Four square Jane
“But you couldn’t have had the wire till eleven,” he said, “how on
earth did you get here?”
She smiled rather quietly.
“I did rather an adventurous thing,” she replied. “There is an
aeroplane service between Falmouth and London.”
He could only stare at her.
“That was very enterprising of you, Joyce.”
“Tell me,” she said, “did you also wire about this robbery?”
“I’ve been waiting till I got the fullest details before I notified
you,” said Lord Claythorpe easily. “You see, my dear girl, I have no
wish to worry or frighten you, and possibly there was some chance that
this wretched woman would return the securities, or at any rate give
me a chance of redeeming them.”
She nodded.
“I see,” she said. “Then I can do nothing?”
He shook his head.
“Absolutely nothing.”
She pursed her lips irresolutely.
“Can I write a letter?” she asked.
“Sit down, sit down, my dear child,” he fussed. “You’ll find paper and
envelopes in this case.”
* * * * *
At eleven o’clock that night, South Western District Post Office No. 2
was a scene of animation. Postal vans, horse vans and motors were
pulled up level with the big platform which led from the sorting room,
and a dozen porters were engaged in handling mail bags for various
destinations. The vans conveying local London mails had been
despatched to the various district offices, the last to leave being a
small one-horse van carrying the foreign mails to the G.P.O. It was
driven by a middle-aged attendant named Carter, and pulled out of the
yard at a quarter to twelve.
The weather was a repetition of that which had been experienced on the
previous night. The south-wester was still blowing, the rain was
coming down in gusty squalls, and the driver, muffled up to the chin,
whipped up his horse to face the blast. His way led through the most
deserted part of London’s West End--more deserted than usual on this
stormy night. One of the main streets through which he had to pass was
“up,” being in the hands of the road repairers, and he turned into a
side street to make a detour which would bring him clear of the
obstruction. He observed, as he again turned his horse into the narrow
thoroughfare running parallel with the main road, that the street
lamps were extinguished, and put this down to the storm. He was in the
blackest patch of the road, when a red lamp flashed right ahead of
him, and he pulled his horse back on its haunches.
“What’s the trouble?” he said leaning down and addressing the figure
that held the lamp.
For answer, a blinding ray of light, directed by a powerful pocket
lamp, struck him full in the face, and before he realised what had
happened, someone had leapt on to the wheel and was by his side,
clutching at the rails on top of the van. Something cold and hard was
pressed against his neck.
“Utter a sound and you’re a dead man,” said a man’s voice.
A quarter of an hour later, all that stood for authority in London was
searching for a dark low motor car, and Peter Dawes, sitting on the
edge of his bed in his pyjamas, was eagerly questioning one of his
junior officers over the ’phone.
“Robbed the mail? Impossible! How did it happen? Were they arrested?
I’ll be with you in ten minutes.”
He slipped into a suit, buttoned his mackintosh, and stepped out into
the wild night. His flat was opposite a cab rank, and in less than ten
minutes he was at Scotland Yard.
“… the man said the thing was over so quickly he hadn’t a chance of
shouting, besides which, the fellow who stood by his side threatened
to shoot him.”
“What have they taken?”
“Only one bag, so far as can be ascertained. They knew just what they
were after, and when they had got it they disappeared. The constable
at the other end of the street heard the man shout, and came running
down just in time to see a motor car turn the corner.”
Later, Peter interviewed the driver, a badly scared man, in the
stable-yard of the contractor who supplied the horses for the post
office vans. The driver was a man who had been in the Government
service for ten years, and had covered the route he was following that
night--except that he had never previously taken the side street
rendered necessary by the condition of the road--for the greater part
of that time.
“Did you see anybody else except the man who sat by your side and
threatened you?” asked Peter.
“Yes, sir,” replied the man. “I saw what I thought was a girl in a
black oilskin; she passed round to the back of the van.”
“Where is the van? Is it here?” asked the detective, and they showed
him a small, four-wheeled vehicle, covered in at the top and with two
doors which were fastened behind by a steel bar and padlocked. The
padlock had been wrenched open, and the doors now stood ajar.
“They had taken out the mail bags, sir, in order to sort them out to
see what was gone.”
Peter flashed his lamp in the interior, examining the floor and sides
carefully. There was no clue of any kind until he began his inspection
of the inside of the doors, and there, on the very centre, was the
familiar label.
“Four Square Jane, eh?” said Peter, and whistled.
VII
“I deeply regret that I found it necessary to interfere with His
Majesty’s mails. In a certain bag was a letter which was very
compromising to me, and it was necessary that I should recover it. I
beg to enclose the remainder of the letters which are, as you will
see, intact and untampered with!”
This document, bearing the seal manual of Four Square Jane, was
delivered to the Central Post Office accompanied by a large mail bag.
The person who delivered it was a small boy of the District Messenger
Service, who brought the package in a taxi-cab. He could give no
information as to the person who had sent him except to say that it
was a lady wearing a heavy veil, who had summoned him to a popular
hotel, and had met him in the vestibule. They had taken a cab
together, and at the corner of Clarges Street the cab had pulled up on
the instructions of the lady; a man had appeared bearing a bundle that
he had put into a cab which then drove on. A little later the lady had
stopped the cab, given the boy a pound note, and herself descended.
The boy could only say that in his opinion she was young, and
undoubtedly in mourning.
Here was new fuel to the flames of excitement which the murder of
Remington had aroused. A murder one day, accompanied by a robbery
which, if rumour had any foundation, involved nearly a quarter of a
million pounds, and this tragedy followed on the next day by the
robbery of the King’s mail; and all at the hands of a mysterious woman
whose name was already a household word--these happenings apart from
the earlier crimes were sufficient to furnish not only London but the
whole of Britain with a subject for discussion.
Lord Claythorpe heard the news of the robbery with some uneasiness.
Inquiries made at the local district office however, relieved him of
his anxiety. The mail bag which had been taken, he was informed, was
part of the Indian mail. The Australian mail had been delivered at the
General Post Office earlier in the evening by the service which left
the district office at nine o’clock. It was as well for his peace of
mind that he did not know how erroneous was the information he had
been given. He had asked Joyce to breakfast with him, and had kept her
waiting whilst he pursued these inquiries; for he had read of the
robbery in bed, and had hurried round to the district office without
delay.
“This is the most amazing exploit of all,” he said to the girl, as he
handed her the paper. “Take this,” he said. “I have read it.”
“Poor Jane Briglow!”
“Why Jane Briglow?”
The girl smiled.
“Mother insists that it is she who has committed all these acts. As a
matter of fact, I happen to know that Jane is in good service in the
North of England.”
Claythorpe looked at her in surprise.
“Is that so?” he said incredulously. “Do you know, I’d begun to form a
theory about that girl.”
“Well, don’t,” said Joyce, helping herself to jam.
“I wonder whether they’ll get the bag back,” speculated his lordship.
“There’s nothing about it in the papers.”
“It is very unlikely, I should think,” said Joyce. She rolled up her
table-napkin. “You wanted to see me about something this morning,” she
said.
He nodded.
“Yes, Joyce,” he said. “I’ve been thinking matters over. I’m afraid I
was rather prejudiced against young Steele.” The girl made no reply.
“I’m not even certain that he was guilty of the offence with which I
charged him,” Claythorpe went on. “You see, I was very worried at the
time, and it is possible that I may have signed a cheque and
overlooked the fact. You were very fond of Steele?”
She nodded.
“Well,” said Lord Claythorpe heartily, “I will no longer stand in your
way.”
She looked at him steadily.
“You mean you will consent to my marriage?”
He nodded.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Why not, indeed?” she said, a little bitterly. “I understand that my
fortune no longer depends upon whether I marry according to your
wishes or not--since I have no fortune.”
“It is very deplorable,” said his lordship gravely. “Really, I feel
morally responsible. It is a most stupendous tragedy, but I will do
whatever I can to make it up to you, Joyce. I am not a rich man by any
means, but I have decided, if you still feel you cannot marry my son,
and would prefer to marry Mr. Steele, to give you a wedding gift of
twenty thousand pounds.”
“That is very good of you,” said the girl politely, “but, of course, I
cannot take your verbal permission. You will not mind putting that
into writing?”
“With all the pleasure in life,” said Lord Claythorpe, getting up and
walking to a writing-table, “really Joyce, you’re becoming quite
shrewd in your old age,” he chuckled.
He drew a sheet of paper from a writing-case and poised a pen.
“What is the date?” he asked.
“It is the nineteenth,” said the girl. “But date it as from the first
of the month.”
“Why?” he asked in surprise.
“Well, there are many reasons,” said the girl slowly. “I shouldn’t
like people to think, for example, that your liking for Mr. Steele
dated from the loss of my property.”
He looked at her sharply, but not a muscle of her face moved.
“That is very considerate of you,” he said with a shrug, “and it
doesn’t really matter whether I make it the first or the twenty-first,
does it?”
He wrote quickly, blotted the sheet, handed it to the girl, and she
read it and folded the paper away in her handbag.
“Was that really the reason you asked me to date the permission back?”
he asked curiously.
She shook her head.
“No,” she said coolly. “I was married to Jamieson last week.”
“Married!” he gasped. “Without my permission!”
“With your permission,” she said, tapping her little bag.
For a second he frowned, and then he burst into a roar of laughter.
“Well, well,” he said. “That’s rather rich. You’re a very naughty
girl, Joyce. Does your mother know?”
“Mother knows nothing about it,” said the girl. “There is one more
thing I want to speak to you about, Lord Claythorpe, and that is in
connection with the robbery of the mail last night.”
It was at that moment that Peter Dawes was announced.
“It’s the detective,” said Lord Claythorpe with a little frown. “You
don’t want to see him?”
“On the contrary, let him come in, because what I am going to say will
interest him,” she said.
Claythorpe nodded to the butler, and a few seconds later Peter Dawes
came into the room. He bowed to the girl and shook hands with Lord
Claythorpe.
“This is my niece--well, not exactly my niece,” smiled Claythorpe,
“but the niece of a very dear friend of mine, and, in fact, the lady
who is the principal loser in that terrible tragedy of St. James’
Street.”