Jack O' Judgment
- -
- 100%
- +
The colonel was not present, nor were any other members of the gang, save little Selby, who had been summoned to the colonel's presence and had arrived in the early morning.
"He hasn't a ghost of a chance," reported Selby, who had a lifelong acquaintance with criminals of the meaner sort, and had spent no small amount of his time in police courts, securing evidence as to the virtue of his protégés. "If he doesn't get ten years I'm a Dutchman."
"What does Phillopolis say?"
"He swears that the goods were not in his flat when he went out that night," he said, "but if they were planted, the work was done thoroughly. The detectives found jewel cases under cushions, hidden in cupboards, on the tops of shelves, and one of the best bits of swag—a wonderful diamond necklace—was discovered in his boot, at the bottom of his trunk."
The conversation took place in the Green Park, which was a favourite haunt of the colonel's. He loved to sit on a chair by the side of the lake, watching the children sailing their boats and the ducks mothering their broods. He was silent. His eyes were bent upon the efforts of a small boy to bring a little waterlogged boat to a level keel and apparently he had no other interest.
"Have a cigar, Selby," he said at last. "What is the news in your part of the world?"
Selby was carefully biting off the end of his gift.
"Nothing much," he said. "We got some letters the other day from Mrs. Crombie-Brail. Her son has got into trouble at the Cape. Lew Litchfield got them. He was doing a job in Manchester."
Lew Litchfield was a bright young burglar of whom the colonel had heard, and he knew the kind of "job" on which Lew was engaged.
"You bought 'em?" he asked.
"I gave a tenner for them," said Selby. "I don't think they're much use."
The colonel shook his head.
"That's not the kind of letter that brings in money," he said. "You can't bleed a mother because her son got into trouble—at least, not for more than a hundred."
"Letters have been scarce lately," said his agent disconsolately; "I think people have either given up keeping or writing them."
"Maybe," said the colonel. "Anyway, I didn't bring you down to talk about letters. I've work for you."
Selby looked uneasy, and that in itself was a discouraging sign. Usually the little crook from the north hailed a job of any kind with enthusiasm.
It was an unmistakable proof to the colonel that he was losing grip, that the magic of his name and all that it implied in the way of protection from punishment, was less than it had been.
"You don't seem very pleased," he said.
Selby forced a smile.
"Well, colonel," he said, "I've a feeling they're after us, and I don't want to take any risks."
"You'll take this one," said the colonel. "There's somebody to be put away."
The man licked his lips.
"Well, I'm not in it," he said. "I had enough with that Hanson business."
"By 'put away' I don't mean murdered or ill-treated in any sense," said the colonel, "and besides, it is one of our own people."
But even this assurance did not satisfy the man.
"I don't like it," he said; "they tell me that this Jack o' Judgment–"
"Just forget Jack o' Judgment for a minute and think of yourself," snapped the colonel. "You've made your pile, and you find England's getting a bit too hot for you, don't you?"
"I do indeed," said the man fervently. "You know, colonel, I was thinking that a trip to America wouldn't be a bad idea."
"There are plenty of places to go to without going to America," said the colonel. "I tell you that I mean Lollie no harm."
"Lollie?" Selby was surprised, and showed it. "She hasn't–"
"I don't know what she's done yet, but I think it is time she went away," said the colonel, "and so far as I can judge, it is time you went too, Selby. I don't know whether Lollie is betraying us, and maybe I'm doing her an injustice," he went on, "but if I put up to her a suggestion that she should leave the country, maybe she'd probably turn me down. You know how suspicious these women are. The only idea I can think of is to scare her and make her bolt quick and sudden, and I want you to provide the means."
Selby was waiting.
"I bought a motor-boat, one of those swift motor-boats that the Government used during the war. I have it ready at Twickenham, and you can get all your goods on board and go to–"
"Where?"
"Anywhere you like," said the colonel, "Holland, Denmark—one place is as good as another, and it'll be a good sea-going boat. You see, my idea is this. If I think Lollie is negotiating to put us away, I can give her a fright which will make her jump at the means of getting out of England by the quickest and shortest route. You can go with her and keep her under your eye until the trouble blows over."
He saw a look in the man's face and correctly interpreted it.
"I'm not worried about you double-crossing me," he said, "even if you are abroad. I've enough evidence against you to bring you back under an extradition warrant." He laughed as Selby's face fell. "You see Selby, there's nothing in it that you can take exception to. I don't even know that Lollie will refuse to go in the ordinary way, but I must make preparations."
"It is a reasonable suggestion," said Selby, after considering the matter for a few minutes. "I'll do it, colonel."
"You'd better bring a couple of men to London who can handle Lollie if she gives any trouble—no, no," said the colonel, raising his hand in dignified protest, "there's going to be nothing rough. How can there be? You'll be in charge of it all, and it is up to you as to how Lollie is treated."
It did not occur to Selby until an hour later to ask the colonel how he knew that his hobby was motor-boating, but by that time the colonel had gone.
It was true, as Boundary said, that the gang was scared—and badly scared. It was equally true that they needed only one jar before it became a case of every man for himself. Already even the minor members were making their preparations to break away. The red light was burning clear before all eyes. But none knew how readily the colonel had recognised the signs, and how, in spite of his apparent philosophy and his contempt of danger, he, more than any of the others, was preparing for the inevitable crash.
Jack o' Judgment, he told himself, was playing his game better than he could play it himself. The arrest of Phillopolis had removed one of the men who might have been an inconvenient witness against him. White was gone, Raoul was gone. He had planned the disappearance of Selby, a most dangerous man, and Lollie Marsh, an even more dangerous woman and there remained only Pinto and Crewe.
When he had taken leave of his agent, the colonel walked to Westminster and boarded a car which carried him along the Embankment to Blackfriars. He might have been followed, and probably was, but this possibility did not worry him. He walked across Ludgate Circus, up St. Bride Street to Hatton Garden, and turned into the office of Myglebergs'. Mr. Mygleberg, a very suave and polite gentleman, received him and ushered him into a private room. This shrewd Dutchman had no illusions as to the colonel's probity, but he had no doubt either that the big man could pay handsomely for everything he bought.
"I'm glad you've come, colonel," he said; "I have been expecting you for a couple of days. We have just had a wonderful parcel of stones from Amsterdam, and I think some of them would suit you."
He disappeared and came back with a tray covered with the most beautiful diamonds that had ever left the cutter's hands. The colonel went over them slowly, examining them and putting a selected number aside.
"I'll take those," he said, and Mr. Mygleberg laughed.
"They're the best," he chuckled. "Trust you to know a good thing when you see it, colonel!"
"What have I to pay for these?"
Mygleberg made a rapid calculation and put the figures before Colonel Boundary.
"It is a big price," said the colonel, "but I don't think you have overcharged. Besides, I could always sell them again for that much."
Mr. Mygleberg nodded.
"I think you are wise to put your money into stones, colonel," he said; "they always go up and never go down in value. You can lose other things. They're easy and they're always convertible. I always tell my partner that if I ever become a millionaire I shall invest every penny in stones."
The colonel paid for the gems from a thick wad of notes he took from his hip-pocket. They were, in point of fact, the identical notes which Maisie White had handed to him the night previous. He waited whilst the jewels were made up into a little oblong package, heavily sealed and inscribed with the colonel's name and address, and then, shaking hands with Mygleberg and fixing a further appointment, he came out into Hatton Garden, whistling a little song and apparently the picture of contentment.
He was getting ready for flight too. This, the first of many packages which he intended depositing in the private safe of his bank, would go with the ever-increasing pile of American gold bonds of high denomination which filled that steel repository. For months the colonel had been converting his property into paper dollars. They were more easily negotiated and less traceable than English banknotes, and they were more get-at-able. A big balance in the books of the bank might be creditable and, given time, convertible into cash. Then nobody knew but himself the amount standing to his credit. He was not at the mercy of prying bank clerks or a manager who might be got at by the police. At a minute's notice, and without anybody being the wiser, he could demand the contents of his safe and walk from the bank premises without a soul being aware that he was carrying the bulk of his fortune away.
He took a cab and drove now to the bank premises. Ferguson, the manager, received him.
"Good morning, colonel," he said. "I was just writing you a note. You know your account is getting very low."
"Is that so?" said the colonel in surprise.
"I thought you wouldn't realise the fact," said Ferguson, "but you've been drawing very heavily of late."
"I'll put it right," said the colonel. "It is not overdrawn?" he asked jocularly, and Ferguson smiled.
"You've eighty thousand pounds in Account B," he said. "I suppose you don't want to touch that?"
Account B was the euphonious name for the fund which was the common property of all the leaders of the Boundary Gang.
"Unless you're anxious that I should get penal servitude for fraudulently converting the company's funds?" said the colonel in the same strain. "No, I'll fix my account some time to-day. In the meantime"—he produced a package from his hip-pocket—"I want this to go into my safe."
"Certainly," said Ferguson, and struck a bell. A clerk answered the call. "Take Colonel Boundary to the vaults. He wants to deposit something in his safe," he said, "or would you like me to do it, colonel?"
"I'll do it myself," said the colonel.
He followed the clerk down the spiral staircase to the well-lit vault, and with the key which the man handed him opened Safe No. 20. It was divided into two compartments, that on the left consisting of a deep drawer, which he pulled out. It was half filled with American paper currency, as he knew—currency neatly parcelled and carefully packed by his own hands.
"I often wonder, Colonel Boundary," said the interested clerk, "why you don't use the bank safe. When a customer has his own, you know, we are not responsible for any of his losses."
"I know that," said the colonel genially. "Still one must take a risk."
He placed the package on the top of the money, pushed back the drawer, locked the safe and handed the key to the young man.
"I think the bank takes enough risks without asking them to accept any more," he said, "and besides, I like to take a little risk myself sometimes."
"So I've heard," said the clerk innocently, and the colonel shot a questioning look at the young man.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE VOICE AGAIN
He left the bank with the sense of having done his duty by himself. He had not planned the route by which he was leaving the country, or the hour. Much was to happen before he shook the dust of England from his feet, and as he had arranged matters he would have plenty of time to think things over before he made his departure.
A great deal happened in the next few days to make him believe that the necessity for getting away was not very urgent. He met Stafford King in the Park one morning, and Stafford had been unusually communicative and friendly. Then the whispering voices in the flat had temporarily ceased, and Jack o' Judgment had given him no sign of his existence. It was five days after he had made his deposit in the bank that the first shock came to him. He found Snakit waiting on returning from a matinée, and the little detective was so important and mysterious that the colonel knew something had been discovered.
"Well," he asked, closing the door, "what have you found?"
"She is in communication with the police," said Snakit, "that's what I've found."
"Lollie?"
"Miss Marsh is the lady. In communication with the police," said the other impressively.
"Now just tell me what you mean," said the colonel. "Do you mean she's on speaking terms with the policeman on point duty at Piccadilly Circus?"
"I mean, sir," said Snakit with dignity, "that she's in the habit of meeting Mr. Stafford King, who is a well-known man at Scotland Yard–"
"He's well-known here too," interrupted the colonel. "Where does she meet him?"
"In all sorts of queer places—that's the suspicious part of it," said Snakit, who had joyously entered into the work which had been given to him, without realising its unlawful character.
He had accepted without question the colonel's story that he was the victim of police persecution, and as this was the first news of any importance he had been able to bring to his employer, he was naturally inclined to make the most of it.
"He has met her twice at eleven o clock at night, at the bottom of St. James's Street, and walked up with her, very deeply engaged in conversation," said Snakit, consulting his note-book. "He met her once at the foot of the steps leading down from Waterloo Place, and they were together for an hour. This morning," he went on, speaking slowly, and evidently this was his tit-bit, "this morning Mr. Stafford King went to the Cunard office in Cockspur Street and booked cabin seventeen on the shelter deck of the Lapland for New York."
"In what name?"
"In the name of Miss Isabel Trenton."
The colonel nodded. It was a name that Lollie had used before, and the story rang true.
"When does the Lapland sail?" he asked, and again the detective consulted his book.
"Next Saturday," he said, "from Liverpool."
"Very good," said the colonel; "thank you, Snakit, you've done very well. See if you can pick them up to-night, or, stay–" He thought a moment. "No, don't shadow her to-night. I'll have a talk with her."
The news disturbed him. Lollie was getting ready to bolt—that was unimportant. But she was bolting with the assistance of the police, who had booked her passage. That meant that they had got as much out of her as she had to tell, and were clearing her out of the country before the blow fell. That was not only important, but it was grave. Either the police were going to strike at once or–
An idea struck him, and he telephoned through to Pinto. Another got him into touch with Crewe, and these three were in consultation when Selby came that afternoon.
He arrived at an unpropitious moment, for the colonel was in a cold fury, and the object of his wrath was Crewe, who sat with folded arms and tense face, looking down at the table.
"That gentleman business is played out, Crewe," stormed the colonel, "and I'm just about tired of hearing what you won't do and what you will do! If Lollie's put us away, she has got to go through it."
"What use will it be, supposing she has?" said the other doggedly. "I don't for a moment believe she has done anything of the sort. But suppose she has given you away, what are you going to do? Add to the indictment? She's sick of the game and wants to get away somewhere where she can live a decent life."
"Oh, you've been discussing it with her, have you?" said the colonel with dangerous calm. "And maybe you also are sick of the game and want to get away and live a decent life? I remember hearing you say something of that sort a few weeks ago."
"We're all sick of it," said Crewe. "Look at Pinto. Do you think he's keen?"
Pinto started.
"Why do you bring me into it?" he complained. "I'm standing by the colonel to the last. And I agree with him that we ought to know what Lollie told the police."
"She's told them nothing," said Crewe. "She isn't that kind of girl. Besides, what does she know?"
"She knows a lot," said the colonel. "I'll put a supposition to you. Suppose she's Jack o' Judgment?"
Crewe looked at him in astonishment.
"That's an absurd suggestion," he said. "How could she be?"
"I'll tell you how she could be," said the colonel; "she has never been with us when Jack made his appearance—you'll grant that?"
Crewe thought for a moment.
"There you're wrong," he said; "she was with us the night Jack first came."
The colonel was taken aback. A theory which he had formed was destroyed by that recollection.
"So she was. That's right, she was there! I remember he insulted her. But I'm certain she's seen him since; I am certain she's been working hand-in-glove with him since. Who was the Jack who went to Yorkshire?"
It was Crewe's turn to be nonplussed.
"Jack o' Judgment must be working with a pal," the colonel went on triumphantly, "and I suggest that that pal is Lollie Marsh."
"That's a lie!"
The colonel looked up quickly.
"Who said that?" he demanded harshly.
Crewe shook his head.
"It was not me," he said.
"Was it you, Selby?"
"Me?" said the astonished Selby. "No, I thought it was you who said it. It came from your end of the table, colonel."
The colonel got up.
"There's something wrong here," he said.
"I've got it!" It was Pinto who spoke. "Did you notice anything peculiar about the voice, colonel?" he asked eagerly. "I did, the first time I heard it, and I've been wondering how I'd heard it before, and just now it has struck me. It was a gramophone voice!"
"A gramophone voice?"
"It sounded like a voice on a speaking machine."
The colonel nodded slowly.
"Now you come to mention it, I think you're right," he said; "it sounded familiar to me. Of course, it was a gramophone voice."
They made a careful search of the apartment, taking down every book from the big shelf in one of the alcoves, and turning the leaves to discover the hidden machine. With this idea to guide them the search was more complete than it had been before. Every drawer in the desk was taken out, every scrap of furniture was minutely examined, even the massive legs of the colonel's writing table were tapped.
Crewe took no part in the search, but watched it with a slight smile of amusement, and the colonel turning, detected this.
"What the devil are you grinning about?" he said. "Why aren't you helping, Crewe? You've got an interest in this business."
"Not such an interest that I'm going to fool around looking for a gramophone voice that goes off at appropriate intervals," said Crewe. "Doesn't it strike you that it would have to be a pretty smart gramophone to chip in at the right moment?"
The colonel pondered this a minute and then went back to his place at the table, mopping his forehead.
"Pinto's right," he said; "the fellow has smuggled some fool machine into the flat, and we shall discover it sooner or later. I don't know how he controls it, or who controls it"—he looked suspiciously at Crewe—"or who controls it," he repeated.
"You said that before," said Crewe coolly.
The colonel had something on his lips to say, but swallowed it.
"We'll meet here to-night at eleven. I told Lollie to come. Now, Crewe," he said in a more gentle tone, "you're in this up to the neck, and you've got to go through with it. After all, your life and liberty are at stake as much as ours. If Lollie's played us false, we've got to be–"
"Lollie has not played you false, colonel," said Crewe. His face was very pale, the colonel noticed. "I like that girl, and–"
"So that's it," said the colonel, "a little love romance introduced into our sordid commercial lives! Maybe you know what she's been talking to Stafford King about?"
Crewe did not immediately reply.
"Do you?" asked the colonel.
"I know she has been trying to get out of the country, to break with the gang, but that she has given you or any of us away is a lie. Lollie's had a rotten life, and she's just sick of it, that's all. Do you blame her?"
"There's no question of blaming her or praising her," said the colonel patiently; "the question is whether we condemn her or whether she still has our confidence, and that we shall know to-night. You will be present, Crewe."
"I shall be present, you may be sure," said Crewe, and there was a look on his face which Pinto, for one, did not like.
CHAPTER XXXII
LOLLIE GOES AWAY
It seemed to "Swell" Crewe that the scene was curiously reminiscent of a trial in which he had once participated. The colonel, at the end of the long table, sat aloof and apparently noncommittal, a veritable judge and a merciless judge at that. Pinto sat at his right, Selby on his left, and Crewe himself sat half-way between the girl at the farther end of the table and Pinto.
Lollie Marsh had no doubt as to why she had been summoned. Her pretty face was drawn, the hands which were clasped on the table before her were restless, but what Crewe noticed more particularly was a certain untidiness both in her costume and in her usually well-coiffured hair. As though wearying of the part she had been playing, she was already discarding her makeup.
"I hate to bring you here, Lollie, and ask you these questions," the colonel was saying, "but we are all in some danger and we want to know just where we stand with you."
She made no reply.
"The charge against you is that you've been in communication with the police. Is that true?"
"If you mean that I've been in communication with Mr. Stafford King, that's true," she said. "You told me to get into touch with him. Haven't I been for weeks–"
"That's a pretty good excuse," interrupted the colonel, "but it won't work, Lollie. You don't touch with a man like Stafford King and meet him secretly in St. James's Street. And you don't touch by seeing him for half an hour at a time, and I haven't heard of you ever getting off with a fellow to the extent of his paying for your passage to America."
She started.
"You know the way it is done. You did it before, Lollie," the colonel went on. "Now, you've got to be a good girl and tell us how far you've gone."
She hesitated.
"I'll tell you the truth," she said. "I'm sick of this life, colonel. I want to go straight. I want to get away out of it all and—and—he's going to help me."
"A social reformer, eh?" said the colonel. "I didn't know the police went in for that sort of stunt. And when did he take this sudden liking for you, Lollie?"
"It wasn't a sudden liking at all," she said, "but I think it was because—well, because I stopped Pinto in the nursing home—and Miss White told him—I think that's all."
The colonel looked down on his pad.
"There's something in that," he said. "It sounds feasible. Didn't he question you?" he said, raising his eyes.
"About you?" she said.
"About us," corrected the colonel.
"He asked me nothing about you, nothing about your habits or your methods or about any of our funny business. I'll swear it," she said.
"You're not going to believe that, are you, colonel?" demanded Pinto. "You can see that she is lying and that she's double-crossing you?"
"She's neither lying nor double-crossing us." It was Crewe who spoke. "I don't know what you think about it, colonel, but I am convinced that Lollie is speaking the truth."
"You!" Pinto laughed loudly. "I think you're in a state of mind when you'd believe anything Lollie said. And anyway you're probably in with her."