Daredevil
in the small, comfortable room in Church Street, where he transacted
business with the favoured few who were privileged to deal with him
personally. He came and went secretly, and discouraged interest in
his movements.
On this particular day, however, there was no furtiveness about him.
He sauntered slowly through Kensington Gardens, an exceptionally
brilliant waistcoat proclaiming his approach several hundred yards in
advance of his person, emerged into Exhibition Road, and strolled on
down that wide, barren thoroughfare. At least one man followed his
progress, and Snooper permitted himself to smile faintly.
On your right-hand side as you walk down from the Park is a tube
subway which leads to South Kensington Station. Into this wandered
Mr. Brome, continued about fifty yards, and stopped to light a
cigar--a process which took him some time.
Satisfied at last that anyone who was interested in his destination
had hurried onto the station by the overground route to pick him up
again as he left the tunnel, Mr. Brome turned about, left the subway
where he had entered it, buttoned his coat over his fancy waistcoat,
and made his way briskly into Queen's Gate. Just before he reached
the entrance of a block of flats he stopped to relight his cigar, and
took the opportunity of glancing keenly up and down the road.
Joan Sands was curled up on a sofa reading when he rang the bell, and
she was not pleased when she saw who her visitor was.
"I don't remember inviting you," she said. "I happen to be alone, so
you'd better go."
He pushed her aside without offence, and led the way into the
sitting-room.
"This isn't much of a place," he remarked, glancing around him
disparagingly. "Couldn't you and Jimmy have done better than this on
six thousand?"
"You might leave Jimmy out of it, if you don't mind," she told him
briefly. "Also, as I've already said, you weren't asked to come, so
if you don't like it you know what to do."
"What's Jimmy doing now?" he pursued.
"Working."
"And what are you doing?"
She frowned at him contemptuously, and he laughed.
"No need to get annoyed, Joan. I've got some good news for you.
There's a nice flat in Cornwall House waiting for someone to live in.
It's big--there's a huge panelled dining-room, a sitting-room you
could lose yourself in that cost six hundred pounds to furnish, and
two bedrooms that'd make a queen happy. And the Apex is paying for
it and offering you an allowance of two thousand a year for overhead
expenses. How does that appeal to you, Joan?"
She nodded.
"I know. And he has a key and drops in any night he feels like it.
No, thank you, Snooper!"
He was almost pathetically shocked at her frankness.
"No, no--not that--Good Lord, Joan! Wouldn't have dreamed of
suggesting it--don't know what made you imagine such a thing."
"Brought up the way I was, you get that sort of imagination," she
informed him coolly. "If it isn't that, what's the game? Don't tell
me there's a philanthropist behind it, because I shall shriek with
laughter."
He fidgeted while she sat down and lighted a cigarette. It was a
side of him she had never seen before, and she would have mocked at
the idea of a fence being so sensitive if his distress had not been
so palpably sincere.
"It's the Triangle," he said presently. "We've got to have several
places in different parts of London, and that flat'll be one of them.
All you have to do is to live there and spend your allowance any way
you like. In return, any member must be able to come and go as he
pleases. The place is really two small flats knocked into one, so
there are two entrances. If you like, you can lock yourself in half
of it at night, and you can have both the keys of one entrance. I'll
have a special lock put on the communicating doors, too, if that'll
make you feel more comfortable. The only thing is to have some solid
tenant--when big expensive flats aren't occupied the splits are
liable to be a little curious, and we can't afford to take risks.
Won't you think it over again, Joan?"
She looked at him through a wreath of smoke.
"Who is the Apex--who are the Triangle, for that matter?" she asked
him directly, and his agitation froze into a menacing stillness.
"That doesn't matter to you," he said. "All you need to know is that
you're part of it, Joan, and you do as you're told."
She stood up and set the long cigarette-holder carefully between her
white teeth. Hands thrust down into the pockets of her boyish coat,
she stared him straight in the eyes.
"My name happens to be Sands, with a Miss in front of it," she said
steadily. "All this Joaning is getting on my nerves. And as for the
Triangle--I don't suppose I shall ever go to heaven, but I certainly
don't intend to go to Aylesbury! I'll do my gold-digging where I
don't have to trust a lot of other crooks with my safety. I'll take
on your job, Snooper, but listen to this: I came into this Triangle
of yours on the understanding that the crooked side of it didn't
touch me, and I meant it. If you'll have those locks fixed, you can
billet your crooks on me, because I want big money, and I want it
bad. I'll take a chance of the busies getting on to me, but they'll
never get me inside even as an accessory. When do I move?"
"This afternoon," said Snooper shortly. "And you can drop the
high-and-mighty tone, Miss Sands. It cuts no ice. You're a crook,
even if they don't know you on the Embankment--your brother's hardly
ever out of stir, and the pair of you come straight from a family of
crooks."
She opened the door and waved her hand towards the tiny hall.
"I don't intend to breed a family of Triangles, anyway," she
remarked, and closed the door in his face.
James Mattock, returning that evening, was informed that "Mrs.
Mattock" had left, and read the note that was waiting for him
uneasily. He found her already installed in the flat in Cornwall
House, and looked around at the palatial furnishing perplexedly.
"What's this, Joan?" he asked.
"Oh, a matchbox on stilts," she said sarcastically. "What did you
think it was--a tram?"
She was stretched out in a deep-cushioned chair, her kimono lightly
sashed about her, her little bare feet pillowed in the deep pile of
the carpet. Her fluffy golden hair was elaborately untidy. She was
arrestingly pretty and attractive.
"Who are you waiting for?" Mattock demanded roughly, but she shook
her head and held out a silk-sheathed arm.
"Only you, Jimmy. I'm sorry I was snappy just now. I've had rather
a trying day."
"Poor kid!" He knelt down beside her and laid an arm about her
shoulders. "But, Joan, who's paying for this? We can't afford
anything like this--it must cost thousands!"
"No--it's bringing us thousands," she said. "Two thousand a year,
and we need it. And all it means is letting a few men come in and
out. I'll tell you----"
He stood up suddenly and clutched her wrists fiercely.
"Joan! _Joan!_" His voice was tense with agony. "Oh, my darling,
what have you done this for? I've got a job. Good--good God,
Joan----"
"No--no--_listen_, Jimmy! You've got it all wrong. Yes, it _is_
crooked, in a way," she went on desperately. "It's some silly gang.
I don't know what they're after, but I'm not in it. Only they want a
place to--to come to, sometimes, and there must be somebody always
living there, and as I'm one of them, they got me."
"But----"
"Oh, yes, I know! I said I'd given it up, but I couldn't. They've
got a hold on me that I can't break--that you can't break. The only
way to break it is expensive, and I've got to have that money.
Look--doesn't that mean anything to you?"
She drew back the sleeve and showed him her forearm, holding it up
close to his eyes. It showed the faint marks of several small
punctures, but Mattock only shook his head.
"I don't know what it is," he said dully. "But, of course, I'm a
fool anyway...."
He sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands. She went
on her knees beside him and pressed herself close to him.
"Jimmy----"
"Oh, yes ... Joan ..."
He took her hand and fondled it, and then he pressed it to his lips.
It was a very long time before he spoke again.
"I'm sorry. I'm making a fool of myself. But I was afraid."
The words fell from his lips in a painful monotone.
"I'll go out for a walk. I'll feel better then."
Storm, following Susan into the Leroy that night, saw the hatless
figure striding madly down Piccadilly and was puzzled.
"You _are_ doing something," Susan accused him. "I saw you this
morning with a detective--Mr. Teal."
"I was being arrested," he said solemnly. "The charge was barratry,
champerty, and attempted gum-boils, with complications. I explained
that I was a Quaker and had never eaten tripe, so after ringing up
Carter Paterson's to verify my alibi they let me go."
"I know he was a detective, because he's been in to see Lord
Hannassay. Have you become a detective?"
"Not yet," he assured her, "though I hope to rise to that later. At
present I'm looking for a job. I suppose you couldn't get me a
master carpenter's ticket or a wood-repairer's diploma, could you?"
"What on earth do you want that for?" she asked, and Storm laughed.
"I'm interested in a saw-mill," he said gravely, "and I want to get
inside it. Unfortunately the owner discourages visitors--and I'm
curious! I want to rubber round that saw-mill! Why have a saw-mill
in Billingsgate? Why not in Tottenham Court Road or Bloomsbury?
They're just as aristocratic."
That faint smile of his flickered on his lips provocatively, and she
knew him too well to question him further.
"A man's been following me about all day," she told him later. "I
don't know what he wants, but he worries me. He hasn't tried to
speak to me or anything like that--just trails round behind me
wherever I go."
"I'm being followed too," he said with a lightness he didn't feel.
"And my man isn't a detective, either! I'll tell you--we're
beautiful, and he's an artist. We shall be on the walls of
Burlington House next year. Or have you been married secretly and
are we going to be compromised?"
"Stop fooling, Storm," she commanded.
He grinned.
"My dear soul, what else can one do? I'll push your little
playmate's face in if you like, but you'll only have another man in
his place to-morrow. Everybody's being followed--it must be a new
game! Raegenssen's being followed, and Sir John Marker's being
followed, and Joe Blaythwayt's being followed, and John Cardan's
being followed, and Sir John Marker's private secretary's being
followed, and I'm being followed, and Inspector Teal's being
followed, and----"
"Don't you know what's at the back of it?"
"I know what, but I'd perjure my soul to know who!" said Storm. "And
I take back what I said the other day. Respectability's exciting!
It's the fiercest sport in the whole wide world bar haggis-shooting!
Everyone's turning respectable now, even the crooks, just for the fun
of the thing. Just look over to your right--that little cherub at
the next table but one. See him? He's my little pet! My name's
Mary, and he's a scorching lamb. We're inseparable, like Castor and
Pollux or Swan and Edgar."
He waved a friendly hand to the small neatly dressed man at the
adjoining table, and grinned when his salutation was coldly ignored.
The girl was mystified.
"Who's that?" she asked. "He looks the most respectable man in the
place."
"Oh, yes, he's respectable!" said Storm caustically. "He's only
killed eleven men! That, old thing, is Comrade 'Gat' Morini, and for
exactly four years all the policemen in New York and Chicago have
been aching to put him in a hard chair and run two thousand volts