Chapter XXXIII: The Listener in the Chimney

Dr. Laffin had spent the greater part of the evening with a companion who, æsthetically, was repugnant to him, but in other ways was a wholly desirable associate. He finished his short conversation with La Florette, pushed aside the telephone and, leaning back in his chair, watched his guest pull the cork from a second large bottle and pour the yellow, bubbling fluid into a large wine-glass that stood on the edge of the writing desk.

Captain Harvey Hale was a man of no particular reticence, and not even the somewhat chilling atmosphere of that dark study, nor the eerie references which the doctor made to unseen presences, dulled his geniality in such moments as these.

“Land work,” he said, smacking his lips, “or sea work, it’s all one to Harvey Hale. You can’t help accidents, or, as we call them at sea, the acts of God, and you can’t stop men like this blooming Holbrook wriggling out of a trap, it doesn’t matter how clever you are. Personally, I think it’s a waste of time bothering with a whippersnapper like that--a man I could break in two across my knee.” He lifted his glass. “To the sunny islands and lashings of money!”

He drained its contents at a gulp.

“You couldn’t have come to a better man than me, Commodore,” he said, nodding his head slowly.

“You have spoken to the men?”

“Spoken to them?” The room shook with the sea captain’s laughter. “You don’t want to speak to that kind of cattle; you just give them an order and that’s enough. They know me; there isn’t a sailorman that’s shipped before the mast who doesn’t know Harvey ’Ale.”

In his cups the captain was inclined to take liberties with the English language.

“They’re ripe and willing. They know there’s a big job ahead, and they’re ready to do it. What is it, Doctor?”

“You’ll know in good time,” said Laffin. “It may not be necessary: everything depends upon to-morrow, my good friend. In my life I have had one very grave disappointment, the gravest that any man could face. That a second should await me seems incredible, and yet there is that possibility.”

His visitor growled something under his breath.

“I hope you’re disappointed, that’s all,” he said. “That is, if it gives a chance to Harvey Hale to do something big. What are you going to do about that girl?”

Dr. Laffin’s lips pressed tightly together, but he did not answer.

“It wasn’t my fault that we didn’t get her the second time. I got her first time all right, didn’t I? Why didn’t you keep her? That was your fault? How was I to know that they’d got a ‘busy’ downstairs sleeping on the premises?”

“I’m not blaming you,” said the doctor in his mincing way. “Believe me, I do not blame you. The fates were not propitious. My supreme genius, the mighty Kemelsina, master of my destiny”--he waved an airy hand to the cornice, and instinctively Hale looked up as though he expected to find a material manifestation--“my great exemplar was not in sympathy with the movement.”

Before him was spread a double sheet of foolscap, and once more he adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses, and with his finger moving down each line of writing, he perused the document from beginning to end in silence.

“You have sent the first party away?” asked Laffin.

“They’ve arrived. I had a cable from them this morning,” said Hale, “ready and willing and hearty.”

“Who has the sealed envelope?”

“Collinson’s in charge,” said Harvey Hale. “He’s a good seaman and knows all about sealed orders. You can trust him, Commodore. I’ve told him if he breaks the seal I’ll break his head! He knows me--sailed with me a dozen times. When Harvey Hale says he’ll break a man’s head, by God, it’s as good as broken! I’m that way, Commodore. My word’s as good as a lawyer’s agreement, stamped and sealed. There ain’t a man from Shanghai to Valp’riso that doesn’t know that when I say a thing I mean it.”

“Yes, yes,” said Laffin testily. “I suppose in your brutal way you have the elements of greatness. I am large enough to recognise your claims. But behind this scheme is a mentality beyond your understanding, a genius outside the range of your comprehension. You are an instrument, Captain, please remember that; merely the instrument, that is wielded by my gigantic intellect.”

“We are two big men together,” said Captain Hale comfortably. “Put it there, Commodore!”

Dr. Laffin ignored the extended hand.

“Now go home, my friend. I think you have drunk enough. From now on you keep sober--you understand?”

“Drink has never meant anything to me,” said the captain, rising, and considering the quantity he had consumed that evening, both his speech and his poise were extraordinarily steady. “I could drink a distillery dry and walk a chalk line. Ask any man you’ve ever met who knows the sea, has he ever seen Harvey Hale drunk? What will they answer?”

Dr. Laffin did not trouble to inquire. He walked into the passage, opened the door, and cut short a further panegyric on the merits and qualities of Harvey Hale by closing the door gently in the face of that worthy man.

He did not return to his study, but went upstairs to the top floor, where he had imprisoned Betty Carew. The door which Holbrook had broken had been repaired, and fastened even more securely. He was in the “suite” for ten minutes before he came back to the study. A somewhat tidy minded man, he gathered together a number of notes he had made, examined them one by one, and finally, after half an hour’s memorising, carried the scraps of paper to the fireplace, struck a match and lit them. As they blazed up, a puff of smoke came out into the room; it was as though the chimney was blocked. He stooped and looked up. Concealed from view by the edge of the fireplace, and half-resting on a brick projection, was a small black box.

He stamped out the paper fire, reached up and tried to pull it down, but it was fastened to something. He pulled with all his strength; there was a snap, and the box came away in his hand.

Now he saw what had held it in place: a long strand of wire, which he had snapped. The box, which was black with soot and had evidently been lowered down the chimney, was about six inches square, and roughly made. He put it on his table and examined it curiously; then, with the aid of a pair of scissors, he ripped off one side, and had no need to look further to discover the significance of his find. It was a sensitive microphone.

For a second his face went grey. Who had placed it there? What had been heard?

He passed out of the room, up the stairs, and through the locked door of the top floor suite. In a locked lumber-room at the back of the house was a small trap-door that led to the roof, which served as an emergency fire escape. In five minutes he was walking along the flat roof until he was brought up by a high chimney stack.

Yes, there it was--from one of the chimney pots a length of wire led across the roof and down one side of the house. To make any further search that night was impracticable. What should he do?

He sat until dawn showed, his malignant eyes fixed upon the telltale instrument, and then, with some labour, he replaced the box where he had found it and made a rough splice of the broken wire. Whoever was listening should hear something a little more puzzling than they had heard before.