Chapter XXXII: Toby Marsh Goes to a Party

“It would take a week’s search to find the body,” said Bullott, as they were driving home together. “There are dozens of pits and caves into which they could have thrown him. It was an act of lunacy for you to go there at all.”

“You’ll pinch Laffin, of course?” said Bill.

“No, sir,” he answered quietly. “I’ve no evidence upon which I can arrest the doctor. I haven’t even got the body. But this I can tell you, that Laffin is being watched closer than a fire! There is nothing to do but to wait until the rangers discover the body, and that may take weeks. We have one chance of connecting Laffin with these crimes. I am taking that chance to-morrow night.”

“You mean the raid on the Priory?”

“There is no better time. Do you know what happens next week?”

“The only thing I know that happens next week is that the mysterious twenty-ninth of July occurs on Saturday.”

“Next week they declare the Midsummer argosies of the Sons of Ragousa,” said Bullott. “That means that the draw takes place either Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. I guess it is Monday, because your cousin, Mr. Pawter, is arranging to leave London for Plymouth by the 10.30 train to-morrow morning.”

Bullott was not visible for the rest of the evening. He locked himself up in his room and gave himself entirely to the problem of the Sons of Ragousa. It was a problem seemingly insoluble. What importance should he give to the mysterious hints of Toby Marsh? What could Marsh tell him? His passion for secrecy had allowed him only to give the most tantalising glimpses of his mind, and toward eleven o’clock Bullott took a sudden decision. He kicked off his slippers, pulled on his shoes, and, without saying a word to his lodger, who, he knew, was working in his room, went out.

Soon after midnight a taxi brought him to Robbs Road, and to the house which he knew was occupied by the burglar.

“Your luck’s in,” said Toby Marsh, who opened the door to him. “Five minutes later, and you’d have missed me.”

“Are you going out?” asked Bullott, regarding him with professional suspicion.

“I’m going out, but on a perfectly childlike errand,” said Toby Marsh. “In fact, I’m going to a party, and if you’re a wise man you’ll go home, get into your glad clothes and join me.”

Toby was wearing an old-fashioned tuxedo.

“You look good enough to eat,” said Bullott admiringly. “Where are you going?”

“To Madame La Florette, at her palatial home on Portman Place,” said Toby. “I’ve had an invitation by card, and I guess Jenny won’t object if I bring a friend.”

Bullott’s first thought was to decline the invitation.

“I’ll go with you if you’ll tell me something I want to know.”

“Make no conditions, my busy friend,” said Toby, “I’m offering you the experience of a lifetime. What do you want to know?”

“I want a little more information about Laffin.”

“I can tell you a whole lot,” said the other. “Laffin is at this moment”--he looked at his watch--“interviewing Captain Harvey Hale, that queer man of the sea. If you were sitting in his study you’d learn no more than I already know, and which I’ll tell you in course of time. By the way did the impetuous and inexperienced Mr. Holbrook keep his appointment?”

“He did,” said the other grimly.

“And he got back alive. I guessed that because you’re not very agitated. And did he find Tinker?”

“Yes; how did you know?”

“I guessed. Alive or dead?”

“Dead,” said Bullott.

“I was afraid that was how it would be. It occurred to me this afternoon what an excellent opportunity there was for drama in that wood, and there can be no doubt about the dramatic instincts of the Ragousas.”

“Marsh, you know a little too much about this business,” said Bullott, his old suspicions aroused.

“I’m beginning to think you’re right,” said Toby, with a sigh. “I found myself dreaming about them last night--the Ragousas, I mean.” He looked thoughtfully at the detective. “Are you pretty strong?” he asked.

“Fairly,” said Bullott.

“Could you work four hours at a stretch in an atmosphere of a hundred and four degrees?”

“Why?” asked the astounded Bullott.

“I’m asking you,” said the imperturbable burglar. “Would your constitution stand up to it?”

“I think so; I am a fairly healthy man,” said Bullott. “But what’s the mystery? Do you ever speak straight out and say what you mean, Marsh?”

“Only when I plead not guilty,” said Mr. Marsh.

As Bullott opened the door of his house, Bill Holbrook came to the head of the stairs, and was promptly invited to join the party; and, guessing more from Marsh’s manner than from what he said, Bill, whose inclinations were towards bed, changed quickly and joined the little man in Bullott’s sitting-room.

“Here’s a strange thing, Holbrook,” said Toby. “Florette’s been in that new house of hers about ten minutes. Well, say a couple of days. You wouldn’t think she’d have got the invitations out so quick, would you, as she has? And some swell performers have been engaged. Half the stars at the opera have had a hurry-up call, and Bazley’s are doing the refreshments.”

“She asked you, but she didn’t ask me; do I get thrown out?”

“You stick to me, boy,” said Toby, “and you’ll see something.”

There was very little to see when they reached Portman Place, except masses of people. The ballroom was so crowded that dancing was impossible. In the big drawing-room, the throng who had gathered to listen to a great coloratura bulged out through the doorway into the hall. And the harassed servants, newly engaged, challenged neither Toby nor the two people who accompanied him.

Of La Florette there was no sign, but by judicious inquiry Marsh discovered that there was a card-room on the ground floor, and it was here that he met his hostess and introduced his friends. La Florette favoured him with a mechanical smile, and shot a quick, surprised glance from Holbrook to the detective.

“I’ve seen you somewhere, young man?” she said.

“A reporter on the _Post-Herald_,” said Toby in a stage whisper. “I thought I’d bring him along in case you wanted any publicity.”

“Well, I don’t,” snapped Florette. “I’m very glad to see you, Mr. What’s-your-name, but I don’t want anything about this party to go in the newspapers.”

With a nod she passed on to join a grey-haired man, whose eyes had never left her.

“That is Sir Richard Paxton, of the Treasury,” said Bill, recognising him. “What is he doing in this galley?”

“Paxton has been a front-row lizard at all La Florette’s productions for the past two years,” Toby answered.

“I’ve heard that Treasury officials go mad at fifty-five,” said Bill. “This is one of those cases. I wonder who is paying the bill?”

Somebody else in the party was pondering that question. Mr. Charles Van Campe was amazed, but also alarmed, at the prodigality of the entertainment. He waited an opportunity, which was long in coming, to take his friends to the little study at the back of the hall which she had reserved for her own use that night.

“Kid, this is fine, I hope you’ve so fixed it with Laffin, that there’s no come-back. Did he give you any money?”

She mentioned a sum and he whistled.

“That wouldn’t pay the breakage bill,” he said. “You want to see him right away and get this scheme of his on a proper business basis. A man told me yesterday that he’s near broke, and I know for a fact that he’s only paid a deposit on the rent of this house.”

“He will not let me down,” she said, but she was a little uneasy. “I’m ’phoning him to-night--I was hoping he would come, but he told me he was too busy.”

“’Phone him now,” urged Van Campe, troubled.

She locked the door and called Laffin’s number.

“He’s probably in bed,” she said. “Those kind of men do not keep late hours----”

Even as she spoke she heard Laffin’s gentle voice.

“It is La Florette speaking, Doctor,” she said in a low voice. “I have the information you wanted.” And in two sentences she told him all he wished to know, though she did not realise this until a long time afterwards. “And Doctor, don’t you think it would be wise if you let me have some money? The five hundred you sent me will not go very far. The band has cost a hundred, and the people who supply the refreshments want a cheque to-morrow morning.”

“That will be quite in order, Miss Florette,” said the soothing voice of the doctor. “You need have no apprehension. I will send you a cheque by the early morning delivery.”

Before she could urge this need still further, he had switched off.

“Well, that’s that,” she said with a sigh of relief. “I don’t think you need worry, Charles. Now come and meet some of my friends.”

“Who is that queer-looking man in glasses?”

“He’s a friend of mother’s,” she said, bitterly regretting that, in a moment of expansiveness, induced by Toby Marsh’s unblushing flattery, she had sent him an invitation at all.

“I know the reporter who is with him; he ought to be able to get some good publicity for you.”

“Dr. Laffin doesn’t want a word in the newspapers. Can you beat it?” she said, with pardonable exasperation. “I’m supposed to be getting publicity out of this stunt of his, and yet not a line must be published!”

She saw the three standing in the hall together as she went back to the ballroom, and observed with satisfaction that Mr. Marsh was being helped into his coat.

Toby was the first to leave, and stood waiting for the other two whilst the footman found their belongings. Bill had walked out on to the street, and Bullott was following, when he heard the footman say:

“Excuse me, sir,” and felt in his pocket for a tip. “Can I have a word with you?”

The detective looked at the servant in surprise.

“Yes, certainly,” he said.

The footman came with him to the sidewalk.

“You don’t know me, sir, but I know you. You’re Mr. Bullott of Headquarters, aren’t you?”

“That is so,” said Bullott, as the man made a sign. “You’re a Ragousa?”

“I wanted to talk to you about that,” the man went on. “I was at the lodge when you were initiated. You wouldn’t know me, because I was one of the two men who put on your robes.”

Bullott remembered the two attendants in the anteroom who had assisted himself and Bill Holbrook to don the livery of the Proud Sons.

“What I wanted to ask you, sir, was this,” said the man, lowering his voice and glancing back at the open door. “Do you think everything is all square and above-board with the Ragousas? It used to be,” he went on quickly. “When I joined the order, about ten years ago, it was one of the most brotherly societies you could wish for. And don’t think, sir, that I’m trying to knock the order because they put me down from the Twenty-Third and made me a small lodge member. We don’t mind that, because it has happened to so many of us, and, after all, it’s an honour to have been up above at all.”

“You were a Twenty-Third Degree-er, were you?”

“Yes, sir, I was a member of the Twenty-Third Degree for five years, until I got the order from the Worshipful Master that I was to return to the lower lodge. As I say, there’s nothing in that, but what I can’t understand is the queer birds who are taking our place.”

“Where does the Twenty-Third Degree meet?”

The man hesitated.

“That’s a thing I’m not supposed to tell you, sir, but as I’ve said so much, I might as well say a little more. They work the degree at the Deptford Lodge. As a matter of fact, there isn’t a Deptford Lodge at all, for although it is supposed to be just an ordinary lodge, only Twenty-Third Degree men are members.”

“What kind of fellows are being initiated into the Twenty-Third?”

“The scum of the earth,” said the man emphatically. “If they’d raked the mud of the Thames, they couldn’t have got up worse specimens! There isn’t a riverside thief that hasn’t been initiated. The proper number for the Twenty-Third is fifty members, but now there must be a hundred.”

“Give me the address of the lodge-room,” said Bullott, and scribbled it down on his shirt-cuff.

“You don’t mind me telling you this?” asked the footman anxiously. “I feel I’m betraying the Order, and the Ragousas do queer things to people who talk too much.”

“You can trust me,” said Bullott, and bidding good-night to the footman he walked quickly after his two companions, who were slowly pacing towards Oxford Circus.

“Mr. Yellowplush is one of your men, I suppose?” said Toby Marsh, and Bullott did not correct that mistaken impression.

Mr. Toby Marsh did not return to his lodgings, but pursued his way to the Camden Road. Not a hundred yards from Dr. Laffin’s house was a group of small shops huddled together as though in fear of the encroachments of their more pretentious neighbours. Each had its narrow front, its small side door which led to the regions above, and in the lock of one of these, Mr. Marsh inserted a key and passed through.

At the end of the cramped passage a flight of stairs led to the upper floors. He did not stop until he reached the poorly furnished attic room which he had rented a few weeks before. Lighting the gas, he pulled down the window shade carefully, and care was needed, for through the open window top trailed a wire which ran to a small box and a pair of headphones that stood on the wash-stand.

When he had excluded himself from chance observation, he pulled up a chair, and, fixing the receivers to his ear, sat down to listen. What he heard was apparently all-engrossing, for he did not stir for an hour except to jot down a note or two on the writing-pad which lay convenient to his hand. At the end of the hour, he took off his ’phones and, rising, stretched himself.

From the bottom of a cupboard he took out a small, leather case, opened it and removed one by one the instruments of his craft, delicate little tools, larger ones, ingeniously devised and fitting together by clamps and screws, keys of unusual pattern, saws of strange shape--he laid them on the bed and surveyed them with a speculative eye.

Looking out of the window, he saw, to his surprise, that the sky was going grey, and this fact apparently brought about an alteration of his plans, for he replaced the tools one by one, and five minutes later was walking briskly down Camden Road. A plain-clothes patrol saw his gleaming spectacles, noted the handbag he carried, and turned toward him.

“Good morning, Toby.”

“Good morning, Sergeant.”

Toby stopped.

“Early to rise, wealthy and wise,” said the detective. “Got a crop of early worms in that little bag of yours?”

Without a word Toby handed over the bag, and without a word the officer opened and searched. He found nothing but a dozen folders dealing with the joys and comforts of Atlantic travel.

“Thinking of going abroad, Toby?” he smiled, as he snapped the bag close and handed it back.

“Yep. My doctor has recommended a sea voyage.”

“You’ve found a nice boat--the _Escorial_. I almost thought you’d been smashing a shipping office when I saw those folders.” The detective was still in doubt, and, putting down his bag, Toby Marsh extended his arms.

“Run me over, son--you’re itching to do it, and I’m in a hurry.”

The officer’s palms ran lightly over Toby Marsh.

“Clean bill,” he said. “Sorry to pull you up, but there’s something very sinister about early rising.”

“Good morning.”

Toby passed on without annoyance. The officer had not searched his hat, in the lining of which were three small keys, two of which gave him the entrance to Dr. Laffin’s house, and the other to the last place in the world that even Bullott would have imagined.