Four square Jane
before we go any further, my lord,” he said.
He took a pair of handcuffs from his pocket.
“Hold out your hands,” he said, and snapped the glittering bracelets
on her wrists.
“Have you got a strong room, my lord, where I can keep her till the
superintendent comes?”
“In my library,” said his lordship.
“Has it got a good door?”
Lord Claythorpe smiled.
He himself unlocked the library door and switched on the lights, and
the girl was pushed into the room and on to a chair. The detective
took a strap from his pocket and secured her ankles together.
“I’m not taking any risks with you, my lady,” he said. “I don’t know
who you are, but I shall know in a very short time. Now I want to
telephone. Have you a telephone here?”
“There is one in the hall.”
The detective looked at the girl, and scratched his chin.
“I don’t like leaving her alone, Robinson. You had better stay with
her. Remember, you’re not to take your eyes off her, see?”
They went out together, his lordship closing and locking the door
behind them, whilst the man went in search of a telephone number.
“By the way, you can hear my man if he shouts, can’t you?” he asked.
“No,” said his lordship promptly. “You can hear nothing through that
door. But surely your man is capable of looking after a girl?”
Lewinstein, a silent spectator of these happenings, smiled. He had no
illusions as to the resources of that girl, and was anxious to see the
end of this adventure. In the meantime, behind the locked doors of the
library the girl held out her hands and the “detective” with her
unlocked the handcuffs. She bent and loosened the strap, then moved
quickly to the wall where the ten safes were embedded. Each she
examined quickly.
“These are the three, Jimmy,” she said, and her companion nodded.
“I won’t ask you how you know,” he said admiringly.
“It was easy,” she said. “As soon as I got in here I gummed some thin
black silk over the edges of each door. These three have been broken,
so these three safes have been opened. We’ll take a chance on this
one. Give me the key.”
The “detective” opened a little leather case which he had taken from
his pocket, and revealed some queerly shaped instruments. Three times
the girl tried, each time withdrawing the tool from the keyhole to
readjust the mechanism of her skeleton key, and at the third time the
lock snapped back, and the door swung open. “Got it first time,” she
said in triumph.
She pulled out a case, opened it and took one fleeting look, then
thrust the jewel case into a long pocket on one side of her dress. In
twenty seconds the safe was emptied, and the girl nodded to her
companion.
“Get the window open. Put the light out first. You’ll find it a
squeeze, Jimmy. It’s easy enough for me.”
Outside the “detective-sergeant” was having trouble with the ’phone.
He put it down and turned despairingly to his lordship.
“If you don’t mind, sir, I’ll run down to Scotland Yard. I’ve got a
motor-bicycle waiting. I don’t seem able to get into touch with the
superintendent. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind going into the room and
keeping my man company for a little while.”
“Surely,” said his lordship indignantly, “your man is perfectly
capable of carrying out his instructions without my assistance? I am
scarcely accustomed----” He paused for breath.
“Very good, sir,” said the “sergeant” respectfully.
A little later they heard the “pop-pop” of his motor-bicycle as it
left.
“We had better do what the sergeant suggests,” said Lewinstein, “we
can’t do any harm by going in, at any rate.”
“My dear fellow,” repeated his lordship testily, “that police officer
is quite capable of looking after the girl. Don’t you agree, Johnson?”
Johnson, the private detective, did not immediately reply.
“Well, sir,” he said, “I don’t mind telling you that I feel a bit
uneasy about the lady being in the same room as the jewels.”
“Good lord!” gasped his lordship, “I didn’t think of that. Pooh! Pooh!
There’s a policeman with her. You know these officers, I suppose,
Johnson?”
“No, sir,” said Mr. Johnson frankly, “I don’t. I’m not brought much
into touch with Scotland Yard men, and they’re constantly changing
from one division to another, so it’s difficult to keep up with them.”
His lordship pondered, a horrible fear growing within him.
“Yes, perhaps you’re right, Lewinstein,” he said, “we’ll go in.”
He put the key in the door and turned it. The room was in darkness.
“Are you there?” squeaked his lordship in such a tone of consternation
that Lewinstein could have laughed.
There was a click and the lights went on, but the room was empty.
Lord Claythorpe’s first glance was to the safes. Apparently they were
closed, but on three of them was a square label, and Lewinstein was
the first to see and understand the significance of that sign.
“What is it? What is it?” said Lord Claythorpe in a shrill tremolo,
pointing with shaking fingers to the labels.
“The visiting card of Four Square Jane!” said Lewinstein.
III
Chief Superintendent Dawes, of Scotland Yard, was a comparatively
young man, considering the important position he held. It was the
boast of his department--Peter himself did very little talking about
his achievements--that never once, after he had picked up a trail, was
Peter ever baffled.
A clean-shaven, youngish looking man, with grey hair at his temples,
Peter took a philosophical view of crime and criminals, holding
neither horror towards the former, nor malice towards the latter.
If he had a passion at all it was for the crime which contained within
itself a problem. Anything out of the ordinary, or anything bizarre
fascinated him, and it was one of the main regrets of his life that it
had never once fallen to his lot to conduct an investigation into the
many Four Square mysteries which came to the Metropolitan police.
It was after the affair at Lord Claythorpe’s that Peter Dawes was
turned loose to discover and apprehend this girl criminal, and he
welcomed the opportunity to take charge of a case which had always
interested him. To the almost hysterical telephone message Scotland
Yard had received from Lord Claythorpe Peter did not pay too much
attention. He realized that it was of the greatest importance that he
should keep his mind unhampered and unprejudiced by the many and often
contradictory “clues” which everyone who had been affected by Four
Square Jane’s robberies insisted on discussing with him.
He interviewed an agitated man at four o’clock in the morning, and
Lord Claythorpe was frantic.
“It’s terrible, terrible,” he wailed, “what are you people at Scotland
Yard doing that you allow these villainies to continue? It is
monstrous!”
Peter Dawes, who was not unused to outbursts on the part of the
victimized, listened to the squeal with equanimity.
“As I understand it, this woman came here with two men who pretended
to have her in custody?”
“Two detectives!” moaned his lordship.
“If they called themselves detectives, then you were deceived,” said
Peter with a smile. “They persuaded you to allow the prisoner and one
of her captors to spend ten minutes in the library where your jewels
are kept. Now tell me, when the crime occurred had your guests left?”
Lord Claythorpe nodded wearily.
“They had all gone,” he said, “except my friend Lewinstein.”
Peter made an examination of the room, and a gleam of interest came
into his eyes when he saw the curious labels. He examined the floor
and the window-bars, and made as careful a search of the floor as
possible.
“I can’t do much at this hour,” he said. “At daylight I will come back
and have a good look through this room. Don’t allow anybody in to dust
or to sweep it.”
He returned at nine o’clock, and to his surprise, Lord Claythorpe,
whom he had expected would be in bed and asleep, was waiting for him
in the library, and wearing a dressing-gown over his pyjamas.
“Look at this,” exclaimed the old man, and waved a letter wildly.
Dawes took the document and read:
“You are very mean, old man! When you lost your Venetian armlet you
offered a reward of ten thousand pounds. I sent that armlet to a
hospital greatly in need of funds, and the doctor who presented my
gift to the hospital was entitled to the full reward. I have taken
your pearls because you swindled the hospital out of six thousand
pounds. This time you will not get your property back.”
There was no signature, but the familiar mark, roughly drawn, the four
squares and the centred “J.”
“This was written on a Yost,” said Peter Dawes, looking at the
document critically. “The paper is the common stuff you buy in penny
packages--so is the envelope. How did it come?”
“It came by district messenger,” said Lord Claythorpe. “Now what do
you think, officer? Is there any chance of my getting those pearls
back?”
“There is a chance, but it is a pretty faint one,” said Peter.
He went back to Scotland Yard, and reported to his chief.
“So far as I can understand, the operations of this woman began about
twelve months ago. She has been constantly robbing, not the ordinary
people who are subjected to this kind of victimization, but people
with bloated bank balances, and so far as my investigations go, bank
balances accumulated as a direct consequence of shady exploitation
companies.”
“What does she do with the money?” asked the Commissioner curiously.
“That’s the weird thing about it,” replied Dawes. “I’m fairly certain
that she donates very large sums to all kinds of charities. For
example, after the Lewinstein burglary a big crêche in the East End
of London received from an anonymous donor the sum of four thousand
pounds. Simultaneously, another sum of four thousand was given to one
of the West End hospitals. After the Talbot burglary three thousand
pounds, which represented nearly the whole of the amount stolen, was
left by some unknown person to the West End Maternity Hospital. I have
an idea that we shall discover she is somebody who is in close touch
with hospital work, and that behind these crimes there is some
quixotic notion of helping the poor at the expense of the grossly
rich.”
“Very beautiful,” said the Chief drily, “but unfortunately her
admirable intentions do not interest us. In our eyes she is a common
thief.”
“She is something more than that,” said Peter quietly; “she is the
cleverest criminal that has come my way since I have been associated
with Scotland Yard. This is the one thing one has dreaded, and yet one
has hoped to meet--a criminal with a brain.”
“Has anybody seen this woman?” said the Commissioner interested.
“They have, and they haven’t,” replied Peter Dawes. “That sounds
cryptic, but it only means that she has been seen by people who could
not recognize her again. Lewinstein saw her, Claythorpe saw her, but
she was veiled and unrecognizable. My difficulty, of course, is to
discover where she is going to strike next. Even if she is only
hitting at the grossly rich she has forty thousand people to strike
at. Obviously, it is impossible to protect them all. But somehow----”
he hesitated.
“Yes?” said the Chief.
“Well, a careful study of her methods helps me a little,” replied
Dawes. “I have been looking round to discover who the next victim will
be. He must be somebody very wealthy, and somebody who makes a parade
of his wealth, and I have fined down the issue to about four men.
Gregory Smith, Carl Sweiss, Mr. Thomas Scott, and John Tresser. I am
inclined to believe it is Tresser she is after. You see, Tresser has
made a great fortune, not by the straightest means in the world, and
he hasn’t forgotten to advertise his riches. He is the fellow who
bought the Duke of Haslemere’s house, and his collection of