The Joker - Edgar Wallace (good book club books TXT) 📗

dented.’

 

Carlton chuckled. ‘Saw that too? I’ll remember you, constable. You had

better send the girl home in a taxi—no, I’ll take her myself.’

 

Aileen heard the proposal without enthusiasm. ‘I much prefer to walk,’

she said definitely.

 

He led her aside from the crowd now being dispersed, authoritatively. And

in such privacy as could be obtained momentarily, he revealed himself.

 

‘I am, in fact, a policeman,’ he said; and she opened her eyes in wonder.

 

He did not look like a policeman, even in the fog which plays so many

tricks. He had the appearance of a motor mechanic, and not a prosperous

one. On his head was a black beret that had seen better days; he wore an

old mack reaching to his knees; and the gloves he carried under his arm

were black with grease.

 

‘Nevertheless,’ he said firmly, as though she had given oral expression

to her surprise, ‘I am a policeman. But no ordinary policeman. I am an

inspector at Scotland Yard—a sub-inspector, it is true, but I have a

position to uphold.’

 

‘Why are you telling me all this?’

 

‘He had already hailed a taxi and now he opened the door. ‘You might

object to the escort of an ordinary policeman,’ he said airily, ‘but my

rank is so exalted that you do not need a chaperon.’

 

She entered the cab between laughter and tears, for her elbow really did

hurt more than she was ready to confess.

 

‘Rivers—Aileen Rivers,’ he mused, as the cab went cautiously along the

Embankment. ‘I’ve got you on the tip of my tongue and at the back of my

mind, but I can’t place you.’

 

‘Perhaps if you look up my record at Scotland Yard?’ she suggested,

with a certain anger at his impertinence.

 

‘I thought of doing that,’ he replied calmly; ‘but Aileen Rivers?’ He

shook his head. ‘No, I can’t place you.’ And of course he had placed her.

He knew her as the niece of Arthur Ingle, sometime Shakespearean actor

and now serving five years for an ingenious system of fraud and forgery.

But then, he was unscrupulous, as Mr Harlow had said. He had a power of

invention which carried him far beyond the creative line, but he was not

averse to stooping on the way to the most petty deceptions. And this in

spite of the fact that he had been well educated and immense sums had

been spent on the development of his mind, so that lie might distinguish

between right and wrong.

 

‘Fotheringay Mansions.’ He fingered his grimy chin. ‘How positively

exclusive!’

 

She turned on him in sudden anger. ‘I’ve accepted your escort, Mr—’ She

paused insultingly.

 

‘Carlton,’ he murmured; ‘half-brother to the hotel but no relation to the

club. And this is fame! You were saying?’

 

‘I was going to say that I wished you would not talk. You have done your

best to kill me this evening; you might at least let me die in peace.’

 

He peered through the fog-shrouded windows. ‘There’s an old woman selling

chrysanthemums near Westminster Bridge; we might stop and buy you some

flowers.’ And then, quickly: ‘I’m terribly sorry, I won’t ask you any

questions at all or make any comments upon your plutocratic residence.’

 

‘I don’t live there,’ she said in self-defence. ‘I go there sometimes to

see the place is kept in order. It belongs to a-a-relation of mine who is

abroad.’

 

‘Monte Carlo?’ he murmured. ‘And a jolly nice place too! Rien ne va plus!

Faites vos jeux, monsieurs et mesdames! Personally I prefer San Remo.

Blue sky, blue sea, green hills, white houses—everything like a railway

poster.’ And then he went off at a tangent. ‘And talking of blueness, you

were lucky not to be hit by the blue Rolls; it was going faster than me,

but it has better brakes. I rammed his petrol tank in the fog, but even

that didn’t make him stop.’

 

Her lips curled in the darkness. ‘A criminal escaping from justice, one

thinks? How terribly romantic!’

 

The young man chuckled.

 

‘One thinks wrong. It was a millionaire on his way to a City banquet. And

the only criminal charge I can bring home to him is that he wears large

diamond studs in his shirt, which offence is more against my aesthetic

taste than the laws of my country, God bless it!’

 

The cab was slowing, the driver leaning sideways seeking to identify the

locality.

 

‘We’re here,’ said Mr Carlton; opened the door of the taxi while it was

still in motion and jumped out.

 

The machine stopped before the portals of Fotheringay Mansions.

 

‘Thank you very much for bringing me home,’ said Aileen primly and

politely, and added not without malice: ‘I’ve enjoyed your conversation.’

 

‘You should hear my aunt,’ said the young man. ‘Her line of talk is sheer

poetry!’

 

He watched her until she was swallowed in the gloom, and returned to the

cab.

 

‘Scotland Yard,’ he said laconically; ‘and take a bit of a risk, O son of

Nimshi.’

 

The cabman took the necessary risk and arrived without hurt at the gloomy

entrance of police headquarters. Jim Carlton waved a brotherly greeting

to the sergeant at the desk, took the stairs two at a time, and came to

his own little room. As a rule he was not particularly interested in his

personal appearance, but now, glancing at the small mirror which

decorated the upturned top of a washstand, he uttered a groan.

 

He was busy getting the grease from his face when the melancholy face of

Inspector Elk appeared in the doorway.

 

‘Going to a party?’ he asked gloomily.

 

‘No,’ said Jim through the lather; ‘I often wash.’

 

Elk sniffed, seated himself on the edge of a hard chair, searched his

pockets slowly and thoroughly.

 

‘It’s in the inside pocket of my jacket,’ spluttered Carlton. ‘Take one;

I’ve counted ‘em.’

 

Elk sighed heavily as he took out the long leather case, and, selecting a

cigar, lit it.

 

‘Seegars are not what they was when I was a boy,’ he said, gazing at the

weed disparagingly. ‘For sixpence you could get a real Havana. Over in

New York everybody smokes cigars. But then, they pay the police a livin’

wage; they can afford it.’

 

Mr Carlton looked over his towel. ‘I’ve never known you to buy a cigar in

your life,’ he said deliberately. ‘You can’t get them cheaper than for

nothing!’

 

Inspector Elk was not offended. ‘I’ve smoked some good cigars in my

time,’ he said. ‘Over in the Public Prosecutor’s office in Mr Gordon’s

days—he was the fellow that smashed the Frogs—him and me, that is to

say,’ he corrected himself carefully.

 

‘The Frogs? Oh, yes, I remember. Mr Gordon had good cigars, did he?’

 

‘Pretty good,’ said Elk cautiously. ‘I wouldn’t say yours was worse, but

it’s not better.’ And then, without a change of voice: ‘Have you pinched

Stratford Harlow?’

 

Jim Carlton made a grimace of disgust. ‘Tell me something I can pinch him

for,’ he invited.

 

‘He’s worth fifteen millions according to accounts,’ said Elk. ‘No man

ever got fifteen million honest.’

 

Jim Carlton turned a white, wet face to his companion. ‘He inherited

three from his father, two from one aunt, one from another. The Harlows

have always been a rich family, and in the last decade they’ve graded

down to maiden aunts. He had a brother in America who left him eight

million dollars.’

 

Elk sighed and scratched his thin nose.

 

‘He’s in Ratas too,’ he said complainingly.

 

‘Of course he’s in Ratas!’ scoffed Jim. ‘Ellenbury hides him, but even if

he didn’t, there’s nothing criminal in Ratas. And supposing he was openly

in it, that would be no offence.

 

‘Oh!’ said Elk, and by that ‘Oh!’ indicated his tentative disagreement.

 

There was nothing furtive or underhand about the Rata Syndicate. It was

registered as a public company, and had its offices in Westshire House,

Old Broad Street, in the City of London, and its New York office on Wall

Street. The Rata Syndicate published a balance sheet and employed a staff

of ten clerks, three of whom gained further emoluments by acting as

directors of the company, under the chairmanship of a retired colonel of

infantry. The capital was a curiously small one, but the resources of the

syndicate were enormous. When Rata cornered rubber, cheques amounting to

five millions sterling passed outward through its banking accounts; in

fact every cent involved in that great transaction appeared in the books

except the fifty thousand dollars that somebody paid to Lee Hertz and his

two friends.

 

Lee arrived from New York on a Friday afternoon. On the Sunday morning

the United Continental Rubber Company’s stores went up in smoke. Nearly

eighteen thousand tons of rubber were destroyed in that well-organised

conflagration, and rubber jumped 80 per cent in twenty-four hours and 200

per cent in a week. For the big reserves that kept the market steady had

been wiped out in the twinkling of an eye, to the profit of Rata

Incorporated.

 

Said the New York Headquarters to Scotland Yard: Lee Hertz, Jo Klein and

Philip Serrett well known fire bugs believed to be in London stop See

record NY 9514 mailed you October 7 for description stop Possibility you

may connect them United Continental fire.

 

By the time Scotland Yard located Lee he was in Paris in his well-known

role of American Gentleman Seeing the Sights.

 

‘It doesn’t look right to me,’ said Elk, puffing luxuriously at the

cigar. ‘Here’s Rata, buys rubber with not a ghost of a chance of its

rising. And suddenly, biff! A quarter of the reserve stock in this

country is burnt out, and naturally prices and shares rise. Rata’s been

buying ‘em for months. Did they know that the United was going west?’

 

‘I thought it might have been an accident,’ said Jim, who had never

thought anything of the sort.

 

‘Accident my grandmother’s right foot!’ said Elk, without heat. ‘The

stores were lit up in three places—the salvage people located the

petrol. A man answering the description of Jo Klein was drinking with the

night watchman the day before, and that watchman swears he never saw this

Jo bird again, but he’s probably lying. The lower classes lie easier than

they drink. Ten millions, and if Harlow’s behind Rata, he made more than

that on the rubber deal. Buying orders everywhere! Toronto, Rio,

Calcutta—every loose bit of rubber lifted off the market. Then comes the

fire, and up she goes! All I got to say is—’

 

The telephone bell rang shrilly at that second, and Jim Carlton picked up

the receiver.

 

‘Somebody wants you, Inspector,’ said the exchange clerk.

 

There was a click, an interval of silence, and then a troubled voice

asked:

 

‘Can I speak to Mr Carlton?’

 

‘Yes, Miss Rivers.’

 

‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ There was a nattering relief in the voice. ‘I

wonder if you would come to Fotheringay Mansions, No. 63?’

 

‘Is anything wrong?’ he asked quickly.

 

‘I don’t know, but one of the bedroom doors is locked, and I’m sure

there’s nobody in there.’