Daredevil
And God knows how to stop him. I know the Triangle, and I could
arrest him in thirty minutes, but what court'd convict on all the
evidence I've got?"
Teal shook his head.
"The Moraine's men got clean away--we hadn't an earthly." He fumbled
in his pocket and drew out a pink slip. "This might interest you,"
he said casually, and strolled away to the window.
Storm read the telegram, and as he read he went cold.
Lord Hannassay found murdered on line near Kearsney.
CHAPTER VIII
ANNOYANCE OF OSCAR
Nothing but credit can attach to Captain Arden, who is in charge of
the case. Immediately he heard of the display of jewels, he ordered
fifty officers in plain clothes to be armed and dispatched to
Moraine's. The hold-up, however, was staged in a manner so
unprecedented and so completely unforseen that, hampered as they were
by a considerable number of sightseers, Captain Arden and his men
were helpless. As it was, his prompt action in attacking the member
of the gang who was left behind to ensure the getaway of the others
was as courageous a deed as that which won him the D.S.O. at Mons
during the Great War. It was not his fault that he failed to prevent
the escape of the gang. Captain Arden also deserves special praise
for the way in which he quelled the subsequent panic. A gentleman
who was present has written us a strongly worded letter abusing the
methods used by Captain Arden in doing this. Our correspondent
apparently fails to realise that you cannot argue politely with a
terrified mob, and that Captain Arden's vigorous measures probably
saved several people from, at least, serious injury.
So spoke the _Daily Record_, after the first profitable crime of the
Triangle.
The trouble about sensational crime, from the journalist's point of
view, is that once the public has ceased to be interested in its
committal, the news value falls several degrees below par. The
Triangle mystery, however, suffered from no such disadvantages. The
definite threat of further crimes effectively maintained popular
interest at fever heat. The Triangle was the topic of conversation
wherever two or three were gathered together, and those who at the
first announcement had dismissed it as a hoax, prayed that their
indiscretion might be forgotten.
Joe Blaythwayt was confidently pessimistic.
"I Know Criminals," he would say darkly, to the few doubters that
remained.
Another man, personally concerned with the fate of the plot, was
belligerently smug.
"I shall nod bay," he repeated with liturgical monotony.
He sat opposite Joe Blaythwayt in the Lombard Street office. It was
not his usual day for calling, but his reason was costly enough to
justify this departure from routine.
"Ter day afder to-morrow," he said, "I shall a cheque traw vor fifty
tousand bounds. I shall require to pe baid in one bound notes. Led
berbarations pe mate."
"Certainly, sir," said Joe Blaythwayt briskly, and made a note on his
pad. "The money will be ready for you. In the morning?"
"Yess!" Raegenssen nodded violently. "That iss all. Thang you."
He rose.
"If I might mention something, sir," Blaythwayt stopped him. "That
man Snooper--you want to be careful of him."
Raegenssen wrinkled.
"Snoober?"
"That Brome fellow--Edward Brome he calls himself. I saw him driving
through the City in your car yesterday morning. Of course, it's
really no business of mine if you give your acquaintance a lift, but
Brome isn't--ah--desirable. He's a well-known fence."
"Fence?"
"'Fence,'" explained Mr. Blaythwayt with unction, "is the cant term
among criminals for a man who buys stolen property. A receiver.
Brome is a receiver."
Raegenssen stroked his chin.
"Tear me! That iss most disdressing--yess! Hof you seen him before?
How do you know?"
"I Know Criminals," said Joe with an air.
"When you again meed him," said Raegenssen seriously, "dell him nod
to gall on me again. I shall pe gross--yess! A griminal! I shall
eggsdinguish him! He shall hof ter fire out!"
Blaythwayt was surprised at the man's vehemence.
"There's no actual evidence against him," he explained erroneously,
"but the police know him for a criminal and they're anxious to get a
conviction." In this he was nearer the truth. "It'd be unpleasant
for you to be known as a friend of Snooper's. I thought I'd take the
liberty of warning you."
The Swede nodded.
"I am gradeful. Thang you. Goot-pye!"
He left in his usual abrupt manner, and Joe Blaythwayt returned to
his desk with a comfortable feeling of having at last found an
opportunity of giving a practical demonstration of his knowledge of
the criminal classes.
So escaped Snooper Brome, with three car-loads of detectives all but
on his heels and four hundred thousand pounds' worth of gems in a
shabby leather bag. And the armed men who prowled the streets of
London searched in vain.
That evening, Oscar Raegenssen summoned his portly butler and his
chauffeur to his study. He took the cocktail the butler shook for
him, and threw two buff scraps of paper on the table.
"To-night," he ordered, "you will go to der theadrigal
enderdainments. Your tiggets! I do not wiss to disturbed pe!"
His servants accepted the tickets with murmured thanks, and exchanged
a covert wink, for they were used to their master's eccentricities.
Without warning or explanation he would disappear for weeks, and
return, as though he had only been absent for a day, expecting to
find everything running smoothly for him to drop back into. Often he
sent them away for the night, with some such instructions as he gave
them now. They put their own constructions on these habits of his,
and they were quite wrong.
Raegenssen saw them out of the house, and then fetched a hat and
stick and himself left. He dined economically at a small restaurant
in Soho, and from there he went on to the Orpheum Theatre, where that
bright entertainment _Bronx or Manhattan_ played nightly to crowded
houses. Not that Oscar Raegenssen was interested in snappy
back-chat, negroid music, or chorus girls' legs; but the box of a
theatre is a convenient place for meeting those whom you wish to see
and speak with in private. There Storm, who was in the stalls, saw
him dozing boredly during the first part of the show, for Oscar
Raegenssen's friend was not due to arrive until ten.
Storm left in the interval, and strolled leisurely to the garage
where his car was kept. He drove north and west--along Oxford Street
and up Orchard Street, and when the gates of Regent's Park loomed
before him he veered half left and went on up the Finchley Road.
After a distance he turned right, drove on for about three hundred
yards, and suddenly swung left into an unlighted track. The car
bumped and jolted as he nursed it over the uneven ground.
At length he stopped, switched off all his lights, got down, and
stretched himself.
The moon was new and feeble, and the sky black with hurrying clouds.
Somewhere to the north rumbled the mutter of distant thunder, A
summer storm was brewing.
He disappeared among the shadows. The darkness was almost complete,
yet he picked his way over the rough path unerringly. On either side
of him rose ghostly polyliths which resembled ruins in that faint
light, and once he climbed over a wall in the interstices of which
the cement was still soft. He was on a plot of land where a block of
flats was being erected.
Presently he stopped and took a black silk handkerchief from his
pocket, and this he pinned to the lapels of his dinner jacket. It
erased the white blur of his shirt and made him practically
invisible. A second black silk handkerchief, folded diagonally, he
tied about the lower part of his face.
A six-foot wall barred his way. He scaled it like a cat, and dropped
nimbly on the springy turf on the other side.
The house stood back from the road, in darkness. Storm was in the
back garden, the high walls that enclosed it screening him
effectively from the view of any possible outside watchers. He stole
along in the shadow they cast. A car passed with a hoot and a blare
as the latch of a window clicked open under his expert manipulation,
and as the splutter of the car died away he raised the sash
soundlessly and slipped over the sill.
Inside, the blackness was intense, with a tangible quality to it that
was numbing to the senses. Myriads of silver specks whirled before
the eyes in protest against the strain of attempted vision. The
utter opacity was tactile, half fluid, like a fog. He crept through
the room with a feline assurance, uncannily avoiding chairs and
tables, crossed the hall, and opened a door on the far side, closing
it behind him. Then he went over to the window and passed his
sensitive fingers delicately over every inch of it, even as he had
done to that by which he had entered--a touch light enough to stroke
a butterfly's wing unfelt. Satisfied that there were no alarms
fitted, he pressed back the catch and opened the window to its
fullest extent, after which he drew the heavy curtains.
A beam of light stabbed the darkness, flickered over every part of
the room, and rested at length on a Sheraton cabinet.
Unhurriedly he made his preparations. From an inside pocket he took
a paper bag from which he scattered a coarse powder over the exposed
parquet by the door, so that anyone attempting to enter would be
bound to step on it. Next came a slim wallet of morocco leather
which, laid open on the floor beside the cabinet, gleamed with the
silvery sheen of fine steel tools. Lastly, he drew from his hip
pocket an automatic pistol, and this he also laid on the floor beside
him.
The cabinet hid a small safe of the most modern type, built like a
battleship, yet he tackled it confidently. Patiently and skillfully
he worked, and at last he had a rubber cup fixed securely to the
metal about the lock. Into this he poured a viscid liquid from a
rubber bottle, which he handled gingerly. Then he sat back on his
heels, while the concentrated acid bubbled against the steel and gave
off a heavy, pungent vapour.
Exactly three hours after he had entered the house the door of the
safe hung open, disclosing rows and rows of documents tied in bundles
of various sizes, neatly arranged on the metal shelves.
Holding the electric lamp between his knees so that its rays fell
towards the floor, he ran through the packets rapidly.
It was then that he heard the snap of potassium chlorate--the safety
powder he had sprinkled around the door detonated under foot like the
tiny explosions of "cap" pistols. He caught up his automatic and
spun around, just as a switch clicked over and the room was flooded
with a blinding glare.
For a space of seconds there was a strung, pulsating silence. Then:
"Hullo, Snooper," said Storm, in a voice that was not his own. "How
are things?"
It was a deadlock. Snooper Brome's big hand held an ugly revolver
which covered Storm, and Storm's little automatic was steadily
focused on Mr. Brome's rainbow waistcoat. So they stood without
movement, with every nerve keyed and strained to humming pitch, while
their eyes never swerved a fraction of a millimetre from each other's
trigger finger. Moments passed with the glittering clarity of
crystal drops falling in a bottomless pit....
"What are you doing?" asked Mr. Brome, though the question was rather
unnecessary.
He looked pale, and his mane of black hair was more unruly than usual.
"I might ask the same question," remarked Storm.
Their eyes met over the blue-black gleam of their weapons--Storm's
glinting metallically over his improvised mask, Snooper's blue ones
cold and level. And Storm saw Snooper's first finger whiten over the