Room 13
“Get me a cab,” he ordered.
When Parker returned, he found his master was fully dressed.
“You will want your cane, sir. Gentlemen are carrying them now in
evening dress. There is one matter I would like to speak to you about
before you go--it is something that has been rather worrying me for
the past few days.”
Johnny was leaving the room, and turned.
“Anything serious?” he asked, for a moment deceived.
“I don’t like telling you, sir, but I have discussed the matter with
very knowledgeable people, and they are agreed that French shapes are
no longer worn in silk hats. You occasionally see them in theatrical
circles----”
Johnny put up a solemn hand.
“Parker, do not let us discuss my general shabbiness. I didn’t even
know I had a hat of French shape.” He took off his hat and looked at
it critically. “It is a much better shape than the hat I was wearing a
week ago, Parker, believe me!”
“Of course I believe you, sir,” agreed Parker, and turned to the door.
Johnny dismissed his cab in Shaftesbury Avenue and walked down toward
the club. It was dark now; half-past nine had chimed as he came along
Piccadilly.
It was a point of honour with all members of the Highlow that nobody
drove up to the club, and its very existence was unknown to the
taximen. That was a rule that had been made, and most faithfully
adhered to; and the members of the Highlow observed their rules, for,
if a breach did not involve a demand for their resignation, it
occasionally brought about a broken head.
Just before he reached the club, he saw somebody cross the road. It
was not difficult to recognise Jeff Legge. Just at that moment it
would have been rather embarrassing for Johnny to have met the man. He
turned and walked back the way he had come, to avoid the chance of
their both going up in the elevator together.
Jeff Legge was in a hurry: the elevator did not move fast enough for
him, and he stepped out on to the third floor and asked a question.
“No, sir, nobody has come. If they do, I’ll send them along to you.
Where will you be? You haven’t a room engaged--your own room is taken.
We don’t often let it, but we’re full to-night, and Mr. Legge raised
no objection.”
“No, I don’t object,” said Jeff; “but don’t you worry about that. Let
me see the book.”
Again the red-covered engagement book was opened. Jeff read and
nodded.
“Fine,” he said. “Now tell me again who is here.”
“There is Mr. George Kurlu, with a party of friends in No. 3; there’s
Mr. Bob Albutt and those two young ladies he goes about with--they’re
in No. 4.” And so he recited until he came to No. 13.
“I know all about No. 13,” said Jeff Legge between his teeth. “You
needn’t bother about me, however. That will do.”
He strode along the carpeted hallway, turned abruptly into the
right-angled passage, and presently stopped before a door with a neat
golden “13” painted on its polished panel. He opened the door and went
in. On the red-covered table was a bottle of wine and two glasses.
It was a moderately large room, furnished with a sofa, four dining
chairs and a deep easy chair, whilst against one wall was a small
buffet. The room was brilliantly lighted. Six bracket lamps were
blazing; the centre light above the table, with its frosted bulbs, was
full on. He did not shut the door, leaving it slightly ajar. There was
too much light for his purpose. He first switched out the bracket
lamps, and then all but one of the frosted bulbs in the big shaded
lamp over the table. Then he sat down, his back to the door, his eyes
on the empty fire-grate.
Presently he heard a sound, the whining of the elevator, and smiled.
Johnny stepped out to the porter’s desk with a friendly nod.
“Good evening, Captain,” said the porter with a broad grin. “Glad to
see you back, sir. I wasn’t here last night when you came in. Hope you
haven’t had too bad a time in the country?”
“Abroad, my dear fellow, abroad,” murmured the other reproachfully,
and the porter chuckled. “Same old crowd, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Same old bolt down the fire-escape when the ‘busies’ call--or have
you got all the ‘busies’ straightened?”
“I don’t think there’s much trouble, sir,” said the porter. “We often
have a couple of those gentlemen in here to dinner. The club’s very
convenient sometimes. I shouldn’t think they’ll ever shut us up.”
“I shouldn’t think so, either,” said Johnny. “Which of the ‘busies’ do
you get?”
“Well, sir, we get Mr. Craig, and--once we had that Reeder. He came
here alone, booked a table and came alone! Can you beat it? Came and
had his dinner, saw nobody and went away again. I don’t think he’s
right up there”--he tapped his forehead significantly. “Anything less
like a ‘busy’ I’ve never seen.”
“I don’t know whether he is a detective,” said Johnny carelessly.
“From all I’ve heard, he has nothing whatever to do with the police.”
“Private, is he?” said the other in a tone of disappointment.
“Not exactly private. Anyway,” with a smile, “he’s not going to bother
you or our honourable members. Anybody here?”
The porter looked to left and right, and lowered his voice.
“A certain person you know is here,” he said meaningly.
Johnny laughed.
“It would be a funny club if there wasn’t somebody I knew,” he said.
“Don’t worry about me; I’ll find a little corner for myself.…”
Jeff looked at his watch; it was a quarter to ten, and he glanced up
at the light; catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror of the
buffet, was satisfied.
Room 13! And Marney was his wife! The blood surged up into his face,
gorging the thick veins in his temples at the thought. She should pay!
He had helped the old man, as he would help him in any graft, but he
had never identified himself so completely with the plan as he did at
that moment.
“Put her down to the earth,” had said Emanuel, and by God he would do
it. As for Johnny Gray…
The door opened stealthily, and a hand came in, holding a Browning. He
heard the creak of the door but did not look round, and then:
“_Bang!_”
Once the pistol fired. Jeff felt a sharp twitch of pain, exquisite,
unbearable, and fell forward on his knees.
Twice he endeavoured to rise, then with a groan fell in a huddled
heap, his head in the empty fire-place.
CHAPTER XIV
The doors and the walls of the private dining-rooms were almost
sound-proof. No stir followed the shot. In the hall outside, the
porter lifted his head and listened.
“What was that?” he asked the waiting elevator man.
“Didn’t hear anything,” said the other laconically. “Somebody slammed
a door.”
“Maybe,” said the porter, and went back to his book. He was filling in
the names of that night’s visitors, an indispensable record in such a
club, and he was filling them in with pencil, an equally necessary act
of caution, for sometimes the club members desired a quick expungement
of this evidence.
In Room 13 silence reigned. A thin blue cloud floated to the ceiling;
the door opened a little farther, and Johnny Gray came in, his right
hand in his overcoat pocket.
Slowly he crossed the room to where the huddled figure lay, and,
stooping, turned it upon its back. Then, after a brief scrutiny, his
quick hands went through the man’s pockets. He found something,
carried it to the light, read with a frown and pushed the paper into
his own pocket. Going out, he closed the door carefully behind him and
strolled back to the hall.
“Not staying, Captain?” asked the porter in surprise.
“No, nobody I know here. Queer how the membership changes.”
The man on duty was too well trained to ask inconvenient questions.
“Excuse me, Captain.” He went over to Johnny and bent down. “You’ve
got some blood on your cuff.”
He took out his handkerchief and wiped the stain clean. Then his
frowning eyes met the young man’s.
“Anything wrong, Captain?”
“Nothing that I can tell you about,” said Johnny. “Good night.”
“Good night, sir,” said the porter.
He stood by his desk, looking hard at the glass doors of the elevator,
heard the rattle of the gate as it opened, and the whine of the lift
as it rose again.
“Just stay here, and don’t answer any rings till I come back,” he
said.
He hurried along the corridor into the side passage and, coming to No.
13, knocked. There was no answer. He turned the handle. One glance
told him all he wanted to know. Gently he closed the door and hurried
back to the telephone on his desk.
Before he raised the receiver he called the gaping lift-boy.
“Go to all the rooms, and say a murder has been committed. Get
everybody out.”
He was still clasping the telephone with damp hands when the last
frightened guest crowded into the elevator, then:
“Highlow Club speaking. Is that the Charing Cross Hospital?… I want an
ambulance here… Yes, 38, Boburn Street… There’s been an accident.”
He rung off and called another number.
“Highlow Club. Is that the police station?… It’s the porter at the
Highlow Club speaking, sir. One of our members has shot himself.”
He put down the instrument and turned his face to the scared elevator
man who had returned to the high level. At the end of the passage
stood a crowd of worried waiters.
“Benny,” he said, “Captain Gray hasn’t been here to-night. You
understand? Captain--Gray--has--not--been--here--to-night.”
The guest-book was open on the desk. He took his pencil and wrote, on
the line where Johnny Gray’s name should have been, “Mr. William Brown
of Toronto.”
CHAPTER XV
The last of the guests had escaped, when the police came, and,
simultaneously with the ambulance, Divisional-Inspector Craig, who had
happened to be making a call in the neighbourhood. The doctor who came
with the ambulance made a brief examination.
“He is not dead, though he may be before he reaches hospital,” he
said.
“Is it a case of suicide?”
The doctor shook his head.
“Suicides do not, as a rule, shoot themselves under the right
shoulder-blade. It would be a difficult operation: try it yourself. I
should say he’d been shot from the open doorway.”
He applied a rough first dressing, and Jeffrey was carried into the
elevator. In the bottom passage a stretcher was prepared, and upon
this he was laid, and, covered with a blanket, carried through the
crowd which had assembled at the entrance.
“Murder, or attempted murder, as the case may be,” said Craig.
“Someone has tipped off the guests. You, I suppose, Stevens? Let me
see your book.”
The inspector ran his finger down the list, and stopped at Room 13.
“Mr. William Brown of Toronto. Who is Mr. Brown of Toronto?”
“I don’t know, sir. He engaged a room by telephone. I didn’t see him
go.”
“That old fire-escape of yours still working?” asked Craig
sardonically. “Anybody else been here? Who is the wounded man? His
face seemed familiar to me.”
“Major Floyd, sir.”
“Who?” asked Craig sharply. “Impossible! Major Floyd is----”
It _was_ Floyd! He remembered now. Floyd, with whom he had sat that
day--that happily-married man!
“What was he doing here?” he asked. “Now, spill it, Stevens, unless
you want to get yourself into pretty bad trouble.”
“I’ve spilled all I know, sir,” said Stevens doggedly. “It was Major
Floyd.”
And then an inspiration came to him.
“If you want to know who it was, it was Jeff Legge. Floyd’s his fancy
name.”
“Who?”
Craig had had many shocks in his life, but this was the greatest he
had had for years.
“Jeff Legge? Old Legge’s son?”
Stevens nodded.
“Nobody knows that but a couple of us,” he said. “Jeff doesn’t work in
the light.”
The officer nodded slowly.
“I’ve never seen him,” he admitted. “I knew Legge had a son, but I
didn’t know he was running crook. I thought he was a bit of a boy.”
“He’s some boy, let me tell you!” said Stevens.
Craig sat down, his chin in his hands.