Daredevil
turned in the seat and they saw a gun in his hand. The second car
was gaining ground rapidly now, and then the revolver cracked, and
the second driver's cap went spinning. Again the masked man
fired--twice--and Storm and Teal heard the whine of the bullets
passing over their heads.
"Je-rusalem--he's shooting at us!" Storm exclaimed, and began running
towards the two cars.
The leading racer was slowing down, for the almost continuous grating
which came from it showed that the masked man had still failed to get
in gear again. The distance between the two speedsters was lessening
swiftly--twenty yards ... fifteen ... ten ... and the second car
moving like a streak of light. For the last time the masked man
fired, practically at point-blank range, but although his bullet
might have stopped a charging man it could not stop a charging car.
And charging the second car was, heading straight for the
decelerating racer.
And the pursuing car must have been travelling at over sixty miles an
hour....
Teal and Storm came up some minutes after the collision. A mangled
wreck of twisted machinery and rent and crushed aluminium--that was
all. With two bodies jammed in the ruins, weltering in a spreading
pool of petrol tinted with something red.
It was some time before they could get at the two men. One was James
Norman Mattock--dead, with the masked man's bullet through his brain.
Death had wiped the hard lines from his thin face, taken the prison
bitterness out of his glazing eyes. It seemed as if a faint,
peaceful smile lay on his lips.
Mechanically Inspector Teal doffed his hat in the presence of
death--for the first time in his life. It was not because of James
Norman Mattock.
"Poor Joan--poor kid," he muttered under his breath.
And then they turned to the second body. The black felt hat had
fallen off, and they saw the greying hair which had once been Saxon
yellow.
Storm, knowing that the man was dead, turned and walked slowly away.
It was the detective who bent and unfastened the black silk
handkerchief. And one long, dazed exhalation whistled through the
teeth of Mr. Teal, that bored and placid man.
"Great Kippered Herring!" he breathed. "Lord Hannassay!"
CHAPTER XXX
TIME!
Four people went back to the Albany that night, and sat in Kit's snug
den smoking and clearing up the odd threads which remained of the
Triangle mystery. Bill Kennedy; Inspector Teal, once more phlegmatic
and somnolent; Susan, a trifle pale but very lovely; and--Christopher
Arden Bulsaid, Storm, Lord Hannassay.
"_Curtain_--and an effective tab, too," murmured Storm.
His face was considerably damaged, and every limb ached, but he felt
supremely happy. He smiled. Between his bruised lips a cigarette
canted skywards at the old optimistic, devil-may-care angle.
"Yeh! Lord Hannassay the late was the Alpha Triangle. You all know
how he got the bug of revenge in his brain, and you can all imagine
how it grew up till it filled his whole mind with ideas of making
himself a tyrant over all London. He might've done it, given
complete sanity to add to his genius. Lombroso'd tell you that
wasn't possible. I hope Cesare's right--it's lucky for all concerned
if he is. Hannassay couldn't put his scheme into practice till he
had money. He got that when his father died in India, leaving him
the title and bags of cash. Then Hannassay got busy. Created a Mr.
Brome, in which _rôle_ he got in touch with the underworld; and an
Oscar Raegenssen to handle the financial side of the organisation.
Things got a shade too warm around Lord Hannassay, so we had Fake
Death Number One. Later on, things began to hum around Siegfried the
Pelican too, so Hannassay trotted out Fake Death Number Two and just
carried on as Snooper. You can write in most of the rest for
yourselves. Among other things, you'll be keen to know why Hannassay
fainted when he saw me the day--night, rather--Morini went gunning
for Miss Hawthorne. You remember there was only the reading-lamp on
in the library? The shade was turned up, and the light came on my
face. He thought he was seeing the ghost of his wife, Sylvia
Mattock, Jimmy's sister. Hannassay started off his campaign of
revenge by shopping Mattock over a forged cheque. Hannassay was
rather a brute to my mother, so when Jimmy came out of stir he had a
double grudge to settle off his own bat. Hannassay made his second
bloomer when he took Mattock on in Raegenssen's. His idea was, of
course, to stop him again, since the first shopping hadn't functioned
strong enough. But Mattock got wise to a thing or two--one of them
was when Raegenssen got in the way of my auto and spoke with Lord
Hannassay's voice. That leaves only the Alpha part of it--a bit of
supplementary evidence. You mayn't know it, but the Greek _alpha_
was supposed in its original form to represent the head and horns of
an ox. Bulsaid--_bull's head_.... Got it?"
Storm stretched himself.
"And I think that's the complete rehash, according to Cocker," he
remarked after a pause. "Oh, except for Uncle Joe."
"There's a great detective lost in Uncle Joe," said Teal sadly.
"D'you know, he cut the wires connecting with the charge of nitrogen
trichloride under Buckingham Palace? He heard the Apex threatening
you with it and crept along behind the hangings till he found 'em.
Uncle Joe's got nerve--he'll be able to write a wonderful book after
to-night. By the way, somebody's going to have a ticklish job
digging all that H.E. out before the ice melts off it," added Mr.
Teal lusciously.
"I'll tell you how I figure it out that Uncle Joe found the house,"
said Storm. "Mattock, I think, must've joined up in the Triangle,
once he got a line on the big boss, in the hope of finding out enough
to put Hannassay in the Awful Place. Hannassay'd 've been glad to
have him in, as it'd make shopping him easier. Matter of fact,
Hannassay didn't go on with that scheme--he was too busy trying to
get his fifteen million thick 'uns out of the Treasury. Before that,
he'd also got Joan Sands in, to give him a bigger hold over Mattock
than ever. That was all done through Snooper. Snooper had the
telephone tapped and the bookcase put in, and told each of 'em
separately not to touch it or talk about it. Mattock didn't
associate Snooper with the Triangle at that time, or we'd have been
saved a lot of trouble, so he obeyed orders. God knows why! Anyway,
after the Piccadilly Circus explosion, Mattock got less dumb. He put
two and two together and made--Snooper! So he went chasing Snooper
last night, and Uncle Joe trailed _him_. They went down Buckingham
Gate in procession, and all landed up in the right place. If we owe
something to Uncle Joe, we owe a darn sight more to Jimmy! I said he
was going to kill Raegenssen, and, by hookey! he did. What's
happened to Uncle Joe, by the way?"
Teal grimaced.
"Last time I saw him, he was rushing round to talk to Joan. He's
been talking to her and pulling the sympathy gag nearly all day. How
any man can be so keen on studying criminology," said Mr. Teal,
wilfully dense, "beats me."
The four of them had dined together, and the silent-footed Cork had
not long cleared the table and taken his departure. The coffee cups
in front of them were still warm, and yet already a subtle restraint
had forced itself into the air. Two of the guests began to wonder
if, even in that short time, they had not overstayed their welcome.
Mr. Assistant Commissioner William Kennedy glared at Mr. Central
Detective-Inspector Teal, and Mr. Teal stared sombrely back at Mr.
Kennedy with sleepy eyes. Solemnly each of them nodded to the other.
As one man, they rose to their feet.
"I've got a lot of work to get through before I can seek my
well-earned rest," said Bill gravely. "Your own particular jaunt may
be over, but crime goes on for ever."
"I," said the drowsy Teal, "have been working all day, and I'm very
tired."
In the sacred cause of Accuracy, one must put it on record that Storm
lapsed lamentably from strictly good manners. He expressed no regret
that they could not stay longer, nor did he beg them to remain. In
fact, he bade them farewell in haste, as if he were afraid that they
might change their minds. Only when they were irrevocably hatted and
gloved did he become aware of his duties as a host.
"Not even a quick one before you go?" he suggested half-heartedly.
Mr. Teal shook his head, shifting his gum to the other side of his
mouth.
"It's bad for the heart," he said. "Fat men didn't ought to
drink...."
Storm closed the door and came back into the sitting-room. He sat on
the table, swinging his legs and singing a little tune. Deliberately
he crushed out the stump of his cigarette in the ash tray.
Susan got up.
"I suppose I ought to be going, too," she said.
But she did not go.
THE END