Room 13
“Emanuel,” he said gently, “call off that boy, and there’ll be no
squeak. Take that wounded fawn look from your face, because I haven’t
any time for fooling. You call off Jeff and send the girl back home
to-night, or I squeak. Do you understand that?”
“I understand your words, Johnny Gray, but what they mean is a mystery
to me.” Emanuel Legge shook his head. “What boy are you talking about?
I’ve only got one boy, and he’s at college----”
“You’re a paltry old liar. I’m talking about Jeff Legge, who married
Peter’s daughter to-day. I’ve tumbled to your scheme, Emanuel. You’re
getting even with Peter. Well, get even with him, but try some other
way.”
“She’s married him of her own free will,” began the man. “There’s no
law against that, is there, Johnny? Fell in love with him right on the
spot! That’s what I like to see, Johnny--young people in love.”
If he hoped to rattle his companion he was disappointed.
“Now he can unmarry of his own free will,” said Johnny calmly. “Listen
to me, Emanuel Legge. When you arrive in London, you’ll go straight
away to the Charlton Hotel and talk very plainly to your son. He,
being a sensible man, will carry out your instructions----”
“_Your_ instructions,” corrected Emanuel, his mouth twisted in a
permanent smile. “And what happens if I don’t, Johnny?”
“I squeak,” said Johnny, and the smile broadened.
“They are married, old man. You can’t divorce ’em. You can turn a
brown horse into a black ’un, but you can’t turn Mrs. Jeffrey Legge
into Miss Marney Kane, clever as you are.”
Johnny leant forward.
“I can turn Mr. Jeffrey Legge into Dartmoor Jail,” he said
unpleasantly, “and that’s what I propose to do.”
“On what charge?” Emanuel raised his eyebrows. “Give us a little
rehearsal of this squeal of yours, Gray.”
“He’s the Big Printer,” said Johnny, and the smile slowly dissolved.
“The Government has spent thousands to catch him; they’ve employed the
best secret service men in the world to pull him down, and I can give
them just the information they want. I know where his stuff is
planted. I know where it is printed; I know at least four of his
agents. You think Jeff’s secret is his own and yours, but you’re
mistaken, Emanuel. Craig knows he’s the Big Printer; he told me so at
lunch. All he wants is evidence, and the evidence I can give him. Old
Reeder knows--you think he’s a fool, but he knows. I could give him a
squeak that would make him the cleverest lad in the world.”
Emanuel Legge licked his dry lips.
“Going in for the ‘con.’ business, Johnny?” he asked banteringly.
There was no amusement in his voice. “What a confidence man you’d
make! You look like a gentleman, and talk like one. Why, they’d fall
for you and never think twice! But that confidence stuff doesn’t mean
anything to me, Johnny. I’m too old and too wide to be bluffed----”
“There’s no bluff here,” interrupted Johnny. “I have got your boy like
that!” He held out his hand and slowly clenched it.
For fully five minutes Emanuel Legge sat huddled in a corner of the
compartment, staring out upon the flying scenery.
“You’ve got him like that, have you, Johnny boy?” he said gently.
“Well, there’s no use deceiving you, I can see. Slush is funny
stuff--they call it ‘phoney’ in America. Did you know that? I guess
you would, because you’re well educated. But it’s good slush, Johnny.
Look at this. Here’s a note. Is it good or bad?”
His fingers had gone into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew a thin pad
of paper an inch square. Fold by fold he opened it out and showed a
five-pound note. He caressed the paper with finger and thumb. The eyes
behind the powerful glasses gleamed; the thin-lined face softened with
pride.
“Is it good or bad, Johnny?”
Though the day was bright and hot, and not a cloud was in the sky, the
four electric lamps in the carriage lit up suddenly. In the powerful
light of day they seemed pale ghosts of flame, queerly dim. As the
sunshine fell upon them their shadows were cast upon the white cornice
of the carriage.
“There’s a tunnel coming,” said Emanuel. “It will give you a chance of
seeing them at their best--feel ’em, Johnny! The real paper; bankers
have fallen for ’em.…”
With a roar the train plunged into the blackness of the tunnel.
Emanuel stood with his back to the carriage door, the note held taut
between his hands.
“There’s only one flaw--the watermark. I’m giving away secrets, eh?
Look!”
He stretched his arms up until he held the note against one of the
bracket lamps. To see, John Gray had to come behind him and peer over
his shoulder. The thunder of the train in the narrow tunnel was almost
deafening.
“Look at the ‘F’,” shouted Emanuel. “See… that ‘F’ in ‘Five’--it’s
printed too shallow.…”
As Johnny bent forward the old man thrust at him with his shoulder,
and behind that lurch of his was all the weight and strength of his
body. Taken by surprise, John Gray was thrown from his balance. He
staggered back against the carriage door, felt it give, and tried to
recover his equilibrium. But the thrust was too well timed. The door
flew open, and he dropped into the black void, clutching as he did so
the window ledge. For a second he swayed with the in and out swinging
of the door. Then Legge’s clenched fist hammered down on his fingers,
and he dropped.…
CHAPTER VIII
He struck a layer of thick sand and turned a complete somersault.
The wall of the tunnel caught and almost dislocated his arm, and he
rebounded toward the whirling wheels. One wheel flicked him back
against the wall, and he slid, his arms covering his face, the flint
ballast of the road ripping his sleeves to ribbons.…
He was alive. The train had passed. He saw the red tail-lights closing
to one another. Gingerly he moved first one leg and then the other;
then he rolled over toward the wall and lay on his back without
further movement. His heart was pounding furiously; he felt a soreness
working through the numb overlay of shock. Shock… shock sometimes
killed men. His heart was going faster yet; he experienced a horrible
nausea, and he found himself trembling violently.
The proper thing to do was to inject a solution of gum-acacia into his
veins (his thoughts were curiously well ordered). Doctors did that; he
remembered the doctor telling him at Dartmoor.
But there was no gum-acacia to be had.… Ten minutes later he lifted
his body on his elbow and struggled to a sitting position. His head
swam, but it did not ache; his arms… he felt them carefully. They were
very sore, but no bones were broken.
A roadman at the exit of the tunnel nearly dropped with amazement as a
grimy young man whose clothes were in rags emerged, limping.
“I fell out,” said Johnny. “Can you tell me if there is anywhere I can
hire a car?”
The roadman was going off duty and was willing to act as guide. Johnny
hobbled up the steep slopes of the railway cutting, and with the
assistance of the interested workman, traversed a wide field to the
road. And then came a blessed sportsman on his way back from Gatwick
Races, and he was alone in his car.
At first he looked suspicious at the bruised and ragged figure that
had held him up. In the end he flung open the door by his side.
“Step up,” he said.
To the railway worker Johnny had a few words to say.
“Here’s five,” he said. “Two for your help and three to stop your
talking. I don’t want this business to be reported, you understand?
The truth is, I had been looking on the wine when it was red and
gaveth its colour aright.”
Johnny had evidently touched a sympathetic chord.
“You mean you was boozed?” said the man. “You can trust me.”
The angel who drove him to London was not a talkative angel. Beyond
expressing the wish that something drastic had happened to _him_
before he went racing, and the advancement of his view that all racing
was crooked and all jockeys thieves, he contributed little to the
entertainment of his passenger, and the passenger was glad.
At the first cab-rank they struck--it was in Sutton--Johnny insisting
upon alighting.
“I’ll take you home if you like,” said his gloomy benefactor.
Gently the other declined.
“My name is Lawford,” said the motorist in a sudden outburst of
confidence. “I’ve got an idea I know your face. Haven’t I seen you on
the track?”
“Not for some time,” said Johnny.
“Rather like a fellow I once met… well, introduced to… fellow named
Gay or Gray… regular rascal. He got time.”
“Thanks,” said Johnny, “that was I!” and the hitherto reticent Mr.
Lawford became almost conversational in his apologies.
The young man finished the journey in a Sutton taxi and reached
Queen’s Gate late in the afternoon.
Parker, who opened the door to him, asked no questions.
“I have laid out another suit for you, sir,” he returned to the study
to say--the only oblique reference he made to his employer’s disorder.
As he lay in a hot bath, soaking the stiffness out of his limbs,
Johnny examined his injuries. They were more or less superficial, but
he had had a terribly narrow escape from death, and he was not wholly
recovered from the violence of it. Emanuel had intended his
destruction. The attempt did not surprise him. Men of Legge’s type
worked that way. He met them in Dartmoor. They would go to a killing
without fire of rage or frenzy of despair. Once he had seen a convict
select with deliberation and care a large jagged stone and drop it
upon the head of a man working in the quarry below. Fortunately, a
warder had seen the act, and his shout saved the intended victim from
mutilation. The assailant had only one excuse. The man he had attacked
had slighted him in some way.
In the hearts of these men lived a cold beast. Johnny often pictured
it, an obscene shape with pale, lidless eyes and a straight slit of a
mouth. He had seen the beast staring at him from a hundred distorted
faces, had heard its voice, had seen its hatefulness expressed in
actions that he shivered to recall. Something of the beast had
saturated into his own soul.
When he came from his bath, the masseur whom Parker had summoned was
waiting, and for half an hour he groaned under the kneading hands.
The evening newspaper that Parker procured contained no news of the
“accident”--Emanuel was hardly likely to report the matter, even for
his own protection. There were explanations he could offer--Johnny
thought of several.
Free from the hands of the masseur, he rested in his dressing-gown.
“Has anybody called?” he asked.
“A Mr. Reeder, sir.”
Johnny frowned.
“Mr. Reeder?” he repeated. “What did he want?”
“I don’t know, sir. He merely asked for you. A middle-aged man, with
rather a sad face,” said Parker. “I told him you were not at home, and
that I would take any message for you, but he gave none.”
His employer made no reply. For some reason, the call of the
mysterious Mr. Reeder worried him more than the memory of the tragic
happening of that afternoon, more, for the moment, than the marriage
of Marney Kane.
CHAPTER IX
Marney made her journey to London that afternoon in almost complete
silence. She sat in a corner of the limousine, and felt herself
separated from the man she had married by a distance which was
becoming immeasurable. Once or twice she stole a timid glance at him,
but he was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he did not even
notice. They were not pleasant thoughts, to judge by his unchanging
scowl. All the way up he nibbled at his nails; a wrinkle between his
eyes.
It was not until the big car was bowling across one of the river
bridges that the strain was relieved, and he turned his head,
regarding her coldly.
“We’re going abroad to-morrow,” he said, and her heart sank.
“I thought you were staying in town for a week, Jeff,” she asked,