OCR Text |
Show - n "Ai h, K CO I - fr T" .... -vJ i CHAPTER VII Continued 11 "Mill lie P"1"" i''v"' w,ls quite an ' . n his wiiy. One of (lit- throe Mr Atkinson01" what's left of ;f11' i-in-er Martin an old frlonil of him, tlU'o" p''!'r a nioment Mr. Atkinson's lienrt ,,1 still. One of 'the throe men! whore In Heaven's name, were 1 hen. ,, other two? -One of the tlir0, Ins"0('tor" lle II at length, steadying his voice. What happened to the others?" ,.Tlr,t Is the amazing thing, sir," nn-.erc' nn-.erc' the inspector. "I can hut think ! (hough three men entered the of-!! of-!! downstairs, only .Marl in can have ,n iD here nt the time of the explo- lie pulled hack the bloodied blood-ied rug. nil with a shudder Mr. Atkinson contemplated what was underneath. un-derneath. The mangled remnants had torraed one man and one man only, men what, he reflected again what tad become of the other two? They had been In there the lead-(r lead-(r 0f 'the Black Gang and one of his paj. There was no trace of them 00Wi Wherefore, somehow, by some miraculous means they must have escaped, es-caped, nnd the soul of Count Zadowa irev sick within him. Suddenly he became aware that the inspector was asking him a question. "Why, yes," he said, pulling himself together, ""tliat is so. I was leaving this office here and had removed almost al-most everything of value. Only some diamonds were left, inspector and Ihey were In that desk. I have somewhat some-what extensive dealings in precious stones. Was there any trace of them found?" The inspector toughed grimly. "You see the room for yourself, sir. But that perhaps supplies ns with the motive for the crime. I am afraid jour diamonds are either blown to pieces, or in the hands of the other two men, whom I have every hope of laying my hands on shortly. There Is no trace of them here." In the hands of the other two men ! The idea was a now one, which had doI yet come into his calculations, so convinced had he been that all three men were dead. And suddenly he felt a sort of blinding certainty that the Inspector though In ignorance of the real facts of the ease was right in his surmise. Diamonds are not blown to pieces by an explosion ; scattered they might be disintegrated, no. He felt he must get away to consider this new development. He crossed over to the jagged hole In the wall and looked out. "This has rather upset me, inspector," inspec-tor," he said, after a w-hile. "The South Surrey hotel in Bloomsbury Bill always find me." "Right, sir!" The inspector made a note, and then leaned out through the hole with a frown. "Get out of this, you there! Go on. or I'll have you locked up as a vagrant !" "Orl rite, orl rite! Can't a bloke 'ave a bit o' fun when 'e ain't doing no 'arm?" The loafer, who had been ignominl-ously ignominl-ously moved on from the front door, fcramhled down from the lean-to roof behind, and slouched away, muttering !?. And he was still muttering to himself as he opened the door of a taxi a few minutes later. Info which Mr. Atkinson hurriedly stepped. For moment or two he stood on the pavement pave-ment fiilil It had di-appeared from ''"v: then his prowling propensities '"inp! to disappear is If by magic. Still with the same shambling gait, but ""Pnrently now with some definite ob-In ob-In his mind, he disappeared down side street, finally coming to a hall ''"Core a public telephone-box. He rave one rapid look round, then he Menpod inside. "Muyfair 1234." He waited beating a tattoo with his pennies on the box. Tout's had gone well that morning very well. ' "'lello. is that you. Hugh? Yes, lv'er speaking. The man Atkinson is "te Ititnchlif.ck. Stopping South Sur-"'y Sur-"'y hotel. Bloomsbury. He's .just got jnt" a taxi and gone off to the Kit?,. He seemed peeved, to me. . . . Yes, '"' inquired lovingly about the what-Ms- . What's that? You'll tod-ile tod-ile round to the Ritz yourself. Right '": I'll come. too. Cocktail time. (i!ve yon f,, details then." Tlte loafer stepped out of the box '"d shut the door. Then, still sucking 1 filthy clay pipe, he shambled off in I 'e direction of the nearest Tube sta-Jj"n- A slight change of attire before 1:tln?up at the R!t7. seemed Indicated. And it would. Indeed, have been a 'fewd observer w;, would have iden- i,l0d ll i e Immaculately dressed young P'tiMfrmin who strolled into the Ritz portly before twelve o'clock with the lllss"lute-looking object who had so """seel the wrath of the police a few "ours previously in Hoxton. The first I s"n hp ' sprawling contentedly " n easy chair was Hugh Drum- "'jid, who waved his stick in greeting. ''Pier Dun-ell took the next chair. nd his eyes glanced quickly round the lounge. 'tlave you seen him, nugh?" he "I. lowering his voice. "I don't see jivthing answering to the bird grow-" grow-" about the place here." (i " answered Hugh. "Rut from 'toet inquiries made from old pirn-, pirn-, .Vl,ndpr I find that he ar-jit ar-jit 0,1 here about ten o'clock. He was . on''e shown up to the rooms of a ThlL"""1"1 ,,,,nNeU the Heverend I ""''"slus Loajjnisor, where, as far as "aake out. in his remained ever I By CYRIL McNEILE SAPPER Copyright by QEORQB ft DORIN CO i. U SnKc. xlnce. I wnnt t Theodosius Longmoeir, PeL "eVe'end wC awl"1" "Thank you so much!" she sitrt h a pleasant smile. Tm afraid woo, airr, polite,? Un "'" remnrkJ Hugh I'O 't Ij Deuced agile little thing-a thing-a ball of wool, snd my life "P my wife's. Everybody seems o be kmttmg these Jumper effects now" Oh this isn't a jumper," answered the gtr a little sadly. .Tve no 0 for such frivolities as that. Von see I ve just come back from the famine stricken parts of Austria-and not only are the poor things hungry, but they can't get proper clothes. So just a few of us are knitting things for t hem-stock sizes, you know-bi-medium, and small." "How fearfully jolly of you!" said Hugh admiringly. "Dashed sportin" thing to do. I must tell my wife about it. She's coming here to lunch, and she ought to turn 'em out like bullets from a machine gun what?"' The girl smiled faintly as she rose. "It would be very good of her if she would help," she remarked gently, and then, with a tlight bow, she walked away in the direction of the lift. "You know, old son," remarked Hugh, as he watched her disappearing, "it's an amazing affair when you really real-ly come to think of it. There's that girl with a face far superior to a patched boot and positively oozing virtue vir-tue from every pore. And yet, would you leave your happy home for her? Look at her skirts five inches too long; yet she'd make a man an excellent ex-cellent wife. A heart of gold probably, hidden beneath innumerable strata of multi-colored wools." Completely exhausted he drained his cocktail, and leaned back in his chair, while Peter digested the profound ut- ill "Thank You So Much!" She Said, With a Pleasant Smile. terance in silence. A slight feeling of lassitude was beginning to weigh on him owing to the atrocious hour at which he had been compelled to rise, and lie felt quite unable to contribute any suitable addition to the conversation. conversa-tion. Not that it was required: the ferocious frown on Druinmond's face indicated that he was in the throes of thought and might be expected to give tongue in the near future. "I ought to have a bit of paper to write it all down on, Peter," he remarked re-marked at length. "Where are we. Peter? That is the question. Point one: we have the diamonds more by luck than good management. 1'oinl two: the hunchback gentleman who has a sufficiently strong constitution to live at the South Surrey hotel in Bloomsbury has not got the diamonds. Point three : he, at the present moment is closeted with the Reverend Theodosius Theodo-sius I.ongmoor upstairs. Point four: we ;,re about to consume another cocktail downstairs. Well-bearing that little lot in mind, what happens when we all meet?" A slight snore was Ids only answer, and Hugh continued to ponder on the obscurity of the situation In silence. That several rays of light might hae t,P(.n thrown on it by a conversation ,l,en proceeding upstairs was of no help to him; nor could he have been expected to know that the fog of war was about to lift in a most unpleasantly unpleasant-ly drastic manner. Coincidence? Bosh !" the pirl with the heart of gold was remarking at at verv moment. "It's a certainty Whether he's got the diamonds or no I can't sav. but your b.g mend of I. t pM, Za.lowa, is sitting downstairs drinking a cocktail in the lounge -Amazing though it is it- cert, ml, looks as if you were nght, m, dear, answered her father thoughtf . lj Of course I'm right!" en d the -Why. the darned thing Is s .. -, b!U.uinr: at you. A b, n Christian name Hugh, was in Zadm . otUce last night- Hugh Drummoad , GJ downstairs at the moment, having actually tracked Zadowa here. Of course, they're the same; an infant in arms cou d see it. His wife is coming h r u 1UDCh" T0U member her-tha her-tha silly iit,le f00, phyms Be n V,ey "Ve lD Brook Sfeet. It wight be worth trying. if bv any chance he has got the diamondsweU shell be very useful. And if he hasn t she shrugged her shoulders, "we can easily return her if we don't want The Reverend Theodosius smiled. Longwinded explanations between the two of them were seldom necessary Then he looked at his watch. ''Short notice," he remarked; "but e 11 try. x0 harm done if we fail." He stepped over to the telephone and put through a call. And having given two or three curt orders he came slowly back Into the room. "Chances of success very small, Tm afraid ; but as you say, my dear, worth trying. And now I think Til renew my acquaintance with Drummond." With a short chuckle he left the room, and a minute or two later a benevolent clergyman, reading the Church Times, was sitting in tlie lounge just opposite Hugh and Peter Through half-closed eyes Hugh took stock of him, wondering casually if this was the Reverend Theodosius Long-moor. Long-moor. And when a few minutes later the .clergyman took a cigarette out of his case, and then commenced to fumble fum-ble in his pockets for matches which he had evidently forgotten, Hugh rose and offered him one. "Allow me, sir," he murmured, holding hold-ing it out. "I thank you, sir," said the clergyman, clergy-man, with a charming smile. "I'm so terribly forgetful over matches. As a matter of fact I don't generally smoke before lunch, but I've had such a distressing dis-tressing morning that I felt I must have a cigarette just to soothe my nerves." "By Jove! that's bad," remarked Hugh. "Bath water cold, and all that?" "Nothing so trivial, I fear," said the other. "No ; a poor man who has been with me since ten has just suffered the most terrible blow. .1 could hardly have believed it possible here in London, Lon-don, but the whole of his business premises were wrecked by a bomb last night," "You don't say so," murmured Hugh, sinking into a chair, and at the table opposite Peter Darrell opened one eye. "All his papers everything gone. And it has hit me, too. Quite a respectable re-spectable little sum of money over a hundred pounds, gathered together for the restoration of the old oak chancel in my church blown to pieces by this unknown miscreant. It's hard, sir, It's hard. But this poor fellow's loss is greater than mine, so I must not complain." com-plain." The clergyman took off his spectacles spec-tacles and wiped them, and Drummond stole a lightning glance at Darrell. The faintest shrug of his shoulders Indicated Indi-cated that the latter had heard, and was as much in the dark as Hugh. That this was the Reverend Theodosius Longmoor was now obvious, but wbat a charming, courteous old gentleman ! It seemed Impossible to associate guilt with such a delightful person, and, If so, they had made a bad mistake. It was not the hunchback who had thrown the bomb ; they were up another an-other blind alley." For a while Hugh chatted with him about the outrage, then he glanced at his watch. "Nearly time for lunch, I think," said the clergyman. "Perhaps you would give a lonely old man the pleasure of your company." "Very nice of you. hut I'm expecting my wife," said Hugh. "She said she'd be here at one, and now it's a quarter past. Perhaps you'll lunch with us?" "Charmed," said the clergyman, taking tak-ing a note which a page hoy w-as handing hand-ing to him on a tray. "Charmed." He glanced through the note, and placed it in his pocket. "The ladies, bless them! so often keep us waiting." "I'll just go and ring up," said Drummond. Drum-mond. "She may have changed her mind." Hugh returned looking worried. "Can't make it out, Peter," lie said anxiously. "Just got through to Denny, and Phyllis left half an hour ago to come here." "Probably doing a bit of f.b-pping, old man," answered Peter reassuringly, "i say, Hugh, we're blocnrcred over this show." Hugh glanced across at the table where the clergyman was sitting, and suddenly Peter found his arm gripped with a force that made him cry out. lie glanced at Hugh, and that worthy was staring at the clergyman with a look of speechless amazement on his face. Then he swung around, and his i-ves were blazing. Teter!" he said tensely. "Look at him. The one trick that gives him away every time! ISloomered, have we? Great heavens aboe, man. it's Carl Peterson !'' A little dazedly Darrell glanced at the clergyman, lie was still reading the Church Times. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |