The Stalking Death - Part 8 of
9
Lacey Amy’s Newest and Most Dramatic Story (Luke
Allan)
A serialized novel from The Canadian Magazine, February, 1933. Illustrated by Carl Shreve
Digitized by Doug Frizzle, February, 2016.
XXXIV
Kalmberg had his foot inside the door, and
he had no time to withdraw it before Inspector Broughton asked him in. In
spite of Freyseng’s unmistakable signal to go and go quickly he was not
inclined to face what he had just escaped.
In
the faces of Freyseng and his butler he read excitement almost equal to his
own, and when he saw the Inspector he groped for an explanation. That the
latter had seen Freyseng’s gesture Kalmberg believed, and that made his own
position doubly uncomfortable. He could only hope the detective had not understood.
He
recovered his wits in time. With a fat smile, as if Freyseng’s signal had been
a welcome, he stepped inside. He was conscious of the evidences of his haste
and fright—the loud breathing, the perspiration, even the wide eyes he could
not, on such short notice, submerge as usual in his fat cheeks. That could not
be helped.
“I
can come again, if you’d rather,” he suggested. “It wasn’t important—just a
little matter of business.”
Freyseng,
too, had recovered. “Not at all, not at all, Mr. Kalmberg. Come right in. You
haven’t done me the honor before, have you? Fine, fine! Inspector Broughton was
just going.”
In
that little speech he had excelled himself—the “Mister” of mere acquaintance,
and the hint to the detective to leave.
But
Inspector Broughton had not thought of going. “This is the chance I wanted,” he
said genially. “Two of you together—saves me a lot of time. Shall we go back
where we were?”
He
did not wait for permission but led back to the small room. “We were talking
about these strange deaths, Mr. Kalmberg,” he said. “Among men in your line of
business, I mean. Three of them—and one we know was murdered.”
“Have
you any clues as to who murdered him?” Freyseng asked, covering his defeat.
“Of
course . . . And yet,” the Inspector admitted. “they don’t seem to get
us anywhere.” He caught Kalmberg’s eye and winked, assurance that nothing would be said about
Kalmberg’s visit to the police. “Of course, as you say, Mr. Freyseng, Stirling was not murdered where he was found.”
Freyseng
held up his hands. “Some devil, that murderer. What a risk to carry a dead
body across the city right from Stirling ’s
house! That’s nerve for you—wonderful! I bet Aulinloch”—he grinned—“was a bit
shocked—right there on his doorstep!”
“Scarcely
on his doorstep,” the Inspector corrected. “And why should it shock him
specially—any more than you or Mr. Kalmberg? You’re in the same line of
business.”
Freyseng
waved it aside. “Don’t tell me it didn’t shock him. I know him enough for that.
Have you found where Stirling was murdered?”
“We
think it was in his own house.”
“You
don’t say! Poor man . . . and all his family away!”
“We’re
not sure, of course,” the Inspector admitted, “just where he was struck down.”
Freyseng
leaned forward. “‘Struck down’? Do you mean—But, no, he was shot, of course.
But surely you’d find blood where he was shot!”
“We
found the blood!”
Both
Kalmberg and Freyseng were startled by the sharpness of the tone.
“We
found blood in the kitchen!”
“But—but
what would Stirling be doing there, in the
kitchen? Do you think it was one of the servants?” he asked in a whisper.
“There’s
only one servant in the house,” the Inspector said. “What he was doing in the
kitchen is plain enough—he was drinking with a friend, a friend he took to the
kitchen for a drink because the family was away and the one servant was out.
The servant found the two glasses on the table when she returned.”
“Ah,
then you found the finger-prints?” Freyseng asked eagerly.
“Unfortunately
no. The maid had washed the glasses before we knew about them . . . But we
found the blood-stain we sought. It was on the edge of the table. And,” he
added, “Stirling was not shot; he was killed
with a nail driven in from both sides of his head to look like a bullet. It was
clever enough to deceive me at first.”
Kalmberg
and Freyseng listened with open mouths. But presently they poured questions at
the Inspector, who parried them, giving only what he wished.
“By
the way, Mr. Kalmberg,” he said, “we didn’t mention to you the reason of my
visit. There has just been an attempt on Mr. Freyseng’s life!”
By
the pallor of Kalmberg’s face the Inspector knew he had touched a raw spot. He
knew, too, that his tardiness in mentioning so grave an incident had something
to do with Kalmberg’s agitation. In a few words, blunt and concise, he told the
story; mentioning the Chinaman and all the time he watched Kalmberg closely.
Kalmberg’s
glance flickered around the room. “I—I saw one myself—just before I came in. He
was outside my house—in a car—watching me.”
The
Inspector bounded up. “Why the devil didn’t you say so when you came in? We’re
looking for that Chinaman.”
“But
what makes you think—how could it be the same Chinaman?” Freyseng asked,
throwing a warning glance at Kalmberg.
Inspector
Broughton heard and saw everything, but he paid no attention.
“You
say he was watching you, Mr. Kalmberg. What makes you think so?”
“He
was—he was parked opposite my house—on the other side of the street. And when I
crossed I saw he was crouched in the car watching me. I didn’t like the looks
of him.”
“Parked
opposite your house, you say. I wish you’d spoken of the Chinaman when you
came.”
“I
suppose I—I forgot,” Kalmberg stammered.
“Well,
I want you to have a better memory when I see you again. I haven’t time now—I’ll
get out after the fellow.” He started for the door. There he turned. “Of
course it’s the same Chinaman. Have either of you anything that belongs to a Chinaman—or
any Chinese treasures—anything they might consider sacred?”
Taken
unawares by the question, they were silent for a moment. Kalmberg recovered
first.
“I
don’t go in for that sort of thing; I’m more in the regular line of modern
jewelry.”
Freyseng
shook his head. “Goodness knows what these Chinese think sacred. I don’t know a
Chinese god when I see one.”
Inspector
Broughton went. The pair, left alone, stared at each other. Freyseng surged to
his feet and commenced to stride about the small room. Kalmberg had a fancy of
falling tables and bulging walls as the big fellow bulled about the confined
space.
“Say,
Kalmberg, is that right—about the Chinaman? Was there one after you, too—right
out there on the street?”
“He
was watching me,” Kalmberg whispered. All his terror had returned at Freyseng’s
consternation.
“He
tried to murder me,
murder me—shot at me from the lawn! Kalmberg, this don’t look too good, does
it? Those damned jade things!”
A
thought struck him and with one big hand he hauled Kalmberg to his feet. “Say,
you skidoo. That detective is a deep one. He’ll be hanging about out there. We
don’t want him to think we know each other too well.”
They
were in the hall before Freyseng remembered that Kalmberg had heard only part
of the interview. He clutched him by the arm.
“Say,
the police have found Larned was poisoned! Poisoned!” he hissed in Kalmberg’s
ear. “Do you know what that means? No? Three of us gone—two murdered—and the
Chinaman almost got me!” For a moment his own fear was submerged by delight at
the greater fear in Kalmberg’s fat face. “It means that Chinaman is going to
get us all if we don’t do something. We got to talk this over. Now get out. And
don’t come here again. Telephone.”
XXXV
Gideon McElheren’s reflections on assuring himself that Kalmberg had entered
Freyseng’s house were far from soothing. What was the special bond between
them?
And
why was Kalmberg so furtive and sneaking about it? They had always seemed so
antagonistic, so on guard against each other.
He
knew the answer from his own habit of intrigue; Kalmberg and Freyseng were
plotting together. Plotting about the jade!
As
he drove away he studied the situation, its dangers, its possibilities. Had he
known what he knew now he would have taken better aim at Freyseng. Only three
then—and Aulinloch was not apt to work with Kalmberg. Then he remembered that
Aulinloch was probably a victim of the Chinaman he had seen—and in the rivalry
of Kalmberg and Freyseng, without Aulinloch to support him, he saw a greater
peril than ever.
But
was Aulinloch dead? He could not believe it.
Freyseng
and Kalmberg would be more ruthless, more unsparing, more brutally dishonest,
if it paved the way to profit. Of the seven, the three who were dead were the
least offensive, the least dangerous. Those remaining between him and a fortune
were obstacles less easily overcome. He feared them as he hated them.
McElheren
smiled grimly and, running the car into a dark lane, proceeded to change back
into his own clothes. The stain on his face he removed as best he could; the
perspiration, he knew, was moisture enough.
From
the garage he passed around to the front of the house. As he followed the
cement walk along a hedge he did not see a face lift beyond the hedge and watch
him until he disappeared.
As
he entered the front door, his wife, a large, sour-faced, loud-voiced woman,
came into the hall and glared at him.
“Where
you been?” she demanded.
“What’s
it matter?” he countered, in the same sullen tone, trying to get back out of
sight to his own isolated room with the bundle he carried.
“Say,”
she shrieked, “I want your key. I’ve lost mine. I won’t be back till you’re in
bed long enough.” She held out a peremptory hand. “Quick! I’m in a hurry.”
He
had to stop then, and he scowled at her with unaccustomed spirit.
“You
should oughta go to bed—an hour like this—instead of gadding about all night.”
She
laughed harshly. “Say, what’s the matter with your face?” She took a step
nearer. “Have an accident? Isn’t that a mark beside your eye—and your face
looks dirty.”
“Knocked
into the car door,” he explained shortly and, handing her the key, disappeared
in his own private room.
He
was safe there, safe from his wife and her bullying and her noisy friends, safe
from the nagging worries of a house he was forced to supply but could not
control. This special room of his he had added for just that purpose. A doorway
had been cut through the solid stone wall of the house. It opened into a hall
ending in another door letting into the room itself. There not a sound from the
house could reach him. It was his silent protest against the position into
which his wife forced him.
Only
lately he was beginning to realize that as a protest it failed signally. She
called it his “barracks”. Had she thought of “prison” it could scarcely added
to his helpless fury.
Switching
on the light, with the slam of the door echoing in his ears, he was painfully
conscious of his insignificance in the house. He dare not even chide the servants, and he took no chances
of giving orders. For a few moments he stood in the hall, gnashing his teeth.
After all, what was she before he married her? Daughter of a woollen merchant
whose business dishonesty was notorious. She had brought him notice—in spite of
the reputation of her father’s wealth. Death had ridiculed that.
As he threw back the last door a waft of stale air met him, and he
hurried to open a window. The nine lights from the three chandeliers blazed over
his head as he stopped to peer with sudden and explicable curiosity into the
darkness—a curiosity so akin to fear that he shivered. For a moment the fear
conquered and he reached out to close the window again. But pride held his hand
and, with straightened shoulders, he returned to his desk and dropped into the
chair before it.
The
room was neither library nor workshop. Except for the evening paper he never read
in it. Most of the time he simply sat and brooded over his wrongs, and cursed his
enemies. It was a room devoted to making the world pay for its scorn. In there,
cut off from the house, he would drop his fawning humility and snarl.
He
found it impossible to concentrate. He had much to plan, and the profit might
be tremendous, but he could not keep his mind off that open window that led
into a dark garden. Through the darkness he saw in his mind, the Chinaman—creeping
from Aulinloch’s dining room—holding the four of them up with gun in Aulinloch’s
office—murdering—murdering! Even Inspector Broughton was afraid of the Chinese!
. . . Should he call Aulinloch up and settle the doubt in his mind? But that
would never do. If they should discover that he himself had been disguised that
night as a Chinaman!
He
frowned at the bundle that was his costume. He had thrown it on a chair as he
entered. He remembered now that his gun was there, and he wanted so badly to
have it at his finger-ends. Right now—right now! But first he would close the
window.
He
dragged himself to his feet by clutching the desk, for his knees trembled. One step
only he took, then his lips parted as if to scream, his eyes bulged, his body
sagged. There, framed in the open window, was the yellow face of a leering
Chinaman!
XXXVI
McElheren’s lips opened but no sound came, and slowly he dropped back into
the chair. But his staring eyes never left the yellow face framed in the
window; they not so much as blink. It was as if he was hypnotized. In the patch
of blackness that was the open window the face of the Chinaman stood blindingly distinct.
For
a time they remained thus, the Chinaman still as a statue, his eyes boring into
the room; McElheren shaking like a leaf. Then the Chinaman climbed through. The
soundlessness of it was uncanny to McElheren it was part of a horrible nightmare
though the pounding of the blood in his veins drowned all ordinary
noises. He was a pitiful wreck, speechless, ghastly white, half dead with fear.
A cruel, gloating leer twisted the Chinaman’s
face. Without taking his eyes from McElheren’s he closed the window behind him
and drew the blind. Cooly, without hurry, he stood for a moment contemplating his victim, then slowly he
approached.
McElheren
shrivelled before him. With a last effort, massing every fibre of resistance
left him, he found his voice, a mere whisper:
“What—do
you—want?”
The
Chinaman made no reply. The grim stillness of him was like fate. He stood over McElheren, leering down into his ghastly face. Terror had robbed him of all but
the power to suffer.
Slowly and surely as
fate itself one of the Chinaman’s hands disappeared inside his loose black silk
coat. Slowly it reappeared. There was no hurry.
Mrs. McElheren slept
late next morning. Of the maid who brought up her morning cup of black coffee
at eleven she enquired if her husband had left.
“We haven’t seen him
this morning at all, ma’am.” the maid replied, with a contemptuous indifference
that reflected her mistress’s. “He didn’t come down to breakfast.”
“Go and call him,” Mrs.
McElheren snapped, “and take this toast back and do some fresh. And hot, mind,
hot!”
A servant broke into
McElheren’s private room through one of the curtained windows. He saw his
master slumped in the chair, a great pool of blood beside him on the carpet. He
had been dead many hours.
XXXVII
“I hope,” Phyliss Aulinloch said to her
husband next morning, “you missed nothing from your library last night”
Aulinloch looked up
slowly from his shredded wheat and regarded her enquiringly.
“Because,” she
explained—and she wondered how she could feel so indifferent about it—“when I
came in last night I thought I saw someone run back down the hall and out
through your room.”
“You saw someone? Did
you—call the servants?”
“I went upstairs to find
you. I thought perhaps you hadn’t gone out yet. It was such a fleeting glimpse
that I thought I must have imagined it. I came downstairs when I found you
weren’t up there. I investigated myself.”
Aulinloch shook his head
disapprovingly. “You shouldn’t do that, Phyliss. Suppose it really had been a
burglar.”
“I’m quite sure it was
someone,” she said. “It looked like—like a Chinaman.”
He said nothing for a
moment, his eyes on his plate, then he smiled incredulously. “You must be
mistaken, of course.”
“Have you been in the
library this morning?” she asked, irritated that he seemed almost as
indifferent as she.
He nodded. “There’s no
sign there of a visitor . . . Did you go into the room?”
“Yes. It was five
minutes after I saw him, though; he had lots of time to escape. I found the
back door unlocked.”
“Did you—look around—in
there, I mean? You’re sure he wasn’t hiding somewhere?”
“Quite sure. I even
tried the door of the clothes closet. It was locked, but I made sure no one was
in there.”
“Yes—I keep it locked,”
he said. “I’ve a few things I don’t wish the servants to touch. I’ll take a
better look about presently . . . You’re quite sure it was a Chinaman?” He did
not wait for her reply. “Chinamen aren’t burglars. There’s nothing here a
Chinaman could want . . . But I must ask you never again to be so rash. Just
leave it to me, Phyliss.”
She saw that he had
eaten scarcely anything.
“Do you know any more
about your trip to Paris
“Perhaps I won’t have
to, after all. It’ll be a few days before I’m sure . . . Maybe then we can make
a more leisurely trip of it so you can go, too.”
“I think,” she said
slowly, “that I’d rather spend a few weeks with Aunt Edna, up at Balsam Lake
“Several of your people
are up there, aren’t they,” he enquired, after a pause.
“I don’t know. There
used to be. I haven’t been in touch with them for years.”
“No,” he replied, in a
flat voice. “I suppose they’re still there—the Charlesworths and the
others.”
Phyliss sipped her
coffee. Both assumed a casualness neither felt, and both knew it. “I’m sure I
don’t know,” she said.
“The Charlesworths—you
used to see them so often,” he murmured. “Pity to lose all your old friends.”
Phyliss dare not speak.
She was angry—and after
last night’s visit to the Charlesworths her conscience upbraided her. But how
she longed to speak of the Chinaman whose dreadful plot against the Charlesworths
she had so fortunately defeated!
Neither spoke for the
rest of the meal. When her husband was gone, she went to her room and sat for a
long time before the window, her face a mask.
* * *
There’s a tangle in it somewhere, Platt, and just yet I can’t find what
it is.” Inspector Broughton paced about the office, his forehead lined.
“I’m satisfied there’s
some connecting link between all these men, the whole seven of them—Larned,
Stirling, Zaharoff, McElheren, and the other three; and if we don’t hurry and
find out what it is there won’t be any of them left to work on. Whatever it is,
instead of being a link of friendship it’s a link of hatred. Lord, how they
hate one another! . . . It was that hatred got us started on the track—that
visit of Kalmberg’s the morning after Stirling ’s murder. Then
Aulinloch, right there in the same chair . . .
“And now this Chinaman—or
these Chinamen. You remember McElheren’s call, and his fear of the Chinese—of
Chinese vengeance . . . A Chinaman works in with curious and inconsistent
frequency. There’s the one that acted so strangely in Aulinloch’s office. And,
by the way, we never got the whole story about that. Then he shoots at
Freyseng—and frightens Kalmberg almost to death . . . And they’ve some reason
to be alarmed.”
Platt scowled at the
floor. “You’re right, sir, it’s—inconsistent. The Chinaman saved Aulinloch’s
stuff—and then he terrifies the others.”
“And I’ve an idea that
if we knew the whole truth about that Aulinloch affair it would clear things up
a lot . . . But the climax is this latest murder.”
He went to his desk and
spread out a large photograph, and Platt came beside him. Together they
examined it.
At first sight a
formless scene, it developed on closer examination into a picture of the top of
a desk centred by an ordinary desk blotter. Scribbled on the white blotter,
scarcely legible, trailing away toward the bottom of the blotter: “The jade carvings.”
From the pile at the
side of the desk the Inspector took a sheet of paper, placed it beside the
photograph and read aloud: “A Chinaman did it.”
The detectives regarded
the two exhibits for a long time. At last Platt raised his eyes. The Inspector
was smiling.
“So you, too, thought of
that, Platt?”
“Sure thing, sir. How
could the same hand write this on the paper, so firm and clear, and this on the
blotter—in his own blood?”
“He didn’t,” the
Inspector declared. “He didn’t write this about the Chinaman at all . . . this
writing on the paper resembles no writing of McElheren’s we can find. We’ll
get an expert at it.
“At present we’d better
keep this writing
to ourselves. The servant who found the body didn’t even enter the room; no one
but the police knows of all this . . . Now, if McElheren didn’t write it, the
murderer did. And why did he write it? To deceive the police . . . Because he
was no Chinaman at all.”
“Might
it not be a threat to the others,” Platt suggested. “A warning that they could
not hope to escape—something to frighten them into doing something the Chinaman
wants? We have had somewhat similar cases.”
“Possibly,”
Inspector Broughton agreed reluctantly. “But what about the jade carvings? We
agree that was written by McElheren, and it establishes a reason for a Chinaman
appearing in the affair . . . It also reminds me that McElheren’s talk with us
dealt with just this affair. Either he had those jade carvings or he’s
associated with a friend who has. . . . I asked Kalmberg and Freyseng last
night if they had any Chinese treasures. Of course they said they hadn’t. But I
knew those two were up to something I wasn’t to share.”
“Speaking
of a Chinaman, sir,” said Platt, “what about the Chinese costume we found in
McElheren’s room?”
“Not
so puzzling, Platt. McElheren had certainly been using that costume himself
last night. We know that by the yellow still on his face and the tilt to the
end of his eyebrows. But I have more than that.” He drew from his pocket a
flattened bullet. “As far as the shape allows, it fits the gun in that bundle
of clothes. It was McElheren shot at Freyseng. It was McElheren frightened
Kalmberg. And that further establishes a connection—and an enmity.”
Platt
threw up his hands. “What a mixup! The more we find out the further we are from
an explanation. Then there were two Chinamen—”
“I
had that in mind all the time. McElheren is not the Chinaman who got into
Aulinloch’s office. He is mentally incapable of playing that part.” Inspector
Broughton laughed. “Not so fast, Platt, not so fast . . .
“Here’s
another proof that McElheren didn’t write this on the paper: If he had strength
for that, strength and will, he would have put up some sort of fight. There
isn’t a sign of a struggle. Nor could he have been asleep when he was attacked
or he would never have survived that horrible gash long enough to recover his
wits and write in such a firm hand. My idea is that McElheren paralyzed with fear,
too terrified to resist. We can believe that from his conduct here day before
yesterday. The murderer cut his throat while he was
in that condition, hastily wrote this little note, and fled. And McElheren,
torn from his paralysis by pain and approaching death, scribbled this on the
blotter with his finger in his own blood in his last moments.
“Now, Platt, what we
have to do is to concentrate on this connecting link in this group. Evidently
it’s the jade carvings. Whose are they—where are they—what about them? . . .
I’m going to give Kalmberg and Freyseng and Aulinloch a call. Kalmberg first.
Aulinloch is too clever, too cunning, to start on; he’d hold me off and warn
the others. And Freyseng has given me too much already to make it wise to
arouse his suspicions by trying for more. Kalmberg is the best chance.”
“Why don’t we wring from
Aulinloch what he’s hiding about the visit of the Chinaman to his office?”
Platt asked.
“Because if he doesn’t
wish to tell
|
|
|
he won’t .
. . Have you asked yourself about that Chinaman?
How did he happen to be on
hand so opportunely? Why did he act as he did? Plainly because somehow
he knew of the plot to rob Aulinloch. And he prevented
it for
some secret purpose of his
own, otherwise he would have warned
Aulinloch or the police.
Worry over that simple one.”
The
Inspector sat thinking for some time. “I don’t believe, Platt, there’s a real
Chinaman in it at all . . . even though all these men believe there is.
“But
it isn’t the murderer who troubles me so much at the moment, Platt, as
preventing another murder. Is there to be another? And can wc prevent it? I’ve
got Falkncr on Freyseng. I’m going to have a talk myself with Simon Kalmberg.
You’ll keep Aulinloch under your eye.”
But
Simon Kalmberg was not to he found when the Inspector wished to see him. And
when he did find him it was too late.
But with all these men, cowards though they were at heart, there was
one emotion stronger than fear. Avarice.
Fear,
with the others as with Kalmberg, urged them to hurry the sale of the jade, but
avarice made them unwilling to sacrifice it.
But
with the death of McElheren things took a more serious turn.
It
resulted in a group within a group, a combination within a combination. It
consisted of Kalmberg and Freyseng—and it was typically dishonest and selfish.
The two men met in Freyseng’s office, and the result was a call for a meeting
with Aulinloch that very night in the latter’s library. He was to bring the
jade with him, and the garden gate into the lane was to be left unlocked.
This
demand—for it was nothing else—disturbed Aulinloch, for it showed him exactly
where he stood. Immediately he set to thinking out a way to circumvent a plot
that was evident enough. Over the telephone he was wise enough to offer no sustained
objection. Above all he must hide his suspicions, must avoid linking the pair
openly against him.
Promptly
at nine Kalmberg and Freyseng admitted themselves to the library from the garden.
That they had come together emphasized to Aulinloch their alliance, and from
that moment he watched their every move with jealous decision.
The
old leather suitcase lay in full sight beside the desk, and the eyes of the
three were on it.
Freyseng
rolled the unlit cigar across his huge mouth. “There’s no use blinding
ourselves any more—something’s got to be done and done quick. It ain’t a shoke
any more.”
“Murder
is never a joke.”
Freyseng
broke in with a chuckle. “You’re a wise guy, Aulinloch. You didn’t help the
police much to catch him the next time he got in, did you? Ve don’t vant no
Chinaman dragged into this, you bet.”
“We
don’t need to drag him in, if we use common sense,” Aulinloch said. “The
maddest thing we ever did was to bring that suitcase here tonight.”
Freyseng
bit into a fresh cigar. “Ve brought it here because it is mad to leave it vere
it vas. It ain’t safe in your safe any more.”
“Are
you thinking of handing it to the police,” Aulinloch sneered.
They
smirked, a sign of uneasy conscience—or of fear that they were not deceiving
Aulinloch.
Freyseng
began to chatter. “That fellow, he ain’t losing no time, I tell you. He’s going
to get the lot of us and the jade as vell, if ve don’t look out. See vat he did
all in vun night: he shoots at me, then he lays for Kalmberg. and after that he
goes off and cuts McElheren’s head off.”
“How
do we know he did all that?” Aulinloch snapped. “Inspector Broughton says he shot
at you, and Kalmberg saw a Chinaman on the street. But what has that to do with
McElheren—even if it was the same Chinaman?”
Kalmberg
said: “He thinks the jade is in your safe, Aulinloch, and you know as well as
we do that the time-lock isn’t complete protection.”
“I
have a small safe right here in my house,” Aulinloch suggested.
“And
I have a big vun in mine,” Freyseng put in bellicosely, “but I ain’t vanting it
with me. But Kalmberg, he says he’s villing to keep it for a vile. He’s got a
fine safe, a secret vun.”
Aulinloch
saw. “We’ll be so busy moving it about we won’t have time to show it.”
“Then
vy didn’t you show it long ago—and sell the damn stuff?” Freyseng bellowed. “Ve
left it to you.”
Aulinloch
ignored it. “I was thinking,” he said, “of taking it to New York
“Like
blazes it is!” Freyseng jeered. “Not much you ain’t going to clear out vith it.
The jade stays right here till ve see the colour of somevun’s money.”
“Right
where?” Aulinloch asked.
But
the sarcasm was much too fine for Freyseng. “If the jade goes,” he said, “ve
all go.”
Outside in the dark grounds a vague figure skulked from window to window,
but the blinds were drawn tight. With an ear close to the window-frame he
listened; but only the murmur of voices. After a time the shadow separated
itself from the house. It became a man. Passing through the gate into the
lane, he ran out on the street.
Kalmberg
moved uneasily, as if the shadow outside had fallen across him. He was studying
his two companions—thinking perhaps that he had acted too quickly in allying
himself with Freyseng instead of with Aulinloch.
Aulinloch
did not argue—he knew the danger of that. Excusing himself on the pretext of
getting something to drink, he left the room. In the few minutes he was absent
he telephoned a taxi.
“Whoever
takes the jade,” he declared on his return, “Must give the other two a paper
of some kind to show it’s ours if anything happens him.”
As
he poured the whisky into the glasses he noticed their silence and looked up.
Freyseng’s big lips were twisted nastily.
“Yeah! Oh, sure. Now somevun else has the jade they got to give you a paper. You veren’t so eager to
give us a paper, vere you, eh? You’re mighty clever, Aulinloch—looking after
yourself, eh? You ain’t so keen looking after your friends.”
Aulinloch replied: “If my friends had asked for a paper they’d
have got one. You’re old enough to look after yourselves. As a matter of fact, McElheren
asked and got a document—”
“You
mean you—you and McElheren—none of the rest of us vould share—” Freyseng was
on his feet, leaning threateningly toward Aulinloch.
The
latter waved him away contemptuously. “That paper meant nothing
whatever—except another talking point for Kalmberg taking the jade tonight.
McElheren was to share only if the jade was found in my safe. As a matter of
fact I planned to change the hiding place myself; I was going to talk about it
with you. You have anticipated me, that’s all.”
Soon afterwards they parted, self consciously, hurriedly, all glad to
break the strain of covering their deceit. Kalmberg carried the suitcase. They
had come in Freyseng’s car, and the big form of Freyseng, hand on gun, crowded
close on Kalmberg’s heels.
The
moment they were gone Aulinloch dived into the locked cupboard in his library
and, a bundle under his arm, raced to the front of the house and climbed into
the taxi waiting there.
(To be continued) (Link to final part)
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