifted the steel bars which covered the panel, found a small knob and pulled open the tiny door. It was operated by a spring, and when he released hold of the knob it went back to its place with a crash.

"Where does this door lead?"

Sam Haggitt shook his head. It was a question that had puzzled him, and he had promised himself the pleasure of an inspection the first time he was left alone in the house.

"I don't know: I've never seen it open. Maybe it's where he keeps his money. That fellow must be worth millions, Wembury."

Alan pulled up the bolts and tried the door again. It was locked, and he looked round.

"Is there a key to this?"

Sam hesitated. He had the thief's natural desire to appear in the light of a fool.

"Yes, there is a key," he said at last, his anxiety for information overcoming his inclination towards a reputation for innocence. "It's hanging up over the mantelpiece. I happen to know because"

"Because you've tried it," said Alan, and Sam protested so violently that he guessed that whatever plan he may have formed had not yet been put into execution.

Wembury took down the key and examined it: there was no sign of dust. There were, on the other hand, many proofs of usage. Snapping back the lock, he pulled open the door and found himself on a bare landing. He looked down into a square hall which seemed to have been erected for no other purpose than to afford the builder an excuse for erecting the staircase, which terminated in a door leading, as he guessed, to the garden. Returning, he examined the trapdoor of the panel again.

"Humph! What is this? Do you hold a lodge meeting here or something?"

"Good Templars maybe," said Haggitt, with irony. "I can imagine old Meister bein' anything, if there was money in it."

"Is it the key to the bottom entrance?"

"Didn't know there was a bottom entrance," said Sam.

Alan relocked the mystery door, thrust home the bolts and hung up the key, whistling softly.

"That's a very convenient way into this room," he said. "Did you ever use it, Haggitt?"

"Me, sir?" asked Haggitt innocently. "Why should I use it? As a matter of fact, Meister told me the other day that it was built by the gentleman who owned this house years and years ago, so that he could see his lady friends without anybody being wiser. Maybe he was married," concluded Haggitt on reflection.

Alan walked to the door leading to the room above and listened: he thought he heard Meister talking.

"Why is he drinking so heavily, Haggitt?"

Haggitt shrugged his shoulders.

"How do I know, Mr. Wembury?"

Yet there was a note of uneasiness in his voice, and he watched the detective roaming about the apartment a little anxiously. Alan pulled at the new window grille.

"When were these put up?"

"Yesterday," he said, and over his shoulder Wembury asked an embarrassing question.

"What is he afraid of?"

Mr. Haggitt made an impatient noise.

"What's the use of asking me? I've only been here two days. I don't even know what he likes for breakfast. I've never seen him eat breakfast, anyway."

"What is the general idea of your being here? Are you to be reformed? He's never had a man sleeping in the house before."

"And he won't have much longer," said Mr. Haggitt with emphasis. "He's getting on my nerves. Booze, booze, all the day and all the night! Habits I don't mind, it's customs that get my goat."

He caught Alan's eyes for a moment, coughed and looked elsewhere.

"Whom is he afraid of?" asked Wembury curtly. "You know, I think—the Ringer!"

Haggitt went a shade paler.

"The Ringer?" he stammered. "He's in Australia."

"Did you know him?" asked Wembury.

Sam Haggitt swallowed something.

"I've seen him at a distance. He did swell stuff, checks and letters of credit. He got his fourteen years for that. Mr. Wembury ... how long did he serve before he escaped? A year, wasn't it!"

Wembury nodded.

"A year." The long face of Sam Haggitt had grown even longer; there were beads of perspiration on his forehead. He wiped them off with his shirt-sleeve. "The Ringer, eh?" And then: "He wouldn't come back here, would he?"

Both men had the same thought. The Ringer would not return except to get the man who had shopped him. Haggitt said as much.

"Shopped him?" said Wembury calmly. "Who told you Meister shopped him?"

Mr. Haggitt had lost something of his air of assurance.

"Everybody knows that," he said impatiently. "I wonder if that is why Meister has brought me in to sleep, and put up bars and locks and everything." He pulled at his lip, his gloomy eyes surveying the police officer. "If that is the idea," he said slowly, "I know somebody who isn't going to sleep here much longer!"

Dr. Lomond came in at that moment, a quizzical smile on his face.

"He is quite all right," he said. "Too much" he lifted an imaginary glass. "So this is Meister! What is his profession?"

"Lawyer," said Wembury dryly.

"A lawyer! Good lord, so he is! I'd forgotten."

Alan turned his head toward where Mr. Haggitt was very busy with his wash-leather and duster, and lowered his voice.

"Not to know Meister is almost proof of a man's honesty," he said, half laughing, half serious. "There isn't a crook in London who doesn't know him. Nor a big crook convicted in the last twenty years who hasn't been defended by him. Are you listening very hard, Haggitt?" he demanded.

"Me, sir? Why, no, sir!" Haggitt was virtuous indignation personified.

There was a knock at the lower door and he went out, to return wrapped in an air of mystery.

"Peter the Nose, sir," he said. "Do you want to see him, sir? Your information bureau, if I might use the expression."

"Don't be a fool," said Wembury good naturedly. "Tell Mr. Meister that I'll come back and see him later on. What time does Miss Lenley come?"

"About nine," said Haggitt. "Shall I tell her you called?" he added blandly.

"That isn't necessary," was the sharp reply.

"I shouldn't have thought," reflected Haggitt, "that you'd have been on speaking terms with her, after you getting her brother sent down for seven."

"There's a whole lot you don't think, Haggitt," said Wembury unpleasantly.

Mary was a little later than usual that morning. She had spent some time finishing off her letter to Johnny, and it was nearly a quarter past nine when she dropped the stout envelope addressed "$c/o$ The Governor, His Majesty's Convict Prison, Princetown" into the mail box.

And it was by accident that she saw Wembury, and then only for a second, for she was pressed for time and was gone before he could even hint at what had happened that morning. The only thing she noticed that was different when she came to the house in Flanders Lane was that Mr. Haggitt's air and manner had taken on a new importance. It was he who opened the door to her and conducted her up to the study with almost a flourish.

"Mr. Wembury has been here?" she said. "I met him in Lewisham Road and he told me. Why did he come, Mr. Haggitt?"

"The governor was ill," explained Haggitt.

From his tone he seemed to take credit, if not for the illness, at least for the recovery and the stage management of the spectacular event.

"Ill?" she said, startled. "But what has Mr. Wembury to do with that?"

"He brought the doctor along," said Sam. "Personally, though I'm not struck on busies, I can't say that I've any objection to Wembury: he seems a very decent sort of feller."

"'Busies'? Oh, detectives!" She sighed. "I can't say that I like them very much! But Mr. Wembury is rather different, isn't he?"

Sam laughed bitterly."I never noticed any difference. They all look alike to me. The best is the worst, and some are worse than others. As I said to Wembury"—he seated himself in Mr. Meister's sacred chair, between his teeth the half-cigar left over from the previous night—he had discovered this in the waste-paper basket—"I said to Wembury: 'I'm surprised that you've got the nerve to talk to Miss Lenley,' I said. 'The way you pinched her brother—'"

Her glance silenced him.

"I wish you wouldn't discuss me with Mr. Wembury or anybody else," she said, a little frigidly for her. And then she laughed. As she took up her hat and coat to carry them into her little dressing room: "What did Mr. Wembury say to that?"

"He was crushed," said Haggitt quietly. "The man couldn't look me in the face—he sort of slunk out of the room."

By this time Mary was really laughing.