Room 13
“I would, if I were a printer of ‘slush,’ but, unfortunately, I’m
not,” said Jeffrey Legge with a smile.
“You’re not, of course,” the other hastened to say. “I wouldn’t dream
of suggesting you were. But with your vast circle of
acquaintances--and, I’m sure, admirers--you may perhaps be able to
convey my simple little illustration. I don’t like to see rabbits in
cages, or birds in cages, or anything else behind bars. And I think
that Dartmoor is so--what shall I say?--unæsthetic. And it seems
_such_ a pity to spend all the years in Devonshire. In the spring, of
course, it is delightful; in the summer it is hot; in the winter,
unless you’re at Torquay, it is deplorable. Good morning, Mr. Legge.”
He bowed low to the girl, and, bowing, his spectacles fell off.
Stooping, he picked them up with an apology and backed away, and they
watched him in silence till he had disappeared from view.
CHAPTER XIX
“What do you think of him for a busy?” asked Jeffrey contemptuously.
She did not answer. Contact with the man had frightened her. It was
not like Lila to shiver in the presence of detectives.
“I don’t know what he is,” she said a little breathlessly. “He’s
something like a… good-natured snake. Didn’t you feel that, Jeffrey?”
“Good-natured nothing,” said the other with a curl of his lip. “He’s
worse than Golden. These big corporations fall for that kind of man.
They never give a chance to a real clever busy.”
“Who was Golden?” she asked.
“He was an old fellow too. They fired him.” He chuckled to himself.
“And I was responsible for firing him. Then they brought in Mr. J.G.
Reeder with a flourish of trumpets. He’s been on the game three years,
and he’s just about as near to making a pull as he ever was.”
“Jeff, isn’t there danger?” Her voice was very serious.
“Isn’t there always danger? No more danger than usual,” he said. “They
can’t touch me. Don’t worry! I’ve covered myself so that they can’t
see me for overcoats! Once the stuff’s printed, they can never put it
back on me.”
“Once it’s printed.” She nodded slowly. “Then you _are_ the Big
Printer, Jeff?”
“Talk about something else,” he said.
When Emanuel returned, as he did soon after, Lila met him at the gate
and told him of Reeder’s visit. To her surprise, he took almost the
same view as Jeff had taken.
“He’s a fool, but straight--up to five thousand, anyway. No man is
straight when you reach his figure.”
“But why did he come to Jeff?” she asked.
“Doesn’t everybody in the business know that Jeff’s the Big Printer?
Haven’t they been trying to put it on him for years? Of course he
came. It was his last, despairing stroke. How’s the boy?” he asked.
“He’s all right, but a little touchy.”
“Of course he’s a little touchy,” said Emanuel indignantly. “You don’t
suppose he’s going to get better in a day, do you? The club’s running
again.”
“Has it been closed?”
“It hasn’t exactly been closed, but it has been unpopular,” he said,
showing his teeth in that smile of his. “Listen.” He caught her arm on
the edge of the lawn. “Get your mind off that shooting, will you? I’ll
fix the man responsible for that.”
“Do you know?” she asked.
It was the first time he had ever discussed the matter calmly, for the
very mention of the attack upon Jeff had hitherto been sufficient to
drive him to an incoherent frenzy.
“Yes, I know,” he said gratingly. “It was Peter Kane, but you needn’t
say anything about that--I’ll fix him, I tell you.”
“Jeff thinks it was----”
“Never mind what Jeff thinks,” he said impatiently. “Do as I tell
you.”
He sent her into the house to brew him a cup of tea--Emanuel was a
great drinker of tea--and in her absence he had something to say to
his son.
“Jeff, there’s a big call for your stuff,” he said. “I’ve had a letter
from Harvey. He says there’s another man started in the north of
England, and he’s turning out pretty good material. But they want
yours--they can place half a million on the Continent right away.
Jeff, what Harvey says is right. If there’s a slackening of supply
while you’re ill, the busy fellows are going to tumble to you.”
“I’ve thought of that,” said Jeffrey. “You can tell anybody who’s
interested that there’ll be a printing next week.”
“Are you well enough to go up?” asked his father anxiously.
Jeffrey nodded, and shifted himself more erect, but winced in the
process.
“Reeder’s been here: did she tell you?”
Emanuel nodded.
“I’m not worried much about Reeder. Down in Dartmoor he’s a bogey, but
then, they bogey any man they don’t know. And they’ve got all sorts of
stories about him. It’s very encouraging to get near to the real
thing.”
They laughed together, and for the rest of the day discussed ways and
means.
Jeffrey had said no more than was true when he had told the girl he
was well covered. In various parts of the country he had twelve
banking accounts, each in a different name, and at one of the safe
deposits, an enormous sum in currency, ready for emergency.
“You’ve got to stop some time, I suppose,” said his father, “but it is
mighty tempting to carry on with those profits. It’s a bigger graft
than I ever attempted, Jeff.” And his son accepted this respectful
tribute with a smirk.
The old man sat, his clasped hands between his knees, staring out over
the sea.
“It has got to end some day, and that would be a fine end, but I can’t
quite see how it could be done.”
“What are you talking about?” asked the other curiously.
“I’m thinking about Peter--the respectable Mr. Peter Kane. Not quite
so respectable in that girl’s eyes as he used to be, but respectable
enough to have busies to dinner, and that crook, Johnny Gray--Johnny
will marry the girl, Jeff.”
Jeffrey Legge winced.
“She can marry the devil so far as I’m concerned,” he said.
“But she can’t marry without divorcing you. Do you realise that, my
son? That’s the law. And she can’t divorce you without shopping you
for bigamy. That’s the law too. And the question is, will she delay
her action until Johnny’s made a bit, or will she start right in? If
she gives me just the time I want, Jeff, you’ll have your girl and
I’ll have Peter Kane. She’s your wife in the eyes of the law.”
There was a significance in his words that made the other man look at
him quickly.
“What’s the great idea?” he asked.
“Suppose Peter was the Big Printer?” said Emanuel, speaking in a tone
that was little above a whisper. “Suppose he was caught with the
goods? It could be done. I don’t mean by planting the stuff in his
house--nobody would accept that; but getting him right on the spot, so
that his best friend at Scotland Yard couldn’t save him? How’s that
for an idea?”
“It couldn’t be done,” said the other immediately.
“Oh, couldn’t it?” sneered Emanuel. “You can do any old thing you
want, if you make up your mind to do it. Or if you’re game to do it.”
“That wouldn’t get me the girl.”
Emanuel turned his head slowly toward his heir.
“If they found the Big Printer, they’ll have to find the big
printing,” he said deliberately. “That means we should all have to
skip, and skip lively. We might have a few hours’ start, and in these
days of aeroplanes, three hours is four hundred miles. Jeff, if we are
caught, and they guess I’ve been in this printing all the time, I
shall never see outside again. And you’ll go down for life. They can’t
give you any worse than that--not if you took the girl away with you.”
“By force?” asked the other in surprise. The idea had not occurred to
him.
The father nodded.
“_If_ we have to skip, that’s the only thing for you to do, son. It’s
no offence--remember that. She’s your wife.” He looked to left and
right, to see if there was the faintest shadow of a chance that he
would be overheard, and then: “Suppose we ask Peter and his girl _and_
Johnny Gray to dinner? A nice little dinner party, eh?”
“Where?” asked the other suspiciously.
“In Room 13,” said Emanuel Legge. “In Room 13, Jeff, boy! A nice
little dinner. What do you think? And then two whiffs of sleep
stuff----”
“You’re mad,” said the other angrily. “What’s the good of talking that
way? Do you think he’s going to come to dinner and bring his girl? Oh,
you’re nutty to think it!”
“Trust me,” said Emanuel Legge.
CHAPTER XX
Walking down Regent Street one morning, Johnny Gray saw a familiar
face--a man standing on the kerb selling penny trinkets. The face was
oddly familiar, but he had gone on a dozen paces before he could
recall where he had seen him before, and turned back. The man knew
him; at any rate, his uncouth features twisted in a smile.
“Good morning, my lord,” he said. “What about a toy balloon for the
baby?”
“Your name is Fenner, isn’t it?” said Johnny with a good-humoured
gesture of refusal.
“That’s me, Captain. I didn’t think you’d recognised me. How’s
business?”
“Quiet,” said Johnny conventionally. “What are you doing?”
The man shrugged his enormous shoulders.
“Selling these, and filling in the time with a little sluicing.”
Johnny shook his head reprovingly. “Sluicing” in the argot indicates a
curious method of livelihood. In public wash-places, where men strip
off their coats to wash their hands for luncheon, there are fine
pickings to be had by a man with quick fingers and a knowledge of
human nature.
“Did you ever get your towelling[*_flogging_]?”
“No,” said the other contemptuously and with a deep growl. “I knew
they couldn’t, that’s why I coshed the screw. I was too near my time.
If I ever see old man Legge, by God I’ll----”
Jimmy raised his finger. A policeman was strolling past, and was
eyeing the two suspiciously. Apparently, if he regarded Fenner with
disfavour, Johnny’s respectability redeemed the association.
“Poor old ‘flattie’!” said Fenner as the officer passed. “What a
life!”
The man looked him up and down amusedly.
“You seem to have struck it, Gray,” he said, with no touch of envy.
“What’s your graft?”
Johnny smiled faintly.
“It is one you’ll find difficult to understand, Fenner. I am being
honest!”
“That’s certainly a new one on me,” said the other frankly. “Have you
seen old Emanuel?” His voice was now quite calm. “Great fellow,
Emanuel! And young Emanuel--Jeffrey--what a lad!”
There was a glint in his eyes as he scrutinised Johnny that told that
young man he knew much more of recent happenings than he was prepared
to state. And his next words supported that view.
“You keep away from the Legge lot, Captain,” he said earnestly. “They
are no good to anybody, and least of all to a man who’s had an
education like yours. I owe Legge one, and I’ll get him, but I’m not
thinking about that so much as young Jeff. You’re the fellow he would
go after, because you dress like a swell and you look like a
swell--the very man to put ‘slush’ about without anybody tumbling.”
“The Big Printer, eh?” said Johnny, with that quizzical smile of his.
“The Big Printer,” repeated the other gravely. “And he _is_ a big
printer. You hear all sorts of lies down on the moor, but that’s true.
Jeff’s got the biggest graft that’s ever been worked in this country.
They’ll get him sooner or later, because there never was a crook game
yet that hadn’t got a squeak about it somewhere. And the squeak has
started, judging by what I can read in the papers. Who shot him?” he
asked bluntly.
Johnny shook his head.
“That is what is known as a mystery,” he said, and, seeing the man’s
eyes keenly searching his face, he laughed aloud. “It wasn’t me,
Fenner. I’ll assure you on that point. And as to me being a friend of
Jeff”--he made a wry little face--“that isn’t like me either. How are
you off for money?”
“Rotten,” said the other laconically, and Johnny slipped a couple of
Treasury notes on to the tray.