Daredevil
"He will die," said Storm simply. "But it will not be on the
gallows."
His even, unemotional tone held them all rapt. In spite of
themselves, his personality had gripped them. His slim straight
figure stood out above them; his level confident voice commanded
their unwilling attention; he dominated the scene as surely as if he
had sat in the Chief Commissioner's chair with all the authority of
Parliament behind him.
"That," he said, "is the only reason why I do not intend to conduct
this case in the normal way." He looked around him searchingly, and
then his eyes returned to the Home Secretary. "I will now make my
demands." They gasped again at that--his unassuming presumption was
a paradox they needed time to digest. "You will permit me to go on
with the case as I wish, with the assistance of Inspector Teal. You
will ask for no information, nor will you follow up the hints I have
given you this afternoon. You will keep secret my real name, which
is now known to you, until I wish the fact to be published. You will
allow me to take what counter-measures I think fit to meet the
offensive of the Triangle. That may seem arrogant," he continued
after a short silence, as though the possibility had just occurred to
him. "As a matter of fact, it's only to emphasise my determination.
Anyway, you wouldn't all mess about with the case, so my reticence
won't hinder you. Mr. Kennedy and Inspector Teal will vouch for my
competence. In a fortnight the Triangle will have ceased to be--I
can guarantee that..."
He paused, while Bill Kennedy and the for-once-completely-awake Mr.
Teal nodded their answers to the unspoken question of the rest of the
Board.
"Finally," said Storm, "if Sir John Marker would like to come into a
private room with me, I will tell him the name of the Apex of the
Triangle."
The Home Secretary deliberated for a moment, and then led the way.
They were absent for fully half an hour, during which time Bill
Kennedy appeared to go to sleep and Inspector Teal stolidly shook his
head and refused to answer the questions that were showered upon him.
When Sir John Marker returned his face was white and he seemed to be
shivering.
"Captain Arden continues with the case, on his own terms," he
instructed curtly. "I may say that I agree with his attitude in
every way. But keep it dark ... I don't want trouble in the House."
The other members of the Board stared at him blankly, for they had
anticipated nothing so decisive. There was an eerie chill in the
air, born of Sir John Marker's ghostly pallor, that would have shaken
less matter-of-fact men. The hint of something vast and menacing and
incomprehensible loomed over them ... something bigger than even the
_Daily Record_ had ever dreamed of....
They broke up into little groups which converged on the placid Storm
and the now weary Teal, while Sir Brodie Smethurst escorted the Home
Secretary from the room.
As the Minister was taking his leave, the Chief Commissioner stopped
him.
"There's been a lot of talk about that man Raegenssen," he said.
"I've heard other things about him which make him interesting in a
general way, apart from the Triangle. Can't I have that one
question?"
The Home Secretary moistened his dry lips as he shook his head, and
smiled crookedly.
"Oscar Raegenssen must have been reincarnated," he said flatly.
"He's been dead two days..."
CHAPTER X
RETURN OF AN EXILE
There was a thin yellow envelope which was familiar to the members of
the Alpha Triangle, for it was in such envelopes that they received
their weekly general orders, and in similar envelopes the lieutenants
of the Apex communicated with their Chief, under one or another of
his various aliases. It was one of these which caught the eye of
Joan Sands on a certain morning when she entered the living-room for
her belated breakfast. It lay beside her husband's plate unopened,
for James Mattock was absorbed in the latest news about the Alpha
Triangle, as purveyed by the _Daily Mercury_, and seemed to be
unattached for the moment by the more intimate news which awaited his
scrutiny.
He glanced up as she came in, gave her a perfunctory smile, and went
on with his reading.
Joan took her seat and poured herself out some coffee. There were
unbecoming shadows under her eyes; and, not yet rouged and powdered,
she was unhealthily pale. The girl had altered during the past week,
and Mattock had noticed the change without understanding it. There
had never been any love between them--the old sophisticated Joan
would have scoffed at the idea--but there had been Mattock's
infatuation and the girl's readiness to accept anything that offered
in the shape of easy money and a good time. He had done much for
her--had served a term of imprisonment to save her life--and she was
grateful. But love ... no. She was a gold-digger, and she was
honest about it; she played the game by him, because her own peculiar
code commanded her to. She would have given him what he wanted
without the formality of marriage, because she was fond of him in a
cynical way, and he had been very good to her in his unworldly,
altruistic manner. Not that she was in any sense promiscuous; that
was about the only form of gold-digging she barred, and that fact,
perhaps, constituted her only virtue in the eyes of her victims.
It is difficult to analyse her mind. A child of the people, she had
risen to the fringe of Society by reason of her beauty, wit,
vivacity, and a certain acquired refinement, while her less gifted
brother remained in the ranks of the petty in-and-out-of-"stir"
sneak-thieves. She kept up her position because she was unscrupulous
where money was concerned. And yet, incredible as it may seem, for
all the wealth her foolish middle-aged admirers had offered her, she
had come to James Mattock a virgin. So ill-assorted a couple were
they--James Mattock, Oxford graduate and gentleman by birth, who had
in his headlong course down-hill tasted all but the ultimate dregs of
dissipation, unselfishly in love with a woman of the criminal classes
whose chastity had been her only claim to his consideration....
He was at a loss, now, to interpret her changed attitude towards him.
Ordinarily, she had been the ideal of a good comrade to him--not
demonstratively affectionate, yet kindly sympathetic, loyal and
trustworthy. Of late she had become rather distant. There was an
awkwardness between them which exasperated Mattock and perplexed the
girl herself.
"You've forgotten your letter," she reminded him as he drained his
cup and rose to go.
"Oh, yes."
He was preoccupied. She could see the lines of worry on his face.
He had been past middle age when he had met her, and prison had aged
him; he had aged even more during the last few days. His unspoken
trouble awakened the old companionship--shook for a moment the
strange barrier of reserve which had separated them so
incomprehensibly.
She fetched his hat and umbrella for him, and then put her hands on
his shoulders.
"What is it, Jimmy?" she prompted. "You're so quiet lately."
"Am I? Oh, yes, dear, perhaps I am a bit. I'm not feeling quite
myself." His voice was expressionless. "This--the whole thing's
rather getting on my nerves, I think."
He had forgotten the yellow envelope in spite of her reminder, and
she went back for it and placed it in his hands.
"Do you have to go on?" she said wistfully. "I wish--I wish you'd
drop it, Jimmy."
"You wouldn't have this flat, then," he said innocently.
"D'you think that's everything in my life?" she broke out
resentfully. "Didn't I marry you when you hadn't a bean--when you
had to--to steal for me? Have we always got to have this life, with
everyone's hand against us, and nothing in the future ... _nothing_
... unless it's Aylesbury for me and the Awful Place for you?" The
wall was down now. "This silly feud of yours is going to cost us
everything! That's the only idea you've got in your head--to satisfy
your rotten vanity, and get your paltry revenge--and you'll go on
slogging at it, and risking on it, and wasting your whole life on it!
You've set it up as your god, and you'll sacrifice everything to
it--sacrifice yourself--sacrifice _me_! ... You've kidded yourself
that heaven's at the end of this road you're going, and you'll sweat
for your worm-eaten heaven--you'll slave and slink and cringe and
break your heart to feed this bloody thing that's gnawing away inside
you--and what good'll it do you?"
"We've had all this before," said Mattock tonelessly. "I've got to
go on. I'm sorry, Joan.... But you can get out of it--it nearly
broke me up when I found you were in the Triangle, but it's been on
my mind ever since. Get out of it, Joan, and don't fret. We'll pull
through somehow."
She faced him accusingly, unshed tears in her eyes.
"If it costs you everything--in spite of all I've said, you're going
on?" she flared.
He nodded.
"Even if you lose ... _me_?"
He stared at her.
"You, Joan? Why, how does it touch you? You can go--I've told you
I'd prefer you to--and then, when it's all over----"
"Yes, _when_!" she blazed back. "And when that happens you'll be
dead--dead! Don't you know that? You're playing skittles with
dynamite, James Mattock--you're screwing your head into the mouth of
a howitzer with a wild horse harnessed to the lanyard! You're mad!"
She clung to him convulsively, her head buried in his shabby coat.
"Jimmy, give it up ... don't go on asking for death!"
Instinctive actress though she was, her passionate outburst was
desperately sincere, and Mattock passed a shaking hand across his
forehead as if to brush away a veil that clouded his eyes. And yet,
when he took her gently by the shoulders and set her from him, the
dull blankness of his eyes had given place only to the glimmer of a
fanatical light.
"There was Sylvia," he said. "I must go on.... She suffered cruelly
... I must...."
He spoke as one who repeats a prayer, and as she drew away from him
it seemed as if the old insurmountable wall slid into the space
between them. She must have realised it, for she made a last fierce
effort to break through his armour.
"Are you blind?" she whispered tremblingly. "The strain's getting
too much for me--and it's not myself I'm worrying about.... I've
been blind too, and I've just realised it.... Jim"--a wonderful
light was born suddenly in her eyes--"oh,
Jimmy"--breathlessly--"Jimmy----"
And then, in the old caprice of Fate, the clock struck. The sharp
chime of it perked Mattock from his throbbing expectancy, wiped the
dawning comprehension from his face, lashed and wrenched and hammered
and tortured him back behind the reef that had all but crumbled
away--beat him back to the cold matter-of-fact reality of things and
his madness.... Flung back into his brain the madness that had come
to him one drizzling afternoon when he had sworn to set a Goal above
all Prizes.... Gave him back the Ambition--the One Idea....
"I must be going," he said unevenly, for the hurt showed in his
voice. "Can't afford to lose my job. Cheer up, Joan."
He kissed her--not perfunctorily now, but with all the frustrated
longing of his heart. And then he strode swiftly from the place.
He saw little of Raegenssen that morning, for the Swede marched
straight through the outer office without his customary "Goot
morning!" to his clerk, and gave no instructions for the day's work.
Raegenssen locked himself in the inner office and lighted a cigar.
He opened the big safe and took down from it a number of ledgers and
a bundle of miscellaneous papers bound up with tape. Each one of the
books and papers he went through carefully three times, as though