Corner House — Chapter XXIX, A Knock at the Door; Chapter XXX, Prout Gets a Clue; Chapter XXXI, An Urgent Call
There was nothing for it now but to obey.
Hetty followed slowly and crept up to her own bedroom.
Once there, she dropped into a chair, and just for the moment the whole world seemed to be whirling before her sightless eyes.
CHAPTER XXIX. A KNOCK AT THE DOOR.
But it was not for long that Hetty remained like that.
There was much to be done yet and much to learn.
The thought of Gordon spurred her on.
If she could get this woman into her power and force her to speak, all would be well.
Hetty never doubted for a moment that Leona Lalage was at the bottom of her lover's misfortunes.
If she could only communicate with Gordon!
But how was that to be done?
Hetty thought for a moment.
Then the inspiration came to her.
In her stockinged feet she crept down to the basement to the housekeeper's room and closed the door behind her.
She was not more than a minute gone, and when she reached her room again it was with the knowledge that she could count on somebody now.
These two fiends would not dare to do him any harm now.
All the same, Hetty made up her mind not to go to bed.
She had Mamie in her own room, the door of which she left purposely open.
If the worst came to the worst she could ring the electric alarm on the top landing and rouse the household.
Mamie was sleeping peacefully with her head on her hand.
"You poor little soul?"
Hetty murmured.
"Ah, you poor little soul!"
Meanwhile the precious twain downstairs had laid their burden on a couch in the dining-room.
Balmayne himself poured out a glass of wine, and carried it unsteadily to his lips.
He was worn out and shaking; he did not know what to do.
It was not often that he was so hopelessly beaten as this.
"A mischievous boy with a pocket knife, and a white-faced cat of a governess with a headache," she said, bitterly.
"It's maddening to think of a little thing like that coming between us and our schemes.
And if I thought for a moment that Hetty Lawrence really suspected anything----" "Pshaw!"
Balmayne growled.
"She doesn't suspect anything.
Her manner was too simple and natural for that.
And the girl carries her goodness and purity in her face.
Oh, you can laugh, but that girl lives in another world than ours.
When I looked at her just now, she reminded me of what I might have been."
The Countess gave a low, scornful laugh.
Balmayne sentimental was amusing.
She had the profoundest contempt herself for girls of Hetty's type.
It was always a mystery to her what men could see in them.
"Well, she saved us from murder tonight," Balmayne said, looking grimly down into the white face on the sofa.
"By Jove, he's coming to!"
Maitrank stirred and stirred uneasily.
Then he opened his eyes and stared round him.
His quick, active mind was beginning to work.
But those eyes were a little uneasy and fearsome as they saw both Leona and Balmayne there.
"What has happened?"
Maitrank asked.
"Have I been asleep or what?
There's something that seems to burn into my brain.
Have I been ill?"
"Looks like it!"
said Balmayne.
"You left here all right some time ago."
"I know.
I remember that now.
I said goodnight to the Countess--eh, eh, the Countess!
--and there was a policeman outside talking to a man in evening dress.
He said goodnight to me and I walked down the road.
I don't recollect anything else."
He paused in some confusion.
He had the profoundest respect for the cunning and audacity of the people with whom he had to deal.
Was this some startling new plot that they had been working on him?
"Then how did I get back again?"
he asked.
"I found you in the road," Balmayne said boldly.
"I was going away from here, seeing that my services were no longer required.
I happened to find you.
I was just in time, for one of the street prowlers was going through your pockets.
Probably your fur coat attracted his attention.
It is fortunate----" Maitrank plunged his hands into his pockets.
"I have been robbed!"
he cried, "robbed of those diamonds!
Ah, tell me what is this new trick you have played on me!
Help!
Help!"
He yelled aloud.
The scream of rage and disappointment rang through the house.
It caused a servant to turn over sleepily and wonder what the matter was, it roused little Mamie, and brought her up in bed with a scream of fear.
Hetty heard it too, and wondered if murder was not being committed after all.
She could not stand there doing nothing.
She ran downstairs and burst into the dining-room.
She had a good excuse at the end of her tongue.
The Countess turned upon her fiercely and demanded what she was doing there.
"Mamie," Hetty said simply.
"The child has been greatly frightened.
She is calling for you.
Will you please go up at once?"
It was all so simple and natural that Leona Lalage could say nothing for a moment.
The stranger was standing up searching his pockets wildly.
His eyes gleamed with hatred and defeat and baffled avarice.
He knew that he had been made the victim of some trick, but there was no name for it yet.
"I will come up," Leona said, anything to get Hetty out of the room.
"It is very unfortunate that this should have happened here."
The door closed behind them.
Maitrank's fingers crooked and reached for Balmayne.
"Dog," he hissed, "dog, I'll be even with you yet.
How it has been managed I do not know yet, but I shall find out.
My diamonds, give me my diamonds."
Balmayne took the bare throat of the speaker in his grip and shook Maitrank as a reed is shaken in the wind.
"Be silent!"
he hissed; "have a care or----" He paused.
There was a loud imperious knocking at the front door.
CHAPTER XXX. PROUT GETS A CLUE.
Sergeant Paul Prout was beginning to come to the conclusion that the Corner House mystery would have to be relegated to the long list of crimes concerning which Scotland-Yard is fain to be silent.
At any rate, the matter was utterly beyond him.
Given a clue to work on, no man in the force could display more tenacity and skill.
But there was nothing to go upon, and Prout was utterly devoid of imagination.
Of course, there was always the chance of coming on the track obliquely.
None knew better than Prout how frequently one crime interlocked with another, and how often in looking for one particular criminal another had been arrested.
He came into the inspector's office in answer to a summons.
Inspector Manton passed over some papers to his subordinate.
"I want you to read them and act upon them," he said.
"You'll have to put that Corner House business out of your head for a day or two at any rate.
It appears that a gang of cosmopolitan swindlers have established their headquarters somewhere in Soho, and by means of using several addresses they are getting a tremendous quantity of goods which they proceed to turn into money.
Here is one of their advertisements cut from the _Standard_.
You had better answer it, and get in touch with the fellows that way.
But nobody can manage that sort of thing better than you."
Prout felt himself quite capable to account for this matter.
He proceeded to lay the whole particulars before a friend in the wholesale silver-plate line--just the kind of article the gang of thieves affected--and so procured the genuine address of a genuine trader for the purposes of the capture.
"I expect you'll get orders from five or six addresses," said Prout.
"If so, send the stuff on, not too much at a time, and ask for references.
You'll get the reference, of course; in other words, Jones and Company, of Gray's Inn, will recommend Smith and Company, of Market Street.
When you get all the references in let me know, because by that means I shall be in possession of every address used by these fellows."
To keep the big swindle going on and to avoid awkward mistakes it was necessary for the confederates to meet at intervals.
By small purchases at one address or another Prout had pretty well got to know all the gang by sight, and by following one or another he discovered at last where the rendezvous was--a public-house of not too good repute in White Lane, leading off Oxford Street.
Next day a sallow, seedy, broken-down shop assistant sought and obtained a bedroom at the _Orange Tree_ public-house.
He seemed to have money, and therefore he was welcome.
He hinted that he was "in trouble" over some stolen goods from his late employer's shop, and the _Orange Tree_ received him with open arms.
It was weary work sitting there and pretending to drink, but patience has its reward at last.
Gradually the shy swindlers became accustomed to the seedy shop assistant, who even went out of his way to give them hints as to credulous firms.
It seemed to Prout that he knew all the gang at last save one.
And this one he particularly wanted to see, because the name was unknown to him.
In all the swindlers in London it was the first time Prout had heard of one called "Frenchy."
And the particular member of the gang--absent from London on business--seemed to be the leader of them all.
Once Frenchy showed himself, Prout would give the sign, and within an hour the gang would be laid by the heels.
He came at length, a little dapper man, with a slight hump between the shoulders, a nose slightly crooked on one side.
He appeared to take his warm welcome quite as a matter of course, he discarded a pair of grey suède gloves, and called for a bottle of champagne.
Behind his paper Prout gave a start.
Here was a case where the pursuit of one crime led to another.
The leader of the gang of thieves had large orange coloured freckles on his hand the same as Prout had seen on the hands of the victim of the Corner House tragedy.
Prout was calm again in an instant.
In a dejected way he was looking admiringly at the newcomer.
The little man's English was quite good, but all the same he spoke with an accent that had a strange French flavour about it.
Just on closing time Prout lounged out in his most dejected style, and bought a late paper.
"Now, look here," he said to the man with the papers.
"Those men are to be arrested, but so far away from here as not to give any suspicion of the house being watched.
The little dandy chap who just came in is to be left to me.
That's all."
Apparently it was quite sufficient.
As the gang separated one by one, each was picked up by an officer in plain clothes.
The little man in the suede gloves went cautiously on till he came to a working-man's flat off Gray's Inn Road, and here for the first time he became conscious that he was being followed.
"And what do you want with me?"
he asked.
"So, you are the young man who got into trouble over a mistake as to your employer's goods."
"I want to speak to you for a moment," said Prout.
The little man pointed gaily up the stairs.
Prout followed him into a room and shut the door.
The next instant the small Frenchman was on his back and the handcuffs encircled his wrists.
"No use making a noise here," said Prout coolly.
"It was a good idea of yours to hide yourself amongst respectable working men."
The little man struggled silently, furiously.
"Now, what's the good of that?"
said Prout in his most soothing voice.
"With these bracelets on you can't possibly get at the revolver in your hip pocket.
I am a police officer, and by this time the whole of your lot are in custody.
I've got the key of the door in my pocket, and I'm going to search the room."
The little man's language burst out furiously.
Nothing less than war between France and England should wipe out this insult to the tricolour.
Prout had burst open a desk and was examining the papers there as tranquilly as if he were stone deaf.
He came across something presently that caused his eyes to gleam and his heart to beat with a feeling of triumph.
"Now you can come along with me," he said.
"If you like to walk you can, and if you like to pay for a cab I am agreeable.
What do you say?"
The little man elected to have a cab.
When Bow Street was reached Prout had the satisfaction of finding that all his birds had been netted.
He received the warm congratulations of his inspector modestly.
"Got your case complete?"
asked the latter.
"I've done more than that, sir," said Prout.
"I've stumbled on something important relating to that Corner House business.
And if you don't want me any more, I'd like to go and see Mr. Gilbert Lawrence."
There was nothing more to be done for the present.
Ten minutes later Prout was knocking at the door of Lawrence's chambers.
CHAPTER XXXI. AN URGENT CALL.
Lawrence was burning the midnight oil, and therefore impatient of interruptions.
But upon hearing Prout's name he finished the chapter he was writing, and slung up his reading lamp.
He was hospitable over his cigarette and whisky.
"Come to tell me you have made a discovery, eh?"
he asked.
"No need to tell me that, I can see it in your face.
Sit down man--one o'clock in the morning is comparatively early for a novelist.
Go on."
"It's a great discovery, sir," said Prout.
"I have found the brother of the murdered man."
"What, the Corner House victim?
Is that really a fact?"
"Indeed it is, sir.
A good deal better looking than the other poor fellow, but directly I set eyes upon him I couldn't fail to see the likeness.
And when he took off his gloves, and showed the big orange spots, I felt certain."
"I suppose you can lay hands upon him at any time?"
"Rather!"
Prout grinned.
"He's my prisoner.
Arrested him tonight in connection with some long firm frauds.
I arrested him in his own lodgings so that I should have a chance to search the room, and what did I come across but a few letters written by the murdered man to this brother of his."
"Surely, a curious coincidence!"
Lawrence cried.
"Not at all, sir.
There's a marvellous freemasonry amongst criminals.
I've started a hunt for a watch and chain, and found a bank robbery.
Once in looking for a missing man I dropped upon a sensational bankruptcy.
One never knows.
But touching these letters.
They are undoubtedly the same handwriting as the letter we found on the Corner House victim.
I've put them together, and I am certain."
"Do they contain anything likely to help us, Prout?"
"Well, that I can't say for the present, sir," Prout replied.
"I have only looked at one.
Seeing that you are so interested, I came here at once.
But one thing I have discovered--if I was a creditor of a certain Countess who shall be nameless, I should go and sit on the doorstep until I had got the money."
Lawrence winked never so slightly.
He had his own ideas on that head.
He read the one letter that Prout handed to him and smiled.
Beyond doubt the letter had been written by the queer misshapen outcast who had been found dead in the Corner House.
As Lawrence returned the letter he looked at his watch.
"It wants some time of two o'clock yet," he said.
"My friend, Dr. Bruce, does not go to bed early, so I shall go round and look him up.
We'll go into the other letters carefully when we have time, Prout, but for the present I should like to borrow this one if you have no objection.
What do you say?"
Prout had no objection to make.
He had made a great discovery, but he felt pretty sure that he would need Lawrence's ingenious mind and fine imagination before he had succeeded in solving the problem.
"Take it, and welcome, sir," he said.
"I shall have my hands full for the next day or two, and anyway there is no hurry."
With the feeling that great events were in the air, Lawrence hurried round to Bruce's rooms.
There was a light in the front window that disclosed the fact that Bruce had not gone to bed.
He came to the door himself, looking fagged and worn out.
"I have had a trying day," he said.
"My dear fellow, I am losing my connection almost as fast as I made it.
I shall have to give it up."
"Rot!"
Lawrence cried.
"I've got some news for you.
Prout has been with me and has left a letter in my possession.
What do you think of that?"
Bruce read the letter slowly and carefully.
Beyond establishing the fact that the murdered man had a brother he could see very little in it.
"Unless there are other letters," he concluded.
"There are five more which I have not read yet.
I understand there are allusions to a certain Countess who, as Prout politely put it, shall be nameless.
My boy, I feel quite certain that this will lead to--what's up?"
The shrill clatter of the telephone bell tinkled in the next room.
The ring was repeated in a few seconds imperiously.
"The telephone for me," said Bruce.
"I hope I shan't have to go out tonight.
I'll get you to excuse me for a moment.
.
.
.
Are you there?"
A whispered voice came back; it was Hetty's voice: "For heaven's sake come here at once.
Don't wait, but----" The voice ceased; nothing more could be heard but the humming of the wire.
Bruce swished into the dining-room and huddled on his coat.
