Chapter XXVII

Somehow Margaret knew that the telephone message she had had from Danton would be followed up by a personal call, and she was not surprised when she heard the bell ring. She went to the landing.

“If that is Mr. Danton Morell will you please bring him up?” she said to the footman who was hurrying to the door.

The first thing she noticed about Danty was a certain unkemptness which she had never observed before. Usually he was a most painfully tidy man: every hair of his glossy head was in place, his clothes were immaculate. But now his hair was unbrushed, he wore an odd coat and vest, and she formed the impression that he had risen hurriedly from his bed.

She sensed his hostility, and the new attitude he had taken to her, within a second of his entering the room.

“Margaret, I am afraid I’ve got a very unpleasant duty to perform,” he said, almost jauntily. “It concerns this lunatic husband of yours. He seems to have got himself into a mess. What on earth made him do it?”

“Do what?” she asked innocently.

He smiled.

“It’s no use pretending you don’t know, my dear girl. Luke has got himself mixed up with a gang. I don’t know what is the pull they have or who is the woman in it.” He added this maliciously, and was disappointed when she smiled.

“Your mind runs on women, Danton. Perhaps it was the same lady whom you discovered in Paris--you remember, your man telegraphed me about it?”

“I swear to you----” he began, but she shook her head.

“It isn’t worth while discussing that at all. What do you want now?”

Danton shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, there’s a man called Connor, who seems to be pretty sore with you for not turning up to-night after you’d made an appointment. He said you’d promised him a thousand pounds----”

“I promised nothing of the sort, and I shouldn’t dream of giving him a thousand pounds,” said Margaret, and something made her add: “Or you either.”

She saw him wince. She had not known until then how important a part money played in Danton Morell’s life.

“There’s no sense in getting up in the air about this,” he said. “It won’t help you or Luke to fight Connor. He’s one of the most powerful gangsters in London, and unfortunately he knows that the man who robbed Taffanny’s the other day was Luke. What are you going to do about it?”

“I still have no proposal,” she said.

“Connor wants money--a couple of thousand pounds. I’m very naturally anxious to save you from the disgrace, and as the man came to me to ask my advice, I thought the best thing I could do would be to act as intermediary. You’ve been paying the wrong man, Margaret. Haynes cannot help you--by the way, you don’t imagine the money you gave him to-night will ever get to Luke, do you?”

When she did not answer, he went on:

“It is nothing to do with me, and if you like to fight Connor that’s your business entirely. But----”

She interrupted him.

“Do you suggest I should pay this two thousand pounds blackmail to your friend?”

“He is not my friend,” said the man testily, “and it is not blackmail. Apparently Luke borrowed the money from Connor.”

She laughed softly at this, her amused eyes on his.

“How terribly unconvincing you can be, Mr. Morell! Well, I’m going to tell you now that I’m not paying either you or Mr. Connor. It will save us a lot of unnecessary argument.”

“Haynes advised you not to pay, eh?”

She shook her head.

“No,” she said quietly, “Inspector Bird. I got onto him after you telephoned, and put a hypothetical case to him--he is coming here.”

There was a sharp rat-tat on the door below.

“I think that is he,” she said, and had all the satisfaction she required out of the pallor that came to the face of Danton Morell.

“You’re not going to tell him?” he asked agitatedly. “I mean, about my asking for this money--about Connor. It will all come out--you realize that? About Luke, I mean. His name will be plastered all over London as a friend of murderers and a jewel thief.”

He tailed off incoherently, and she went out of the room to meet the Sparrow.

In the early hours of the morning Mr. Bird was always in his most jovial mood. He had been at Scotland Yard engaged upon a case when Margaret had called him, and he seemed in no degree surprised, when he was shown into the drawing room, to find the discomfited Danton Morell, standing guiltily and nervously with his back to the little fire that burned on the hearth.

“Well, well, wonders will never cease. I haven’t been asked out to a party for years. Fancy meeting you, Danty!” he chuckled.

His heavy eyes surveyed Margaret.

“If you think I’m going to lecture you about keeping bad company, you’ve got another guess coming, Mrs. Maddison. I realize you’re a social leader, and naturally you do charitable work amongst the criminal classes. What’s the trouble, Danty--lost your uncle and want your train fare out of London? This isn’t your hypo--what’s the word, Mrs. Maddison, hypothetical case? ‘What should you do if people asked you for money to keep a secret?’ That was the question, wasn’t it? Danty wouldn’t do such a low thing as that, would you, Danty? He’s never done anything except con work, and he’s a reformed character now. He’s given up thieving and gone into the Stock Exchange.”

“I’m not on the Stock Exchange,” snapped Danty, stung to an answer.

“Thought you’d gone on to-day,” said the Sparrow amiably. “I saw the flags out in the City. Must have been the King of Baluchistan getting the Freedom.”

He looked inquiringly at Margaret, and understood the signal in her eyes.

“Well, Danty, we’ll not be keeping you much longer. Mrs. Maddison and I have got a few private thoughts to exchange on the subject of blackmail. How’s Connor?”

“I haven’t seen Connor for months,” said Danton loudly.

The detective rubbed his big chin.

“That’s queer. Here am I thinking he called at your house to-night and that he’s waiting for you to come back. Getting old, I guess--we have these illusions at my time of life--always fancy we’re seeing crooks when they’re only stockbrokers, and not even that.”

It was a very uncomfortable Danton Morell that went down the stairs, too terrified to be angry. There was no cab in sight, but a car that looked suspiciously like a police tender was drawn up near the curb a few houses away, and he hurried past this and was glad when he turned the corner out of the still bright glare of its headlamps.

Connor was playing euchre with Pi Coles when he came in.

“Well, did you have any luck?”

The man was too cheerful for Danty’s liking: he would have preferred a more despondent and unhoping note in his tone.

“I’ve got no money, if that’s what you mean--the Sparrow was there.”

Connor sat up, his narrowed eyes fixed upon his host.

“That sounds like a damned lie to me,” he said, but Danty took no offense.

“He wasn’t at the house when I got there, but I’d hardly started talking before he turned up. She had sent for him.”

This time Connor was convinced. His lips pursed as though he were whistling some inaudible tune.

“Did my name come into it?” he asked, after a moment’s thought.

“Yes, the Sparrow brought it in. He said he knew you came to this flat to-night and that you were waiting for me.”

Connor leaned back in the chair, frowning thoughtfully.

“I wonder if that’s a lie, too?” he said, speaking to himself. “It mightn’t be--he’s been trailing me for a week--not he but one of his bloodhounds. Did she squeal?”

Danty did not reply till he had hung up his coat.

“She didn’t and she won’t. I know her! She’s got a bug in her head that he’s an ill-used man, and she’s going to try to save him without letting the police know.”

Connor took a cigar from his pocket, bit off the end and lit it. He puffed slowly, his eyes on the ceiling, and then he said:

“I’m out of this. I don’t go after women who’ve got the brains to call in the police. You go ahead, Danty, and I’ll take my corner. Twenty-five per cent. is good enough for any man.”

Danty glared down at him.

“I’m to do the work and you’ll take the profit, eh? Is that the idea? When did we float this company?”

Connor smiled broadly.

“I brought the business; that’s my answer to you. I can’t afford to be mixed up in it now my name’s known and they’ve brought in the Sparrow. You can handle these swells, Danty, and you’re wide enough to keep yourself out of trouble.”

He rose, reached for his coat and hat, and moved to the door. In the doorway he stood for a little while surveying the other man.

“Twenty-five per cent.,” he said. “You’ll split that way or I’ll do a bit of splitting myself.”

Danty followed him to the landing.

“Where does the Gunner live?”

Connor shook his head.

“I’ll tail him up and let you know in the morning,” he said. “He’s got a quiet pitch somewhere.”

Danty went back to his flat and closed the door. Usually he did not discuss matters with Pi Coles, but this little man was shrewd and understanding. He had touched most illicit occupations, from larceny to felony, and was a surprisingly well-educated man. He was one of those men, so infrequently met with, who had occupied his many visitations to prison in reading and study; for though he spoke with the vilest cockney accent and his English was more or less negligible, he could speak French and Spanish fluently--the former accomplishment had served him remarkably well, for he had served a year in a French prison.

For the first time Danton showed his hand. He had not before been very communicative on the subject of Luke Maddison and his wife, but now he opened up. Pi Coles listened with the puckered face which was evidence of his close application. It was when Danton mentioned Gunner Haynes that he shook his head.

“I’d keep clear of him if I were you, guv’nor,” he said. “You know what happened?” He nodded significantly.

Danton knew all that had happened; but he flattered himself that he understood the psychology of the criminal mind. Such men as the Gunner forgave even the stealing of their wives. Probably Gunner Haynes, with his philosophical outlook, bore him little or no malice for that incident. Anyway, the girl was dead, and could never tell the story that might bring the Gunner at his throat.

Wasn’t there anything he knew about him--something he could hang over the Gunner’s head, some old crime in which they had both participated?

Danty was a miser of trifles; he was the sort of man who hoarded even unwanted souvenirs. In his bedroom was a safe where he kept the most precious of these. Letters tied together with bootlaces; old scraps of press cuttings relative to previous exploits; and, in an oblong blotting book, a little square of paper covered with scrawled writing, which he should have destroyed the night it came into his hands. But he hated burning anything--otherwise those mad letters of the girl whose heart he had broken would have been ashes years ago.

He found certain records, letters that the Gunner had written to him in the days when they were partners, but nothing that would incriminate him, nothing that he could use to-day. When he had closed the safe with a bang and locked it, he returned to Pi, who in his absence had formulated a brand-new idea.

“You can leave the Gunner alone and get away with it, guv’nor,” he said. “Suppose this man Maddison is staying with Haynes, what’s to stop you getting at Maddison and leaving out Haynes altogether? And what’s the use of his wife to you, anyway? You’ve only to get Maddison away to the Continent with a check book, and you’re on Easy Street for the rest of your life.”

Danty listened and frowned. That possibility had not occurred to him. He went to bed at three o’clock that morning and did not fall asleep until seven. When he awoke, at midday, he found that Connor had sent a messenger with a letter. It was unaddressed, for that was Connor’s way, and tearing open the envelope Danty took out a slip of paper torn from a cheap notebook. It ran:

L.M. staying with G.H. at 974 Pennybody Buildings, Clerkenwell.