Daredevil
sending a constable round for it now; he'll give his number, which is
C2447.... Oh, no, nothing whatever, except that the note happens to
be a fake! ... That so? Well, you're not half so sorry as I am."
He listened for a moment, and then replaced the receiver with great
care.
"Started to quote me: _If you want a thing done well,_" he explained.
"On the whole, the observation's appropriate, but not the way he
meant."
Teal was looking glum.
"I don't like it," he confessed. "And yet, on the face of it, Lew's
almost as safe here as he'd have been in Brixton. But this
Triangle's a shade too snappy for Claud Eustace--they think of things
the ordinary crook'd laugh at, and they do 'em, and so far they've
got away with them every darned time by sheer nerve."
"There's a special guard," Storm said, "and you can spend the night
here yourself if you like. I'll see if I can see Marker and get a
special order for another parade to-morrow. We can't do any more.
Either the Triangle's thinking of raiding the station, or they're
planning to hold up the prison van, and I think the first is the
least likely to succeed."
Teal shook his head.
"I agree; but it doesn't make me happy. Triangles have three
corners, so I guess they might manage to have a prick waiting in two
places," he said prophetically.
Down at the Yard, however, a slight ray of hope awaited them, for the
call put out the previous day for Prester John had been successful,
and the burglar was even then being detained in Cannon Row pending
audience.
The man who had made the arrest foreshadowed the result of the
interview in his account.
"I took John in a bar in Camden Tower, where he often goes. He
didn't deny the charge, and said he was coming along to see Captain
Arden to-day, anyhow."
"He's got his wish, then," said Teal. "Send him up."
The facetious parent who, while replete with beer, had bestowed upon
Mr. John the prænomen of Prester must have been gifted with second
sight. The celebrated infringer of the laws of property resembled
nothing so much as an elderly parson. He was lank and lofty,
sallow-complexioned and blue of chin. He affected clothes of
clerical hue, wore a high Gladstonian collar and a black bow tie, and
generally gave the impression of sanctimoniousness incarnate.
"Good morning, brethren," he said politely. "I heard that my Lords
had need of men, and I came."
It was his invariable greeting when summoned before the police to
account for his lapses, and he accompanied it with an equally
automatic gesture, holding his elbows in to his sides, bringing his
forearms horizontal, and spreading out his flat palms in the same
plane, a mannerism which the irreverent Inspector Teal described as
"John's lo-and-behold mitt-flap."
"Acoustics excellent!" commented Storm. "I hear you visited Mr.
Raegenssen last night."
"On business," nodded Prester John.
"And was he pleased to see you?" asked Teal.
"He was--er--unfortunately unable to attend."
Storm passed his cigarette case to the pious one and, when John
declined, lighted a cigarette himself.
"How much was Mattock paying you?" he asked, waving his match in the
air to extinguish it.
"Mattock?"
"Raegenssen's clerk. He put you on to the job, didn't he?"
"Not that I know of--although, of course, since the name is
unfamiliar to me, he may have been the man. May I sit down? It
assists the train of thought."
Permission being granted, the man seated himself with a sigh and
hitched up his trousers fastidiously. Leaning back, he fixed his
eyes on the ceiling and pressed the tips of his fingers together like
a pedantic schoolmaster, and after a dramatic pause he deigned to
continue.
"The circumstances are--to say the least of it--curious," he said.
"To commence, then: I am, as you probably know by now, a member of
the society called the Alpha Triangle. You have heard of it, of
course?"
"No," said Teal, _sotto voce_.
"Not, you understand, that I associate myself in any way with the
outrages which they propose to commit," John explained hastily. "No.
I am simply a wage slave--an employee--an hireling. And, in passing,
the hire is worthy of the hireling. My employers pay me a salary,
which is very comfortable--thank you--and in return I undertake to
deal with such refractory locks and so forth as they wish to
penetrate. So far I have had little to do, although I was given to
understand that there would be an important piece of work for me in
the near future. The Bank of England, I think Surcon said--Surcon is
the name by which the Apex is known to his men. An assumed name, of
course, but we are not encouraged to discover his real one. There
was a man named Rodriguez--a Portuguese--who said he was going to
find out the real name and put the black--I believe that is the
correct slang, Mr. Teal?--and--er--where had I got to? Oh, yes, put
the black on. Polite people call it demanding money with menaces.
Rodriguez died the other day. Enteric, you know. I'm sure of that,
because I was able to take a swab from the hypodermic syringe Mr.
Surcon used when he treated Rodriguez to a shot of morphine. Surcon
says he qualified as a doctor. So did I. In my leisure moments, I
still dabble in bacteriology, and _bacilli typhosi_ are easily
recognised under the microscope by the trained observer. So--er--one
is not encouraged to be inquisitive, is one?"
"Quite," murmured Storm.
Inspector Teal cleared his throat noisily, fumbled aimlessly in his
pockets, and came across a battered cigar. He nipped the end from
it, and sought for matches. Instead, he found a virgin packet of
spearmint, and abandoned fumigation in favour of mastication. Then,
having returned the weary weed to his pocket and posted a wafer of
chicle in his mouth, he struck a match and absently wondered why
there wasn't anything to light.
Which seems to indicate a certain perturbation.
It does. Mr. Teal was familiar with the vanity of criminals, their
affectations and their powers of plausible invention, but the yarn of
Prester John was something which failed to enter the borders of his
experience. The germ of truth in it stuck out like the Eiffel Tower:
he had always known that Prester John had drifted to burglary, not
from Borstal, but from Balliol, solely because of the moral kink in
his nature. But the lying of criminals--which psychologists will
tell you is "pathological," whatever that may mean--is expressly
designed for the covering up of their defects and defections--not the
revelation of the same. Wherefore Prester John became an interesting
specimen.
A fact which seemed to have entered the mind of that oleaginous man,
for he allowed an appreciable time to elapse before he resumed his
confession--time during which the theatrical atmosphere piled up hand
over fist.
"Well--to return," he went on at last. "Last night I received a
telephone call in the name of the Apex, instructing me to proceed
with all speed to Scandinavia House, Cockspur Street. My lord had
need of me, so I went." Interval for the lo-and-behold mitt-flap.
"Entering the office to which I had been directed to proceed, I found
seated at a desk a masked man--that sounds a bit thick to you, I
suppose, Mr. Teal, but you've got to take my word for it. Er--a
masked man, as I said. Most extraordinary."
He had a trick of affecting to have lost the thread of his discourse,
and finding his place with an exaggerated effort of concentration.
"This man--masked, as I told you--er--where was I? Oh, yes; this man
explained to me that in his _rôle_ of Ezra Surcon--did I tell you
that the Apex called himself Ezra Surcon?"
"You did," assented Teal patiently. "He explained?"
"That he was, of course, disguised when he appeared before us, and he
had not had time to assume his disguise that night. Therefore, with
a solicitude for my own safety which, I may say, touched me to the
heart--therefore, he had donned a mask. And that was that. He
indicated a safe, and invited me to open it. Which, reasonably
enough--you understand--I did. And, when I got
in"--lo-and-behold--"the cupboard was bare!"
Storm tapped the ash from his cigarette. The revelation affected him
less than it did Inspector Teal; for he had already deducted much of
what he now heard, and the criminal's story came as little more than
a confirmation.
"Well, Mother Hubbard?" he prompted.
"And that was all," Prester John concluded with an eloquent wave of
his hand. "Shall I ask you to picture the scene? My masked friend,
shaking with baffled rage--quite upset, you know. Some people take
things to heart so. It's a thing I--er--as I was saying, shaking
with baffled rage; myself, calm and serene, rather like a turf
accountant's clerk as the horses pass the post, knowing that whoever
may have lost money his own wages are secure. . . . There's an
extraordinary attraction for me in gambling--I've always wanted----"
He caught a murderous gleam in Inspector Teal's eye, and tactfully
returned to the point. "So that was that. Shall I endeavour to
picture for you the scene--to--to delineate, so to speak, the
situation? Shall I----"
"No," said Teal with determination. "What happened after the
tableau?"
John shrugged.
"What would you? I went. My Lord's manner did not give me the
assurance which every gentleman requires before he continues to
inflict his company on a comrade, that he is welcome. You follow?
The moment did not appear propitious for bringing up such sordid
topics as my own remuneration. I folded up my wallet and silently
stole away."
He uncrossed his legs as though, his mission accomplished, he was
about to repeat that man[oe]uvre, but Teal's curiosity was no more
than whetted.
"Did you see any Triangles that night?"
"Er--no."
"Not this?" persisted Teal, and produced from his wallet the
cardboard insigne he had found in the safe.
Prester John examined it with interest, but he shook his head as he
handed it back.
"This is one of the badges which are issued to the inferior
members--the rank and file, so to speak," he said. "The higher
members have tokens of silver and enamel. My own--er--have you
finished with it yet, by the way?"
The question was ignored. Teal and Storm were busy with their own
thoughts, and both these ran in the same channel. Storm, who was
watching the methods of the two men dispassionately, allowed the
detective to give tongue.
"Why have you spun us this yarn?"
"Why? I--er--thought it might possibly be of some assistance," said
John deprecatingly. "As a matter of fact, I am giving up my illegal
activities altogether, and resigning from the Triangle. I heard this
morning that some obscure relative had died and left me
money--nothing great, you understand, but sufficient at least to
enable me to inhabit once more those haunts of culture and
respectability after which my soul hankers."
Teal grunted non-committally and made a mental memorandum to verify
this glad news. Prester John read the disbelief on the round red
face, and smiled faintly.
"That happens to be true," he said.
"Then can you help us to locate any other members--silver badge size
members, I mean--or any boltholes?"
John made a negative gesture regretfully.
"I wish I could," he said. "Unfortunately, I was never taken to any
rendezvous but the one at Billingsgate, of which you already know.
As for members, I have never--er--been in the habit of associating
with gentlemen in the same--er--line of business as myself. Now that
I am meditating a return to the straight and narrow path, my chief
ambition is to--er--rehabilitate myself with the police, bearing no
malice for the many tussles we have had in the past. But my