The Clue of the Silver Key by Edgar Wallace (ereader android .TXT) 📕
'Hey!'
Reluctantly Tickler turned. He had been quick to identify the silent watcher. By straightening his shoulders and adding something of jauntiness to his stride he hoped to prevent the recognition from becoming mutual.
Surefoot Smith was one of the few people in the world who have minds like a well-organized card index. Not the smallest and least important offender who had passed through his hands could hope to reach a blissful oblivion.
'Come here--you.'
Tickler came.
'What are you doing now, Tickler? Burglary, or just fetching the beer for the con. men? Two a.m.! Got a home?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Ah, somewhere in the West End! Gone scientific, maybe. Science is the ruin of the country!'
Rights or no rights, he passed his hands swiftly over Tickler's person; the little man stretched out his arms obediently and sm
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could be left till later. In the meantime Binny knew if he were to read
the newspapers.
Oddly enough, Binny did not see the paragraph, and had already made up
his mind as to the course he would pursue.
At eight o’clock that night Surefoot called at Mary Lane’s hotel and
escorted her to the plain but very comfortable room he had secured for
her. He had a talk with the inspector on duty, but asked for no guard.
She was safe. Binny would be a bold man to show himself abroad, and he
certainly would not walk into a police station.
At half-past nine that night Surefoot returned to Scotland Yard and read
the reports which had come in. The boat train from Liverpool Street had
been carefully combed. There was no sign of Binny or anybody who might
have been Binny. Every passport had been examined before the train pulled
out and, as an act of precaution, the railway platform had been cleared
of friends who had gathered to see off the passengers before the officer
in charge had given the station master the ‘All right’.
A similar course was being followed at Waterloo, where the police were
watching and searching the trains for Havre. It was too early to hear
from the seaports.
Binny was an expert chauffeur. It was hardly likely that he would get out
of London by train if he intended leaving London.
THE DETECTIVE LEFT the Yard a few minutes after eleven and, turning to
his left, walked towards Blackfriars. To Surefoot Smith that long ribbon
of pavement which runs without a break from Scotland Yard to Savoy Hill
was a garden of thought. At headquarters somebody with a florid mind had
christened it his ‘Boulevard of Cogitation’. Summer or winter, rain or
fine, Surefoot Smith found here the solution of all his problems. Men had
been hanged, swindlers had be sent down to the shades, very commonplace
happenings had assumed a sinister importance and, by contrast, seemingly
guilty men and women had had their innocence established the course of
Surefoot Smith’s midnight recreation.
There were very few pedestrians at this hour of the night. The courting
couples, for some strange reason, chose the better lighted river side of
the road. Cars flashed past occasionally, and once an occasional night
hawk shuffled along the kerbside in search of a stray cigarette end.
Near one of the entrances to the Embankment Gardens a saloon car was
drawn up by the kerb. Glancing inside, more from habit than curiosity,
Surefoot saw the figure of a woman sitting in the back seat, and
continued his stroll. He paced on, turning over the question of Binny in
his mind.
The greater problem was solved; the more dangerous and delicate business
of effecting the man’s arrest had yet to be accomplished. He was uneasy,
which was not usual. Surefoot Smith was a great dreamer. He visualized
the most fantastic possibilities, and because he allowed his thoughts the
fullest and widest range, he was more successful than many of his
fellows. For there is this about dreaming, that it throws the commonplace
possibilities into sharp relief, and it is in the commonplace
possibilities that most detectives rely.
He turned on his tracks at Savoy Hill and walked slowly back towards the
Yard. By this time the reports would be coming in from the coast, though
it was still a little too early for any but Southampton, where an extra
vigilance was being exercised. A German-American liner, which was due at
that port that night, was taking in passengers for Hamburg, and this
event had necessitated sending a second batch of watchers to the port.
He saw the car still standing by the side of the road. It was likely that
the lady had sent her chauffeur on some errand while she waited in the
car. As he drew near her he saw that the woman was standing by the open
door of the vehicle—a middle-aged lady, he gathered by her plumpness.
To his surprise she addressed him in a high-pitched voice.
‘I wonder if you could fetch a policeman for me?’
A staggering request to make of one of the recognized heads of Scotland
Yard.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Surefoot Smith.
She stepped aside from the door.
‘My chauffeur,’ she said.’ He has come back rather the worse for drink,
and I can’t get him out of the car.’
A drunken chauffeur is an offence to all good policemen. Surefoot opened
the door wide and peered in.
He saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing. His consciousness of life
went out like a snuffed candle.
HIS HEAD WAS aching terribly. He tried to move his hands and found
movement restricted. He did not realize why for a long time.
The car was moving with great rapidity, far beyond the legalized speed
limit. There were no lights. By the whir of the wheels he guessed he was
on a newly-made road. It was queer that this fact should have appeared so
important to him. He could remember nothing, knew nothing, except that he
was lying curled up on the floor of a car which was moving rapidly and
smoothly. Then he stopped thinking again for a long time, and was glad of
the unconsciousness which obliterated that throbbing head of his.
The car was now bumping over an uneven surface. It was that which roused
him to consciousness. He blinked up, tried to raise himself, felt
gingerly along his wrists and recognized the shape of the handcuffs—his
own; he always carried an unauthorized pair in his coat pocket.
Unauthorized, because they were not of the regulation type—they were
American handcuffs, which were so much easier to put on—a tap on the
wrist and the D swung round and was fast.
Somebody had handcuffed him. Somebody had tied his legs together with a
scarf. He could feel it, but he could not reach the knot. And then he
remembered the woman and the car and the drunken chauffeur who was not
there.
The car was bumping painfully. It seemed to be passing over a ploughed
field or, at best, a cart track. It was the latter, he found when the car
stopped. A little while later the door was pulled open; he saw the
outlines of the ‘woman’ and knew exactly who ‘she’ was.
There was a little cottage a few yards away; one of those monstrous
little boxes of red brick and thing that disfigure the countryside. His
coat collar was gripped and he was jerked out into the road, falling on
his knees.
”Get up, you—’, hissed a voice, and what followed was not ladylike.
He was half dragged and half pushed towards the cottage, the door was
flung open and he was thrust into a dark interior.
It smelt of drying mortar and plaster and new wood. He guessed it was
unfurnished. He waited awhile. The door was locked on the inside and he
was again urged forward into a room so completely dark that he knew the
window was shuttered. He fell on the floor. It was amazing that he walked
at all with his legs bound, as they were, with the silk scarf.
As he lay there, a match spluttered, there was a tinkle of an oil lamp
chimney being taken off, and presently the room was illuminated by the
soft glow of a kerosene lamp. The only articles of furniture in the room
were two sofas, a chair, and a kitchen table and there was no sign of
electric light. Wooden shutters covered the window, as he had suspected.
There were neither hangings nor curtains of any description, and the
table was innocent of cloth.
His captor pulled the chair forward, sat down, his hands on hit knees,
and surveyed him. Surefoot would never have recognized this yellow-faced
old woman with a grey wig and a long fur coat. The wig was now a little
askew—it gave him a comical but terrible appearance.
He was sensitive to ridicule, took off the wig and hat with one movement
and appeared even more grotesque with his bald head and his yellow face.
‘Got you,’ said Binny huskily. He was grinning, but there was no
merriment in that smile. ‘Mr Surefoot Smith is not so sure on his feet
after all.’
The jest seemed to amuse him; and then, as though conscious of the
attitude which the situation demanded, he assumed that affected mincing
tone which had belonged to Mr Washington Wirth. ‘I built this little
place a couple of years ago. I thought it might be useful, but I haven’t
been here for a long time. I’m leaving the country. Perhaps you would
like to buy it, Mr Smith? It’s an excellent retreat for a professional
gentleman who wishes to be quiet, and you are going to be very quiet!’
From his pocket he took an automatic and laid it on the table beside him.
Then he stooped down, lifted Surefoot and sat him in a corner of the
room. Bending down, he unfastened the sagging silk scarf about his ankles
and jerked off the detective’s shoes, throwing them into another corner
of the room. He hesitated a second, then loosened Surefoot’s collar.
‘You are not hurt, my dear Mr Smith,’ he remarked. ‘A rubber truncheon
applied to the back of the neck does not kill. It is, I admit, very
uncomfortable. There was once a copper in Cincinnati who tried that
treatment on me. It was two months before I was well enough to shoot him.
You didn’t know of my little retreat?’
Surefoot’s mouth was dry, his head was whizzing, but he was entirely
without fear, though he realized his case was a desperate one. ‘Oh yes, I
did, Binny,’ he said. ‘This place is about a hundred yards from the Bath
Road near Taplow. You bought the ground four years ago, and paid three
hundred and fifty pounds for it.’ For a second Binny was thrown off his
balance. ‘This house was searched last week by my police officers, and is
now under the observation of the Buckinghamshire police. You have got
another cottage of a similar character in Wiltshire.’
‘Oh, indeed?’ Binny was completely taken aback. He was rattled too.
Surefoot saw this and pushed home his advantage.
‘What’s the good of being a fool? We have got no evidence against you for
murder. The only evidence is that you had forged Hervey Lyne’s cheques.
The worst that can happen to you is a seven stretch.’ Again he put his
finger upon the one great doubt which obsessed the man. ‘You may get an
extra year for this,’ said Surefoot, ‘but what’s a year? Get me some
water. There’s a kitchen just behind this room. Let the tap run: the
water was rusty when I was here last week. There’s a tin cup on the
dresser.’
The instinct to obey is stronger than the instinct to command. Binny went
out and returned with the tin cup and put it to the detective’s lips.
‘Now take these, handcuffs off and we’ll have a little talk. Why didn’t
you bring Mike Hennessey here instead of—’ He realized his colossal
error as soon as the words were spoken.
Binny stepped back with a snarl. ‘Don’t want me for murder, eh? You
double-crossing busy! I will show you what I want you for.’
His hand moved towards the gun on the table. He picked it up and examined
it carefully. ‘I have always wanted to tell you where you get off,
Smith—’ he began.
‘Your wish has
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