Daredevil
through his spine. He's a professional gun artist, and I'll say he
guns well! I ran into him in Chicago about two years back, and we
exchanged compliments. His compliment missed my heart by just over
two inches, and mine missed his by exactly one inch, so I always tell
people I won on points. He loves me all right--you can stake your
socks on uncle!"
The gaiety of his smile was entirely unforced, and in spite of
herself Susan shivered, although the steel showed behind his careless
self-confidence. Even so, she was afraid, for she knew his cheerful
recklessness too well.
"Can't you do anything about it?" she suggested.
"What?" he demanded promptly. "There isn't a word against him. If I
printed what I've just told you there'd be a libel action within the
week, and young Storm wouldn't win it! He's committed eleven
murders, he's been arrested eleven times, and he's been released just
that number. It isn't a crime to follow anyone about."
Morini rose a moment after they did, and Storm was amused to see him
greet a loiterer outside with every appearance of astonishment. As
Storm handed Susan into a taxi the two reunited friends also decided
to charter a taxi, and Storm grinned again.
Lord Hannassay's house was in Hamilton Place, and Storm felt that his
luck was in when he caught sight of the massive figure of Oscar
Raegenssen coming down the steps, for Raegenssen was a man he
particularly wanted to see.
As they alighted, another taxi crawled past and stopped in Park Lane.
He watched Susan let herself in, and then hurried after the Swede.
"Excuse me," he said. "I'm Captain Arden, attached to the Special
Branch at Scotland Yard."
"Well? Please be prief! I hof an appointment for supper."
He was in evening dress, with a foreign-looking cloak over his
shoulders, and his Viking beard overflowed the white expanse of his
shirt-front.
"That card you received--does the date mean anything to you? Did
anything important happen to you on April the first, or did you do
anything important?"
"I know nothing!" said Raegenssen curtly. "It is my pusiness. I hof
entrosted t'bolicemans wit rezearch. April first is day of all the
fools. Thot is all I know."
There was nothing to be done. Storm shrugged, raised his hat, said
good-night, and strolled on.
In his flat he found the patient Mr. Teal consoling himself for a
long wait with one of his host's best cigars.
"Mecklen is my shadow," said Teal, yawning. "He's outside now."
"I saw him," said Storm. "He's got company--Morini trailed me home.
For sheer plodding industry, give me the Yankee gunman!"
He threw his hat and gloves into a chair and walked over to the side
table on which a decanter and syphon stood.
"Been helping yourself to a drink, Teal?" he murmured.
"I don't drink," said Mr. Teal piously. "It's bad for my heart. Fat
men didn't ought to touch alcohol."
Storm carried the decanter to the light, held it up, and inspected
the level of the liquid carefully. Then he called to Teal, and that
stout abstainer came lethargically.
"See that little scratch in the glass?" said Storm. "That's the
level I always keep the whisky up to. And now there's about a
quarter of an inch more than there was when I went out. Some little
pal of mine's been kind by stealth. I love these subterranean
chariteers!"
He moistened the tip of one finger with the spirit and dabbed it on
his tongue. Then he went hastily to the bathroom and rinsed his
mouth out thoroughly.
"Aconite, I think," he remarked pleasantly when he returned. "Still,
we'll send a peg round to the Home Office Analyst in the morning to
make sure."
He sat down on the table, forearms resting on his knees, the
cigarette that he was never without pointed optimistically skywards
between his compressed lips. He grinned at Mr. Teal, and Mr. Teal's
mouth widened half an inch momentarily, which was about the nearest
Mr. Teal ever came to smiling.
"They seem to think you're important," drawled the detective
callously, and Storm nodded.
"I was about due for it. I saw Raegenssen to-night coming out of
Hannassay's--didn't know they were friends! Dear old Olaf the
Seabird was quite rude. All these people seem to hate having to try
and remember their pasts. What can you remember about yourself
thirty years ago, Teal?"
"I daren't tell you, Captain Arden," said Inspector Teal.
They were talking seriously about fifteen minutes later when the
telephone buzzed a warning, and Storm picked up the instrument.
"Hullo... yes... Susan!... Yes?"
He listened impatiently for a few moments, and then hung up the
receiver violently.
"Let's go to a moonlight picnic, Teal!" he crisped, and picked up his
hat as he sprang past the languid detective.
He led the way at a breakneck speed down the covered alley towards
the courtyard which opens on to Piccadilly, but Inspector Teal,
showing an agility which one would not have suspected, kept pace with
him fairly comfortably. Just level with the porter's lodge, Storm
stopped for a moment and thumbed down the safety catch of his
automatic.
"I'll bet it's Lew," he said, and stepped calmly out of cover.
They had just reached the foot of the steps when a spurt of flame
leapt out of the darkness of Albany Court Yard, and something sang
viciously past his head.
"Rotten bad shooting, comrade," he remarked mildly.
Mr. Teal, however, missed the last part of that observation, for as
he spoke Storm fired. There was a scream of pain, and a police
whistle sounded shrilly. The next instant Inspector Teal was
deafened by the roar of an open exhaust. Storm was already at the
wheel of his long silver Hirondel, and Mr. Teal climbed in beside him
briskly, A crowd had already gathered in the yard, and Storm made his
Klaxon howl urgently.
A uniformed man signalled them to stop, but stepped aside when he
recognized the detective.
"Arrest that man!" shouted Teal, as they went past.
The Hirondel skidded hectically into Piccadilly, swinging straight
across the nose of an omnibus. There was a screech of grinding
brakes, a chorus of angry yells, and the silver car lurched across
the road and headed west, gathering speed with powerful ease.
They sailed down the slight gradient towards Hyde Park Corner,
cutting in and out of the stream of traffic with a daring that made
Inspector Teal grip the side of the car hard and temporarily suspend
mastication of his chewing gum.
"Something funny happening at Hannassay's," Storm explained, raising
his voice to make himself heard. "Secretary rang me up--two men
trying to get in the back door, and Hannassay in his bedroom, locked
in, and can't be woken. I heard a shot, and then the line went dead.
Respectability--huh!"
CHAPTER IV
TALKING OF TRIANGLES
Susan Hawthorne saw the door of the library opening slowly, and her
heart stood still.
The man outside was Morini--she saw his baby blue eyes above the
white silk muffler that was bound about the lower part of his face.
She saw something else that was blue, also, but by no means baby
like, something that came up like the head of a striking snake....
The electric light switch was close to her hand, and she clicked it
down and ducked swiftly. Even as she did so the sudden darkness was
split by a streak of orange fire, and a deafening explosion battered
on her ear-drums and left them buzzing painfully. The next instant
she had smashed the heavy telephone twice against the delicate lever
of the switch and efficiently mangled the mechanism.
She moved silently away along the wall, and the terrible hunt began.
The girl was helped by her knowledge of the room, but Morini crept
after her with an uncanny accuracy in spite of the impenetrable
blackness. Her chest was heaving so that it seemed as if every
breath she took must betray her whereabouts as surely as a siren.
The door was a little ajar, and the lights in the hall were on.
There was no escape that way, for he would see her as she was
silhouetted against the glare, and she had already had enough
evidence of the grimness of his purpose. Once she saw him step
cat-wise across the pencil of light that the hall bulbs smudged
across the room, and with difficulty choked back the cry that would
have been fatal. Once he fired again, at random, and she only just
had time to drop behind a couch out of the way of the more accurate
shot that followed instantly on the echo of the first when the brief
flash had given him his bearings.
From outside came a swelling drone that grew in volume with startling
speed and then died into a breathless purr coincident with the
muffled squeal of rubber tearing on asphalt. Hardly two seconds
later the bell at the back of the house rang stridently, and someone
pounded on the front door.
Through the half-open window came Storm's voice:
"Stand clear of the lift gates, please! This is where I damage
architecture!"
She saw Morini slip through the door and out into the corridor, and
then with a dreadful premonition she rushed to the window and flung
up the lower sash. Storm and Inspector Teal were on the step, and
Storm already had his automatic crammed against the Yale lock and his
finger was on the trigger.
"Storm! Stop!" she cried, and he looked round. "Morini's in the
hall and the back door's broken in--he'll get you as you come in and
escape easily!"
He only hesitated for a second. Then--
"That be bullraced for a yarn!" he sang out recklessly. "All aboard
for hell!"
She heard the explosion as she dashed across the room and opened the
door wide. The two men crashed into the hall, but she did not look
at them. She was straining her eyes into the shadows at the end of
the passage which led to the servants' quarters, and, used as she was
to the darkness, she saw Morini a space of time before they did ...
saw his gun leap up ... and hurled the priceless vase she carried....
Three automatics detonated almost as one.
Morini was hit by the vase as he pressed the trigger, and his shot
went high, splintering the transom above the front door. As Storm
fired back he raced towards the servants' entrance.
Mr. Teal laid an unexpectedly gentle arm about the girl's shoulders
and led her into the library.
"There's another light," she said, trying to keep her voice level.
"I smashed the big switch. A reading lamp, on the table--it's lucky
Morini didn't find it."
Teal, groping round, located the lamp and turned it on. A moment
later Storm returned. He had rolled back his sleeve and was
endeavouring to tie his handkerchief round his wrist, and to her
surprise and disgust she said the conventional thing.
"You're hurt."
"Not a bit of it," he assured her. "Only a graze--dear old Gat's
going off, and I think I must be, too. It's time some of us old
soldiers retired--Gat and I wouldn't have missed each other in
Chicago!"
"He got away?" said Teal.
Storm nodded.
"That's the day's safety bet--clean! He got through into Park Lane,
and there was a fast car waiting for him. All lights out, so I
missed the number. It was Morini, of course, but we couldn't get a
conviction--the defence'd produce half a dozen small men with
washed-out blue eyes that you couldn't distinguish from Morini if
they were all dressed alike and had scarves spliced on their dials."
He looked at Teal, and his gunmetal grey eyes were alight with
challenge. "And this is only the opening chorus. You wait till the
balloon goes up!"
Inspector Teal stroked his bowler.
"Where's Hannassay?" he asked prosaically.
"Je-rusalem! I'd forgotten him. The fireworks ought to have woken
him if nothing else will."
Upstairs, after an unavailing assault on the door of Hannassay's