The crimson circle
She raised her eyebrows.
“Not Mr. Parr?”
“You’re a wonderful guesser,” laughed Jack as he closed the door
behind her. “Did you want to see me alone?” he asked suddenly.
She shook her head.
“No; I’ve only a message for you from Mr. Yale. He wanted you to let
him have the key of your riverside house.”
By this time they were in the dining-room, and the girl, meeting the
expressionless gaze of Mr. Parr, nodded curtly.
“You evidently do not love my friend, Mr. Parr,” thought Jack.
He explained the object of the girl’s visit.
“My poor father had a derelict property by the riverside,” he said.
“It has not been tenanted for years, and the surveyors tell me it will
cost almost as much as the property is worth to put it into repair.
For some reason Yale thinks that Brabazon will use this as a
hiding-place. Brabazon had it in his hands for some time, trying to
sell it. He looked after some of my father’s property. But is he at
all likely to be there?”
Mr. Parr pursed his large lips and blinked meditatively.
“The only thing I know about him is that so far he has not left the
country,” he said at last. “I should not think he’d go to a house
which he must know would be searched.” He stared absently at Thalia.
“Yet he might,” he mused. “I suppose he has a key to the place. What
is it, a house?”
“It is half house and half warehouse,” said Jack. “I have never seen
it, but I believe it is one of those dwellings which the old merchants
favoured two hundred years ago, in the days when they lived in the
places where they carried on business.”
He unlocked his desk and pulled out a drawer full of keys, each
bearing a label.
“This is the one, I think, Miss Drummond,” he said, handing the key to
her. “How do you like your new job?”
It required some courage to ask the question, for he was almost
awestricken in her presence.
She smiled faintly.
“It is amusing,” she said, “without being in any way tempting! I
cannot tell you very much about it, because I only started this
morning.” She turned to the detective. “No, I shan’t trouble you very
much, Mr. Parr,” she said. “The only thing of value in the office is a
silver paper-weight--I don’t even have to post the letters,” she went
on mockingly. “The office is built on the American plan, and there is
a little shute in Mr. Yale’s private office that drops the letters
straight away into the box in the hall below. It is very
disappointing!”
Solemn though she was, her eyes were dancing with merriment.
“You’re a queer woman, Thalia Drummond,” said Parr, “and yet I’m sure
there is some good in you.”
The remark seemed to cause her unbounded amusement. She laughed until
the tears were in her eyes, and Jack grinned sympathetically.
Parr, on the other hand, showed no sign of amusement.
“Be careful,” he said ominously, and the smile faded from her lips.
“You may be sure I shall be very careful, Mr. Parr,” she said, “and if
I am in any kind of trouble, you can be equally sure that I shall send
immediately for you!”
“I hope you will,” said Parr, “though I have my doubts.”
Chapter XXI.
River House
Thalia went straight back to the office and found Derrick Yale
sitting in his room reading through a heap of unanswered
correspondence.
“Is that the key? Thank you. Put it down there,” he said. “I am afraid
you will have to answer most of these yourself. The majority of them
are from foolish young people who wish to be trained as private
detectives. You will find a form reply, and you can sign the answers
yourself. And will you tell this lady,” he handed a letter across to
her, “that I am so busy now that I cannot undertake any further
commissions?”
He took up the key from the table and held it for a second on his
hand.
“You saw Mr. Parr?”
She laughed.
“You’re almost terrifying, Mr. Yale. I did see Mr. Parr, but how did
you know?”
He shook his head smilingly.
“It is really very simple, and I should take no credit for my gift,”
he said, “any more than you take credit for your good looks and your
predisposition to--shall I say ‘take things as you find them’?”
She did not answer at once, then:
“I am a reformed character.”
“I believe you will reform in time. You interest me,” said Yale, and
then, after a pause, “immensely!” And with a jerk of his head he
dismissed her.
She was in the midst of her work and her typewriter was clacking
furiously when he appeared at the door of his room.
“Will you try to get Mr. Parr on the telephone?” he said. “You will
find his number on the register.”
Mr. Parr was not in his office when she called, but half an hour later
she reached him, and switched through the wire to the next room.
“Is that you, Parr?”
She heard his voice through the door, which was left ajar.
“I am going to Beardmore’s river property to make a search. I have an
idea that Brabazon may be hiding there!… After lunch; all right. Will
you be here at half-past two?”
Thalia Drummond listened and made a shorthand note on her
blotting-pad.
At half-past two Parr called. She did not see him, for there was a
direct entrance to Yale’s room from the corridor without, but she
heard the rumble of his voice, and presently they went out.
She waited until their footsteps had died away, then she took a
telegraph form, and addressing it to Johnson, 23, Mildred Street,
City, she wrote:
“_Derrick Yale has gone to search Beardmore’s riverside house._”
Thalia Drummond was nothing if not dutiful.
* * * *
The house stood upon a little wharf, and was a picture of desolation
and neglect. The stone foundation of the wharf was in decay, the
parapet broken, the yard a wilderness of weed; rank grasses and
nettles formed almost an impenetrable barrier to their progress after
they had opened the gate which led from the mean east-end street in
which the wharfage was cited.
The house itself might at one time have been picturesque, but now,
with its broken lower windows, its weather-stained woodwork and
discoloured walls, it was a pitiable piece of architectural wreckage.
At one end was a big, gaunt, stone store, built flush with the wharf’s
edge, and apparently communicating with the house. An air-raid during
the war had demolished one corner of the wall, and robbed it of a few
slates which remained, leaving the skeleton of rotting roof ribs
nakedly bare to inspection.
“A cheerful place,” said Yale, as he opened the door. “It is not the
sort of setting in which one could imagine the elegant Brabazon, is
it?”
The passage-way was dusty. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling and the house
was silent and lifeless. They made a rapid tour through the rooms,
without, however, discovering any sign of the fugitive.
“There is a garret here,” said Yale, pointing to a flight of steps
that led to a trap-door in the ceiling of the upper floor.
He ran up the steps, pushed open the flap and disappeared. Parr heard
him walking along and presently he came down.
“Nothing there,” he said as he slammed the trap-door in its place.
“I never expected that you would find anything,” said Parr as he led
the way out of the house.
They crossed the weed-grown path to the outer gate, and from a garret
window a white-faced man watched them through the dusty glass; a man
with a week’s growth of beard, whom even his most intimate friends
would never have recognised as Mr. Brabazon, the well-known banker.
Chapter XXII.
The Messenger of The Circle
“You’re a fool, sir, and an idiot. I thought you were a clever
detective, but you’re a fool!”
Mr. Froyant was in his most savage mood, and the neat stack of
bank-notes which stood upon his desk supplied the reason.
The sight of so much good money going away from him was a cause of
unspeakable anguish to the miserly Harvey, and if his eyes strayed
away from that accumulation of wealth, they came back again almost
instantly.
Derrick Yale was a difficult man to offend.
“Perhaps I am,” he said, “but I must run my own business in my own
way, Mr. Froyant, and if I think that the girl can lead me to the
Crimson Circle--as I do think--then I shall employ her.”
“Mark my words,” Froyant shook his fingers in the detective’s face,
“that girl is with the gang. You will discover, my friend, that _she_
is the messenger who will call for the money!”
“In which case she will be immediately arrested,” said the other.
“Believe me, Mr. Froyant, I have no intention of losing sight of these
notes, but if they are taken by the Crimson Circle, the responsibility
must be mine not yours. My job is to save your life, and to divert the
vengeance of the Circle from you to myself.”
“Quite right, quite right,” said Mr. Froyant hastily, “that is the
proper way to look at it, Yale. I see that you are not as
unintelligent as I thought. Have it your own way,” he said. He
fingered the notes lovingly, and putting them into a long envelope,
handed them, with every evidence of reluctance, to the detective, who
slipped the package into his pocket.
“I suppose there is no news of Brabazon? The rascal has robbed me of
over two thousand pounds, which I foolishly invested in one of Marl’s
rotten concerns.”
“Did you know anything about Marl?” asked the detective, opening the
door.
“I only know that he was a blackguard.”
“Did you know anything that isn’t as well known?” asked Yale
patiently. “His beginnings, where he came from?”
“He came from France, I believe,” said Froyant. “I know very little
about him. In fact, it was James Beardmore who introduced me. There
was some story about his having been concerned in land swindles in
France, and of having been imprisoned there, but I never take much
notice of gossip. He was useful to me, and I made quite a considerable
sum out of most of my investments with him.”
The other smiled. In those circumstances, he thought, the miser might
very well forgive the erring Marl for his later losses.
When he got back to his office he found Parr waiting, with Jack
Beardmore.
He had not expected a visit from the younger man, and guessed that the
real attraction was Thalia Drummond, for whose absence he tactfully
apologised.
“I’ve sent Miss Drummond home, Parr,” he said. “I don’t want a girl
mixed up in the business of this afternoon. There may be a little
rough-and-tumble work.”
He looked keenly at Jack Beardmore.
“For which I hope you are prepared.”
“I shall be disappointed if there isn’t,” said Jack cheerfully.
“What is your plan?” asked Parr.
“I am going into my room a few minutes before the messenger is due to
arrive. I shall have both doors locked, that into the passage and that
into this outer office. In the case of this door, I will leave the key
on your side and ask you to lock me in. My object, of course, is to
prevent a surprise. As soon as you hear a knock, and hear me rise and
go to the door and unlock it, you will know that the visitor has
arrived, and when the door closes again, I want you to station
yourself outside in the corridor.”
Parr nodded.
“That seems simple,” he said. He walked to the window, looked out, and
waved a handkerchief, and Yale smiled approvingly.
“I see you have taken the necessary precautions. How many men have
you?”
“I think there are eighty,” said Mr. Parr calmly, “and they will
practically surround the place.”
Yale nodded.
“We have to remember,” he said, “that the Crimson Circle may send a
very ordinary district messenger, in which case, of course, he must be
followed. I am determined that the money shall pass into the hands of
the chief of the Crimson Circle himself--that is an essential.”
“I quite agree,” said Parr, “but I have an idea that the gentleman, or
whoever he is, will not come himself. May I look at your office?”