Daredevil
"Most likely another nest of theirs. There are probably several--the
Triangle wouldn't risk everything on one being unsuspected."
"Probably," Storm agreed. "And H is to die--being apparently more
dangerous than me. There's a bouquet!"
It was nearing seven, and he went up the outside stairs to call his
manservant and order breakfast. Cork was already astir, and in an
astonishingly short time steaming coffee and delicate slices of
golden-brown toast were on the table, and a great dish of fried eggs
and bacon was set before them, still sizzling seductively from the
pan.
"This will about save my life," Teal said appreciatively, and heaved
himself from his chair.
Across the food Storm regarded him.
"If Miss Hawthorne is the H referred to," he said, "there're going to
be a whole lot of three-cornered funerals in the near future. And
the Big Triangle 'll be among those present! From now on I'm going
gunning for Triangles!"
The detective stared, for if he had seen the words in cold print he
would have refused to believe that they could be invested with such a
crisp, arctic, incisive malevolence. Storm's voice was very quiet,
very suave--but the quietness was like that which comes between the
flash of lightning and the answering crackle of its destruction; and
the suaveness was not of velvet, but of polished metal....
"The Law," began the respectable Mr. Teal feebly, and then stopped,
having met the frosty gaze of those level grey eyes.
"Skunkrot the Law!" said Storm, very gently.
CHAPTER XIV
EXASPERATION OF MR. TEAL
James Mattock read the second proclamation of the Alpha Triangle in
his morning paper.
It was headed in the flamboyant fashion of the first, but it was much
less circumlocutory. Its comparative brevity lent it a force which
had been lacking in its predecessor--a force which gained much from
the incidents which had come between the two, and which was
emphasised by the account of the Battle of Billingsgate and the
subsequent escape of the thirteen prisoners, a scoop that occupied
the place of honour next to the manifesto itself.
SECOND MANIFESTO
_by the Lord of the Alpha Triangle, in Council, to the Parliament and
People of the United Kingdom._
WHEREBY it is announced as follows:
Seeing that Our first Manifesto has been ignored, We find it
necessary to increase the arguments we have already advanced, why it
will be advisable for the Government to accede to Our Terms. And
this We do according to this Warning: That, until Our receipt of
official notification of the Government's acceptance of the
aforementioned and previously detailed Terms, We shall destroy the
undernamed Objects of Public Property, at intervals of two days from
the date hereof, in the order given below.
The New Underground Junction at Piccadilly Circus.
The Albert Hall.
The National Gallery and the Nelson Monument.
The British Museum.
St. Paul's Cathedral.
The Houses of Parliament.
Concurrently with this Campaign, Our already initiated Policy of
Terrorism will be continued and augmented.
GIVEN by Our Hand this Day,
(Signed)
Followed, in the facsimile which was blazoned across the front page
of the _Mercury_, the sign of the Alpha Triangle.
Mattock read the whole epistle through a second time. Not that it
interested him--he already knew it by heart--but because for the
first time he had been struck by an almost insignificant detail of
the layout. Searching in his wallet for the clipping of the first
manifesto, he compared the two, and the confirmation of his idea made
him sit very still for some time.
When he reached the Cockspur Street office that morning, he found
that Raegenssen had not arrived, and the police were in possession.
Shortly afterwards, Inspector Teal himself entered, and promptly
buttonholed the ex-convict.
"The last time your boss was in was yesterday, wasn't it?" he drawled.
"Yes."
"What business did he do that day?"
Mattock looked at the detective.
"I've no right to talk about my employer's business," he said.
"No-o?" Teal's voice was silky. "But we want to know all about
it--we're just buzzing with interest, in fact--and you look most like
the man who's going to tell us."
"I'm sorry about that."
"What did Raegenssen do yesterday?"
"Rotten weather, isn't it?" said Mattock absently, and turned the
papers on his desk.
Teal shifted his chewing-gum with a deliberate clamp of his jaws.
"Did he go to the bank by any chance?"
"I suppose," murmured Mattock, staring reflectively out of the
window, "I suppose the ducks like it."
"You listen to me, and look at this! You know a warrant by this
time, don't you? And d'you know what you'll get, with your record,
if I use it? Marchmont Avenue, Hampstead, at the house of Oscar
Raegenssen--burglary and assault--five years."
Mattock regarded the paper in the detective's hand calmly. Then he
looked at Teal. James Mattock, convicted criminal and sometime
jail-bird though he was, had once been a gentleman, according to
Teal's own description, and the fact gave him an immeasurable pull
over the detective. Teal, blunt and burly, a man of the people who
had won his rank from the academy of the beat, felt uncomfortable
under the steady once-over of the self-possessed clerk.
"You know," said Mattock kindly, "your tact would make an angel weep."
Teal had one pose which never failed to conceal his embarrassment.
His heavy-lidded eyes half-closed, his whole figure relaxed--he
looked as if he were on the point of falling asleep on his feet.
Everything in the world seemed to bore him to tears.
"All right, Jimmy," he said wearily. "We can't make you squeal if
you don't want to. The only thing that struck me was that giving us
a bit of help now would cut a lot of ice. I mean, we could give you
a hand in return--maybe go blind a trifle the next time you skated
near trouble."
"There won't be a next time," was Mattock's uncompromising retort.
"All clear, then, Jimmy. But don't forget what I said. The offer's
always open."
It seemed to Teal that Mattock had watched the whole performance with
cynical enjoyment, and the clerk's answer verified that impression.
"If _you're_ ever in trouble, Teal," he said, "go along to a
music-hall manager. If you get an audition, and your form's up to
to-day's, your fortune's made."
Feeling that he had not had the best of the encounter, Teal stalked
into the inner office, where detectives were already at work
examining the filing cabinets and the drawers of the roll-top desk.
Mr. Teal's attention, however, was attracted by the massive safe, and
he stood for a time before it, hands in the pockets of his
waterproof, his lower jaw functioning monotonously.
Then he turned to one of the men.
"Has this been touched, Topham?"
"No, sir."
"Not a hand been laid on it?"
Topham appealed to his colleagues, and the reply was a fairly
confident negative.
"Of course, it's difficult to swear that nobody's touched it without
thinking."
Teal nodded.
From his waistcoat pocket he produced a powerful lens in a chamois
bag, polished it on his handkerchief, and subjected the surface of
the door to a prolonged scrutiny. Secondly, he studied the lock, and
then he called one of the men over.
"Take a look at it," he advised. "Now, you see the faint scratches
by the keyhole? D'you notice any new ones?"
"Two or three," was the result after a short examination. "There's
also some marks inside the edges of the keyhole itself. They're all
very new; in this weather the brass would tarnish quickly, and these
marks are perfectly bright."
"Would a key be likely to leave those inside scratches?"
The man shook his head.
"I'm not an expert, sir, but I should say not, unless the original
key had been lost and a carelessly made substitute used."
"Thank you," said Teal, and sank upon his knees as if in prayer.
He made a number of deep obeisances before the huge steel box, and
then regained his feet with a sigh.
"Keep off this bit of carpet," he ordered. "We shall want an expert
on this."
The expert was on the spot within fifteen minutes of Teal's telephone
summons, and he came to a decision in a very short time.
"This is either Prester John's or Grantor's work," he pronounced, and
Teal was too hardened to the daily miracles of the police records
department to show any surprise at the definiteness of his Holmesian
piece of deduction.
A number of micro-photographs were taken, and the fine specks of
metallic dust which Teal had discovered on the carpet in his
supplicatory attitude were carefully brushed up and placed in an
envelope. The safe was also tested for finger-prints, the expert in
that science going over it minutely with his grey powder and camel's
hair brush, but nothing whatever rewarded his labours.
"The extraordinary thing," he said, "is that there's no mark of any
kind. If Raegenssen had touched the safe at all recently, he either
wore gloves or wiped it with a rag afterwards."
In an hour the plates had been developed and compared with similar
close-ups classified in the colossal card-index system of the Records
Office, and the unhesitating verdict was phoned through to Mr. Teal.
The vote went to Prester John, and the somnolent detective became a
perplexed and irritated man, for the fact upset every single one of
his theories and dizzied him completely out of his bearings.
After three thoughtful slabs of chewing-gum he rang up Storm,
obtained permission, and then got through to the Yard and demanded
the attendance of a third expert--a gentleman who in the past years
had earned a comfortable income from his knowledge of safes until a
false step and a term of confinement at His Majesty's expense had
exacted from him due labour of hire already received, and (unusually
enough) instilled into the said gentleman an enthusiasm for a more
restful, if less remunerative and spectacular, employment on the lee
side of the Law. On occasion, however, the ex-yegg had opportunities
for the exercise of his craft without fear of retribution, and this
was one of those occasions.
"Open that money box," commanded Teal without preface, and the
expert, after a practised survey, grinned superciliously.
"This is degradin' an honourable perfession," he complained. "A
blind elepeptic palarytic could open this tin wiv an 'air-pin an' a
corkscrew. I suppose," went on the uncertain vocabularian, warming
to his topic, "it ain't to be dammagid? Becos, if you ain't
particulant, an' there 'appens to be a sardine opener on the
presimes----"
"Get on with it," said the detective testily, for he was not feeling
humorous at the moment.
The expert got to work with a pained air, first experimenting with
three skilfully twisted lengths of steel wire, and then filing a key
with the result of his investigations to guide him.
At the end of half an hour:
"An' 'ere we are. All chynge for Charing Cross an' the Pink Elephant
an' Castrol. Pass dahn the car, please! An' I may say, Mr. Charman,
that a softer crib 'as yet to be builded. Why, if the game 'ad bin
so elemtenary in my days, when I was an exterp at the skience, I'd've
bin a blinkin' millionanthropist by now, I would. Drivin' abaht
Myfair in a calabriot, wiv all the flatties touchin' their 'ats to me
an' 'opin' I'd put a monkey in their Christmas Box. That's the narks
all over. One lore for the rich an' another fer the porous. An' no
gratootooies--'cept from those 'oo make them big enough." He
regarded the confounded detective in wonder. "Well, well, Mr.
Teal--wot's the matter? Ain't nothink there? Well, wot did jer
expect ter find? A leopotamosceraffe or a box o' pink pills? This