When he would refer to these he must needs emerge blinking from the blinding light in which he worked and go groping in the darkness for the needed ‘memorandum.
He was sitting at his desk now, intent upon his work.
At his elbow stood a pad, on which he wrote from time to time.
Seemingly his task was an aimless one. He wrote nothing save the neat jottings upon his pad. Bundles of manuscript came to him, blue books, cuttings from other newspapers; these he looked at rather than read, looked at them in a hard, strained fashion, put them in this basket or that, as the fancy seized him, chose another bundle, stared at it, fluttered the leaves rapidly, and so continued. He had the appearance of a man solving some puzzle, piecing together intricate parts to make one comprehensive whole. When he hesitated, as he sometimes did, and seemed momentarily doubtful as to which basket a manuscript should be consigned, you felt the suggestion of mystery with which his movements were enveloped, and held your breath. When he had decided upon the basket you hoped for the best, but wondered vaguely what would have happened if he had chosen the other.
The door that opened into the tape-room was swinging constantly now, for it wanted twenty minutes to eleven. Five tickers chattered incessantly, and there was a constant procession of agency boys and telegraph messengers passing in and out the vestibule of the silent building. And the pneumatic tubes that ran from the front hall to the subs’ room hissed and exploded periodically, and little leathern carriers rattled into the wire basket at the chief sub’s elbow.
News! news! news!
A timber fire at Rotherhithe; the sudden rise in Consols; the Sultan of Turkey grants an amnesty to political offenders; a man kills his wife at Wolverhampton; a woman cyclist run down by a motorcar; the Bishop of Elford denounces Nonconformists —
News for tomorrow’s breakfast table! Intellectual stimulant for the weary people who are even now kicking off their shoes with a sleepy yawn and wondering whether there will be anything in the paper tomorrow.
A boy came flying through the swing door of the tape-room, carrying in his hand a slip of paper. He laid it before the chief sub.
That restless man looked at it, then looked at the clock.
“Take it to Mr. Greene,” he said shortly, and reached for the speaking-tube that connected him with the printer.
“There will be a three-column splash on page five,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice.
“What’s up?” His startled assistant was on his feet.
“A man found murdered in T.B. Smith’s chambers,” he said.
*
The inquest was over, the stuffy little court discharged its morbid public, jurymen gathered in little knots on the pavement permitted themselves to theorise, feeling, perhaps, that the official verdict of “murder against some person or persons unknown” needed amplification.
“My own opinion is,” said the stout foreman, “that nobody could have done it, except somebody who could have got into his chambers unknown.”
“That’s my opinion, too,” said another juryman.
“I should have liked to add a rider,” the foreman went on, something like this: ‘We call the coroner’s attention to the number of undiscovered murders nowadays, and severely censure the police,’ but he wouldn’t have it.”
“They ‘ang together,” said a gloomy little man; “ — p’lice and coroners and doctors, they ‘ang together, there’s corruption somewhere. I’ve always said it.”
“Here’s a feller murdered,” the foreman went on, “in a detective’s room, the same detective that’s in charge of the Moss murder. We’re told his name’s Hyatt, we’re told he was sent to that room by the detective whilst he’s engaged in some fanciful business in the north — is that sense?”
“Then there’s the Journal,” interrupted the man of gloom, “it comes out this mornin’ with a cock-an’-bull story about these two murders being connected with the slump — why, there ain’t any slump! The market went up the very day this chap Hyatt was discovered.”
“Sensation,” said the foreman, waving deprecating hands, “newspaper sensation. Any lie to sell the newspapers, that’s their motto.”
The conversation ended abruptly, as T.B. Smith appeared at the entrance of the court. His face was impassive, his attire, as usual, immaculate, but those who knew him best detected signs of worry.
“For Heaven’s sake,” he said to a young man who approached him, “don’t talk to me now — you beggar, your wretched rag has upset all my plans.”
“But, Mr. Smith,” pleaded the reporter.
“What we said was true, wasn’t it?”
“‘A lie that is half the truth,’” quoted T.B. solemnly.
“But it is true — there is some connection between the murders and the slump, and, I say, do your people know anything about the mysterious disappearance of that dancing girl from the Philharmonic?”
“Oh, child of sin!” T.B. shook his head reprovingly. “Oh, collector of romance!”
“One last question,” said the reporter. “Do you know a man named Escoltier?”
“Not,” said T.B. flippantly, “from a crow — why? is he suspected of abducting your dancing lady?”
“No,” said the reporter, “he’s suspected of pulling our editor’s leg.”
T.B. was all this time walking away from the court, and the reporter kept step with him.
“And what is the nature of his hoax?” demanded T.B.
He was not anxious for information, but he was very desirous of talking about nothing — it had been a trying day for him.
“Oh, the usual thing; wants to tell us the greatest crime that ever happened — a great London crime that the police have not discovered.”
“Dear me!” said T.B. politely, “wants payment in advance?”
“No; that’s the curious thing about it,” said the reporter. “All he wants is protection.” T.B. stopped dead and faced the young man. He dropped the air of boredom right away.
“Protection?” he said quickly, “from whom?”
“That is just what he doesn’t say — in fact, he’s rather vague on that point — why don’t you go up and see Delawn, the editor?”
T.B. thought a moment.
“Yes,” he nodded. “That is an idea. I will go at once.”
In the holy of holies, the inner room within the inner room, wherein the editor of the London Morning Journal saw those visitors who were privileged to pass the outer portal, T.B. Smith sat, a sorely puzzled man, a scrap of disfigured paper in his hands.
He read it again and looked up at the editor.
“This might of course be a fake,” he said.
“It doesn’t read like a fake,” said the other.
“Admitting your authority on the subject of fakes, Tom,” said T.B., — they were members of the same club, which fact in itself is a license for rudeness,—” I am still in the dark. Why does this — what is his name?”
“Escoltier.”
“Why does this man Escoltier write to a newspaper, instead of coming straight to the police?”
“Because he is a Frenchman, I should imagine,” said the editor. “The French have the newspaper instinct more highly developed