Chapter FIFTEEN

Duberry, of course, was profoundly interested in this startling information. He had set a watch on Ramon, and he knew that for the last three days the so-called financier had not visited the office in Old Broad Street. But, he knew nothing of the shutting up of the house at Barnes. He had to confess ruefully to himself that the machinery of Scotland Yard was very much more adequate than his own. It was the penalty, in a small way, of the need of working with inferior instruments.

“They’ve beaten me,” he confessed frankly to his old friend. “I know a little bit; but they know a good deal more. Well, a private detective can’t hope to compare with the ‘Yard,’ can he?”

Mr. Webber indulged in a genial smile. To the experienced police official, Duberry was just a rather clever amateur who was trying to acquire the rudiments of a very difficult profession by the light of nature. If the truth were told, he had a good-natured contempt for any man who had not graduated in the strenuous school of Scotland Yard. If he had not liked Duberry so well personally, he would have shown this contempt in a much more open manner.

“And you say it is a serious charge?” queried the younger man presently, when he had digested the information given him.

Webber spoke in his usual brisk, staccato way. “Went in for a big haul this time, a matter of five thousand pounds. Got the money out of some mug--payment for shares in a practically non-existent company. The mug, quiet for a long time, swallowed the frequent excuses made to him. Then gets suspicious, demands his shares, or his money back; and, finding he can get neither, does what he ought to have done much earlier in the day, goes to the police, with the result that Master Ramon is going to be laid by the heels.”

“Bit of a fool not to have cleared out before the man began to get suspicious,” suggested Duberry.

Webber shrugged his shoulders. “If criminals didn’t make foolish mistakes, they would never be caught. I dare say he could have got away in time, if he had had the sense to try. It is too late now, they’ve got him as fast as a rat in a trap. Every station is being watched.”

Presently Webber began to explain why he had called. “It was just the merest chance I looked in at the Yard this morning and saw my old friend Rayner, through whom I got the previous information about him, and heard the news. You may guess how interested I was. I felt like the old hunter who has been turned out to grass and hears the familiar baying of the hounds. As I told you, they are going to take him at the shabby lodging in Soho to which they have tracked him. Rayner suggested I might like to be in at the death, as it were. Of course, I shan’t go with them into the house; I’ll wait outside while they get him. It struck me you might like to come along with me to see the finish. It would be a fitting wind-up to that bit of comedy we played at the public-house in Dalston, when we so adroitly got hold of his finger-prints.”

Duberry expressed the pleasure it would give him to be in “at the death,” as the older man expressed it.

“I wonder if my client, Aylmer, would like to join us? After all, Ramon is rather an old acquaintance of his,” he suggested.

Webber shook his head in a dubious fashion. “Better not, I think. Amateurs are not wanted in this kind of business. You can tell him all about it, later.”

Duberry smiled. He knew his friend’s contempt for amateurs quite well, his strong opinion that they should be kept resolutely in the background when serious work was afoot.

“All right, then, we won’t add to our party. And I doubt if he would be greatly interested. The only thing he has set his mind on is to find this Mrs. Quentin. I’m awfully sorry for the poor chap. He must have been terribly hard hit; it seems to be driving him crazy.”

“It’ll be all the better for him if he never finds her,” growled Webber. This hard-headed police official had no leanings towards romance, and very little sympathy for despairing lovers of the Aylmer type. “You’d be doing the young fellow a life-long service if you instructed your man to draw a blank.”

“That’s just what he is doing at present,” laughed Duberry. “But as I am taking Aylmer’s money, I must do my best to get him what he wants, mustn’t I? Even if I chucked the job, he would only go to somebody else. You can’t reason with a man who is madly in love, you know. A dried-up old fossil like you can’t understand his state of mind. I can understand it a bit, because I have a softer streak in me than you have.”

Webber’s reply to this little shaft was a grunt and some sound advice to get rid of that soft streak immediately, before it led him into trouble.

Later on in the day, the two men went together to Soho. This time they took care to dress their parts better than on the previous occasion when they had hunted in company, as they did not wish to run the risk of being recognized by Ramon, should they come into contact with him either at large or as a prisoner. Duberry had got himself up as a workman, Webber presented the appearance of a none too prosperous “bookie.” The latter gentleman, who was clean-shaven in everyday life, had ornamented himself with a false mustache of a singularly ferocious description, which certainly altered his appearance completely.

One of the Scotland Yard men was lounging about at the end of the mean street in Soho where the hunted man had found an insecure hiding-place. Webber recognized him as an old acquaintance, and going up to him, revealed his identity and introduced Duberry. From him, they gathered the position of affairs at the moment.

“Mr. Rayner will be here with a couple of men in about ten minutes. Ramon’s not the sort of man to offer any serious resistance, so it will be an easy job,” he told them. “Ramon has been running about all day, always with somebody at his heels. Of course, he knows that he is being watched, that the game is up, and that makes him restless. He went into the house about half an hour ago, there he is now, waiting to be taken, so to speak. If I were in his shoes, I think I should be glad when the suspense was over. He must know there’s no earthly chance of his getting away.”

After a little further talk, Duberry and Webber left the man and walked up and down the street together, waiting for the advent of Ramon and his colleagues.

Suddenly, in the midst of their conversation, Duberry pressed his companion’s arm. “Do you see who that is coming along on the other side?” he whispered.

Webber looked, and recognized the well-known figure of Dicks. He was not disguised in any way, just looked his usual respectable self. He walked along very slowly, till he came to the house, which had been pointed out to them as Ramon’s hiding-place. Here he halted, knocked at the door, which was quickly opened to him, and disappeared from their view. Evidently he had come for the purpose of seeing Ramon.

They went up to the man who was watching, and asked him if he knew who the visitor was.

“No,” was the answer. “I have not been on this job before yesterday, and only know Ramon by sight. But I understand there is a man with whom he has been in close touch, and seeing a good deal of lately. Most likely that is he; but if so, there’s nothing against him. Ramon is the only one they want. A coincidence he should come to-day; he will have the pleasure of seeing his pal taken. Assuming, of course, he is his pal. There are half a dozen people who’ve rooms in that house; he may be visiting any one of them.”

They explained this was unlikely, as they knew the man’s name and history; further, that he was very intimate with the wanted man.

A few minutes later, Rayner, an alert, keen-faced man, appeared upon the scene with his colleagues. Webber described the appearance of Dicks, and put to him the same question; did he know anything about the man, telling him his history so far as it was known to himself and to his friend Duberry.

Rayner shook his head. “We have not had much time to make inquiries; but so far as we have gone, our knowledge tallies with yours. Very respectable fellow, by all accounts--that, of course, goes for nothing. Been in service the greater part of his life. There are suspicious things about him in his intimacy with a wrong ’un like Ramon, and we may take it he has some strong motive for coming here to-night. One of those deep ones, I expect, who get others to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for them, while they stand out of harm’s way. Think I shall take the opportunity of putting a few questions to him before I leave that very unsavory-looking house. Well, you will see us come out in a few minutes, with our prisoner. He’s not the sort to give trouble, quite the respectable, well-mannered type of criminal.”

He turned to one of his colleagues. “Back room, top floor, isn’t it? Front room and the floor below empty at the moment. Well, good-by, gentlemen. When we have got our man, we shan’t have anything more to say to each other, I suppose.”

After Rayner and his companions had entered the house, the other three men crossed the road and stood near the door, to be ready for the final act of the drama.

That final act came in a very quick and surprising fashion. There was a hurried noise of footsteps on the stairs, and Rayner and one of his colleagues came rushing into the street. Seeing the three men clustered round the door, he halted, and turned to his colleague.

“Bates, it doesn’t take two for this job. Get hold of the nearest doctor and do all the other necessary things. I will wait here.”

Addressing Webber, he gave the reason of these surprising orders. “Ramon is dead, the other man as near death as can be. A fierce fight with knives in the foreign fashion during the few moments that the man Dicks has been in the house. One can only conjecture that they were old accomplices and that Dicks came here to-day to demand his share of some plunder, and, on meeting with a refusal, picked a quarrel, with a disastrous result to himself, as well as to the other.”

“Dicks is still alive, then?” asked Duberry.

“He was just breathing when I left him in charge of my colleague, Morton, and rushed downstairs; I should say it was nearly his last breath. Ramon was quite dead when we got into the room, stabbed through the heart. Dicks must have got a blow in before he fell himself. We couldn’t, of course, get a word out of him, so the secret of their quarrel will go to the grave with them. Ah, here comes the doctor. Good-night, Webber. Give me a look-in at the end of the week, and I will tell you anything further that may come to light.”

The later details, however, were of a meager description so far as Ramon was concerned. And Mrs. Ramon and the crippled boy had vanished utterly, and no traces of them could be found. It was highly probable that Ramon had friends of the same sort as himself, and that they had found shelter with one of them. They discovered a bag in the cloak-room of one of the big stations which contained a passport, a suit of clothes, and about a hundred pounds in cash. If, therefore, he had left behind him any considerable amount of money, it was most likely that he had entrusted it to his wife’s keeping, for fear of a sudden reverse of fortune.

In the case of Dicks, a good deal was found out of a surprising nature. His father had been a small shopkeeper in a northern town, who had brought up a fairly large family in a most respectable fashion. He had been in domestic employment since the age of eighteen, mostly in the service of good families. Several of his relatives were alive, and spoke in the highest terms of him, of his generosity, his kindness of heart. The extraordinary thing was that he had amassed a considerable amount of money for a man in his humble calling, something over five thousand pounds. His will was found in his lodgings amongst his papers, and in it he bequeathed this sum in equal proportions to his two favorite sisters.

“Of course, he could not have amassed that sum out of his wages and tips,” commented Rayner when he imparted this piece of information to his old colleague, Webber. “He must have had some other sources of income at which we can only guess. Still, I am bound to say, nothing in the least incriminating was found amongst his papers. The man was, and will remain, a profound mystery, and there’s no doubt he was as deep as they make them.”

“A small capitalist in his way,” remarked Webber. “I should make a shrewd guess that he was often the financial backer of various rogues more daring and less wary than himself. An exceedingly clever, well-balanced fellow, save in the one respect of giving way to his violent passions when he suffered some real, or fancied, injury. Well, his secret goes to the grave with him. One hardly can suppose that he went there with the deliberate intention of killing Ramon. It was a case of a couple of rogues falling out, one word leading to another, till both men saw red.”

In due course, Aylmer was told of the tragic end of the two men. The death of Dicks was a misfortune, as since Duberry had made a certain suggestion to him, he had rather been expecting that the butler shortly would rejoin Quentin. That hope was now dashed to the ground.

There was nothing left but to possess his soul in patience, and to rely upon the efforts of the man whom the detective had dispatched to the Continent. But, as the days sped on without any result being obtained, a sort of blank despair fell upon Aylmer’s soul. He began to make up his mind that Eileen was lost to him forever.