“So does a dog when you tread on his tail,” replied Maurice. “You fool!” he snarled with unexpected malignity. “You halfwit! At the mention of the Darnleigh pearls you almost betrayed yourself. Did you realise to whom you were talking, who was probably watching you? The shrewdest detective in the C.I.D.! The man who caught Hersey, who hanged Gostein, who broke up the Flack Gang.”
“He didn’t notice anything,” said the other sulkily, and then, to turn the conversation to his advantage: “You had a letter this morning, was there anything about the pearls in it — are they sold?”
The anger faded from the lawyer’s face; again he was his suave self.
“Do you imagine, my dear lad, that one can sell fifteen thousand pounds’ worth of pearls in a week? What do you suppose is the procedure — that one puts them up at Christie’s?”
Johnny Lenley’s lips tightened. For a while he was silent. When he spoke his voice had lost some of its querulous quality.
“It was queer that Wembury was on the case — apparently they’ve given up hope. Of course, old Lady Darnleigh has no suspicion—”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” warned Meister. “Every guest at No. 304, Park Lane, on that night is suspect. You, more than any, because everybody knows you’re broke. Moreover, one of the footmen saw you going up the main stairs just before you left.”
“I told him I was going to get my coat,” said Johnny Lenley quickly, and a troubled look came to his face. “Why did you mention that I was there to Wembury?”
Maurice laughed.
“Because he knew; I was watching him as I spoke. There was the faintest glint in his eyes that told me. I’ll set your mind at ease; the person at present under suspicion is her unfortunate butler. Don’t imagine that the case has blown over — it hasn’t. Anyway, the police are too active for the moment for us to dream of disposing of the pearls, and we shall have to wait a favourable opportunity when they can be placed in Antwerp.”
He threw away the end of the thin cigarette, took a gold cigarette-case from his waistcoat pocket, selected another with infinite care and lit it, Johnny watching him enviously.
“You’re a cool devil. Do you realise that if the truth came out about those pearls it would mean penal servitude for you, Maurice?”
Maurice sent a ring of smoke into the air.
“I certainly realise it would mean penal servitude for you, my young friend. I fancy that it would be rather difficult to implicate me. If you choose for your amusement to be a robber baron, or was it a Duke of Padua? — I forget the historical precedent — and engage yourself in these Rafflesish adventures, that is your funeral entirely. Because I knew your father and I’ve known you since you were a child, I take a little risk. Perhaps the adventure of it appeals to me—”
“Rot!” said Johnny Lenley brutally. “You’ve been a crook ever since you were able to walk. You know every thief in London and you’ve ‘fenced’—”
“Don’t use that word!” Maurice Meister’s deep voice grew suddenly sharp. “As I told you just now, you are crude. Did I instigate this robbery of Lady Darnleigh’s pearls? Did I put it into your head that thieving was more profitable than working, and that with your education and entry to the best houses you had opportunities which were denied to a meaner — thief?”
This word was as irritating to Johnny Lenley as “fence” had been to the lawyer.
“Anyway, we are in, the same boat,” he said. “You couldn’t give me away without ruining yourself. I don’t say you instigated anything, but you’ve been jolly helpful, Maurice. Some day I’ll make you a rich man.”
The dark, sloe-like eyes turned slowly in his direction. At any other time this patronage of the younger man would have infuriated Meister; now he was only piqued.
“My young friend,” he said precisely, “you are a little overconfident. Robbery with or without violence is not so simple a matter as you imagine. You think you’re clever—”
“I’m a little bit smarter than Wembury,” said Johnny complacently.
Maurice Meister concealed a smile.
It was not to the rosery that Mary led her visitor but to the sunken garden, with its crazy paving and battered statuary. There was a cracked marble bench overlooking a still pool where water-lilies grew, and she allowed him to dust a place for her before she sat down.
“Alan, I’m going to tell you something. I’m talking to Alan Wembury, not to Inspector Wembury,” she warned him, and he showed his astonishment.
“Why, of course…” He stopped; he had been on the point of calling her by name. “I’ve never had the courage to call you Mary, but I feel — old enough!”
This claim of age was a cowardly expedient, he told himself, but at least it was successful. There was real pleasure in her voice when she replied: “I’m glad you do. ‘Miss Mary’ would sound horribly unreal. In you it would sound almost unfriendly.”
“What is the trouble?” he asked, as he sat down by her side.
She hesitated only a second.
“Johnny,” she said. “He talks so oddly about things. It’s a terrible thing to say, Alan, but it almost seems as though he’s forgotten the distinction between right and wrong. Sometimes I think he only says these things in a spirit of perversity. At other times I feel that he means them. He talks harshly about poor, dear father, too. I find that difficult to forgive. Poor daddy was very careless and extravagant, but he was a good father to Johnny — and to me,” she said, her voice breaking.
“What do you mean when you say Johnny talks oddly?”
She shook her head.
“It isn’t only that: he has such strange friends. We had a man here last week — I only saw him, I did not speak to him — named Hackitt. Do you know him?”
“Hackitt? Sam Hackitt?” said Wembury in surprise. “Good Lord, yes! Sam and I are old acquaintances!”
“What is he?” she asked.
“He’s a burglar,” was the calm reply. “Probably Johnny was interested in the man and had him down—”
She shook her head.
“No, it wasn’t for that.” She bit her lip. “Johnny told me a lie; he said that this man was an artisan who was going to Australia. You’re sure this is your Sam Hackitt?”
Alan gave a very vivid, if brief, description of the little thief.
“That is he,” she nodded. “And, of course, I know he was an unpleasant sort of man. Alan, you don’t think that Johnny is bad, do you?”
He had never thought of Johnny as a possible subject for police observation. “Of course not!”
“But these peculiar friends of his — ?”
It was an opportunity not to be passed.
“I’m afraid, Mary, you’re going to meet a lot of people like Hackitt, and worse than Hackitt, who isn’t a bad soul if he could keep his fingers to himself.”
“Why?” she asked in amazement.
“You think of becoming Meister’s secretary — Mary, I wish you wouldn’t.”
She drew away a little, the better to observe him.
“Why on earth, Alan…? Of course, I understand what you mean. Maurice has a large number of clients, and I’m pretty sure to see them, but they won’t corrupt my young mind!”
“I’m not afraid