“But where is he?” said the girl, through dry lips.
“Where you ought to be, Carl,” answered Hugh grimly. “Where, sooner or later, you will be.”
He pressed the studs in the niche of the wall, and the door of the big safe swung open slowly. With a scream of terror the girl sank half-fainting on the floor, and even Peterson’s cigar dropped on the floor from his nerveless lips. For, hung from the ceiling by two ropes attached to his arms, was the dead body of Henry Lakington. And even as they watched, it sagged lower, and one of the feet hit sullenly against a beautiful old gold vase…
“My God!” muttered Peterson. “Did you murder him?”
“Oh, no!” answered Drummond. “He inadvertently fell in the bath he got ready for me, and then when he ran up the stairs in considerable pain, that interesting mechanical device broke his neck.”
“Shut the door,” screamed the girl; “I can’t stand it.”
She covered her face with her hands, shuddering, while the door slowly swung to again.
“Yes,” remarked Drummond thoughtfully, “it should be an interesting trial. I shall have such a lot to tell them about the little entertainments here, and all your endearing ways.”
With the big ledger under his arm he crossed the room, and called to some men who were standing outside in the hall; and as the detectives, thoughtfully supplied by Mr. Green, entered the central room, he glanced for the last time at Carl Peterson and his daughter. Never had the cigar glowed more evenly between the master-criminal’s lips; never had the girl Irma selected a cigarette from her gold and tortoiseshell case with more supreme indifference.
“Good-bye, my ugly one!” she cried, with a charming smile, as two of the men stepped up to her.
“Good-bye,” Hugh bowed, and a tinge of regret showed for a moment in his eyes.
“Not good-bye, Irma.” Carl Peterson removed his cigar, and stared at Drummond steadily. “Only au revoir, my friend; only au revoir.”
EPILOGUE
“I simply can’t believe it, Hugh.” In the lengthening shadows Phyllis moved a little nearer to her husband, who, quite regardless of the publicity of their position, slipped an arm round her waist.
“Can’t believe what, darling?” he demanded lazily.
“Why, that all that awful nightmare is over. Lakington dead, and the other two in prison, and us married.”
“They’re not actually in jug yet, old thing,” said Hugh. “And somehow…” He broke off and stared thoughtfully at a man sauntering past them. To all appearances he was a casual visitor taking his evening walk along the front of the well-known seaside resort so largely addicted to honeymoon couples. And yet…was he? Hugh laughed softly; he’d got suspicion on the brain.
“Don’t you think they’ll be sent to prison?” cried the girl. “They may be sent right enough, but whether they arrive or not is a different matter. I don’t somehow see Carl picking oakum. It’s not his form.”
For a while they were silent, occupied with matters quite foreign to such trifles as Peterson and his daughter.
“Are you glad I answered your advertisement?” inquired Phyllis at length.
“The question is too frivolous to deserve an answer,” remarked her husband severely.
“But you aren’t sorry it’s over?” she demanded.
“It isn’t over, kid; it’s just begun.” He smiled at her tenderly. “Your life and mine…isn’t it just wonderful?”
And once again the man sauntered past them. But this time he dropped a piece of paper on the path, just at Hugh’s feet, and the soldier, with a quick movement which he hardly stopped to analyse, covered it with his shoe. The girl hadn’t seen the action; but then, as girls will do after such remarks, she was thinking of other things. Idly Hugh watched the saunterer disappear in the more crowded part of the esplanade, and for a moment there came on to his face a look which, happily for his wife’s peace of mind, she failed to notice.
“No,” he said, à propos of nothing, “I don’t see the gentleman picking oakum. Let’s go and eat, and after dinner I’ll run you up to the top of the headland…”
With a happy sigh she rose. It was just wonderful! and together they strolled back to their hotel. In his pocket was the piece of paper; and who could be sending him messages in such a manner save one man—a man now awaiting his trial?
In the hall he stayed behind to inquire for letters, and a man nodded to him.
“Heard the news?” he inquired.
“No,” said Hugh. “What’s happened?”
“That man Peterson and the girl have got away. No trace of ’em.” Then he looked at Drummond curiously. “By the way, you had something to do with that show, didn’t you?”
“A little,” smiled Hugh. “Just a little.”
“Police bound to catch ’em again,” continued the other. “Can’t hide yourself these days.”
And once again Hugh smiled, as he drew from his pocket the piece of paper:
“Only au revoir, my friend; only au revoir.”
He glanced at the words written in Peterson’s neat writing, and the smile broadened. Assuredly life was still good; assuredly…
“Are you ready for dinner, darling?”
Quickly he swung round, and looked at the sweet face of his wife.
“Sure thing, kid,” he grinned. “Dead sure; I’ve had the best appetiser the old pot-house can produce.”
“Well, you’re very greedy. Where’s mine?”
“Effects of bachelordom, old thing. For the moment I forgot you. I’ll have another. Waiter—two Martinis.”
And into an ash-tray near by, he dropped a piece of paper torn into a hundred tiny fragments.
“Was that a love-letter?” she demanded with assumed jealousy.
“Not exactly, sweetheart,” he laughed back. “Not exactly.” And over the glasses their eyes met. “Here’s to hoping, kid; here’s to hoping.”
THE BLACK GANG (1922) [Part 1]
I
In Which Things Happen Near Barking Creek
The wind howled dismally round a house standing by itself almost on the shores of Barking Creek. It was the grey dusk of an early autumn day, and the occasional harsh cry of a sea-gull rising discordantly above the wind alone broke the silence of the flat, desolate waste.
The house seemed deserted. Every window was shuttered; the garden was uncared for and a mass of weeds; the gate leading on to the road, apparently feeling the need of a deficient top hinge, propped itself drunkenly on what once had been a flower-bed. A few gloomy trees swaying dismally in the wind surrounded the house and completed the picture—one that would have caused even the least imaginative of men to draw his coat a little tighter round him, and feel thankful that it was not his fate to live in such a place.
But then few people ever came near enough to the house to realise its sinister appearance. The road—it was little better than a cart track—which passed the gate, was out of the beaten way; only an occasional fisherman or farm labourer ever used it, and that generally