It had been agreed that on a certain Thursday Carroll and the safe would try conclusions, but on the previous Tuesday Carroll developed influenza. Since postponement would mean that the attempt would be hampered by the returned Mrs Lisman—who had no habits—only impulses, and whose comings and goings were incalculable, Carroll after some persuasion agreed to let Kif, who was broke and correspondingly eager, attempt the work himself. Angel was hot and shivering and obviously sickening for the same malady as his father, and was therefore no help. So Kif was given one or two of Carroll's most precious possessions to supplement his own equipment, and departed from Northey Terrace in the early afternoon with those and Carroll's blessing. He spent the evening at Danny's rooms, but Danny, who seemed restless and depressed, did not share his jubilation over the night's work. Kif wondered if he were annoyed that he had not been asked to take Carroll's place, and then dismissed the thought as being not in accordance with the evidence where Danny was concerned. Jealous of his own he might be, but envy did not exist in him.
'Are you sickening for 'flu too?' he asked as he was departing with two books.
'Don't think so,' said Danny. 'Got the hump just.'
'None of the various theories any good to-night?' Kif grinned.
'Not a bit. Everyone comes up against the fact of luck in the end. They've all tried to explain it away, and no one's ever succeeded. It's just there and you can't dodge it. A monstrous iniquity. And no theories are any use.'
'Have ten grains of aspirin,' said Kif, but his hand on Danny's shoulder had an affectionate touch.
'I wish you'd call it off to-night,' Danny said for the third time.
'You are an old grouch,' Kif said. 'And that reminds me—lend me your automatic. I almost forgot to ask you. My old gat weighs half a ton, and I can't afford to give away weight to-night—even if I did beat Angel on points the other night. Did you hear that? We sparred six rounds…What?'
'I say don't carry a gun at all to-night. It's much safer not.'
'Safer for who?' Kif grinned again. 'Don't be afraid. I'm not going to use it. But if presenting it is going to make a good get-away out of a tight place for me I'd be a fool not to take it. You don't imagine I'm going back there' he jerked his head vaguely to indicate prison, 'if I can help it?'
So Kif left Danny's rooms with the automatic in one pocket and two books under his arm.
At Number Eighteen he collected a muffler, an attaché case and an umbrella—the twin of Delilah—and laid the two books on the table by his bed, where Danny found them long afterwards.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It was nearly one when he found himself in the garden of the house at Kew. It was a dark night, with a light frost and no wind. The house was in complete darkness—a mere thickening in the blackness in front of him—but in his head was a clear and accurate map of his surroundings. He moved over the grass, avoiding the beds as though he could see them, until he came to the edge of the carriage-sweep. He followed that on the grass until he reckoned that he had left the carriageway behind and had only a path between himself and the house. He crossed that slowly. The paths, he knew, were made of exceedingly fine bright red sand. As he took each step he obliterated the mark of the last by a scuffling movement of his toe. His gloved hand touched the wall, and he felt along it for the beginning of the study window. It was longer in coming than he had anticipated, and for a moment he was afraid that he had lost his bearings after all. And then his hand slid into nothingness where a moment before there had been brick; he was all right. Six or seven minutes' work at the window, six seconds with the burglar alarm, and he lifted a cautious leg over the sill, laid his case on the floor, and stepped into the centrally heated warmth of the house.
He stood there listening. The door of the room must be open because he could hear the pompous thud-thud of the hall clock. Another ticked fussily near at hand, on the mantelpiece, presumably. Still he waited. There was another ticking, sharp and irregular, that puzzled him, until a sharper report than usual enlightened him; it was the cooling cinders of a dead fire. Still he waited, standing by the tall curtain, a cold light air at the back of his neck, the warm cigar-scented atmosphere of the house in his nostrils. Nothing stirred. In all the night nothing stirred but the two clocks, one agitated and one aloof. Gently he pulled the heavy silk curtains across the window and took out his torch. It lighted a small table set with a siphon and sandwiches. So this was where old Lisman ate on his return if he were sober enough. Well, that was not often, and in any case he would be away by then.
He moved carefully to the open door and stood there looking into the dark hall, listening. Not a movement. He closed the door soundlessly, switched on the light, and returned to his case. He knew where the safe was, perfunctorily hidden by a marqueterie bureau; Mr Lisman relied more on the workmanship of the safe than on any subtlety in concealment. If he cracked this it would be a feather in his cap, and Carroll would have to admit that the pupil was nearly as good as the master. He looked at the drinks wistfully for a moment but decided against them. Apart from the necessity of keeping a clear head, he wanted, if he did the job neatly, to leave the fact of the robbery unsuspected as long as possible.
He had been working for perhaps ten minutes when a dull thud sounded somewhere. He stopped instantly, his ears strained, his eyes on the door. Would he have time to get to the switch before the door opened? 'Now you're going to be caught! Now you're going to be caught!' chattered the clock exultantly. But nothing happened. The silence hung thick and still as ever.
And yet that thud had sounded in the house somewhere. He drew Danny's automatic from his pocket and laying it within easy reach resumed his work. For two minutes he worked; and then everything happened at once.
He heard the breeze of the door opening, and turned to see Lisman, apparently perfectly sober, his hands in his coat pockets, surveying him and saying: 'Oh, you vould, vould you!' He saw Lisman see the automatic, reached out his hand for it, saw the army revolver appear as if by magic in Lisman's hand, heard the report of it, and heard something sing beyond the open window in the night. And even as the report came he had fired instinctively—as instinctively as he would have fired on the enemy confronted suddenly in patrol—and he saw Lisman sag at the knees and drop.
His first feeling, staring at the obscene bundle of flesh, was anger at the wrecking of the night's work, his second was realisation of the need to get away. In ten seconds the household would be awake. He crammed the precious tools into the case, risked the loss of several seconds to put out the light, and was through the window and running across the lawn before the first light appeared in an upstairs window.
God! he had put his foot into it this time.
There were footsteps coming from the gate to meet him. Someone from the lodge. He had forgotten the lodge. He pulled himself up. The steps had started to run. He was being hemmed in between the house and the gate. He wheeled sideways and made across the garden to the far side-boundary. There were pear-trees against the wall, he remembered. Hampered by the dark and the case to which he still clung, he climbed the wall, his sensitive hands feeling ahead of him, and dropped down the other side into soft mould. He bent and felt. A flower-border. He took two steps straight ahead of him on to grass, obliterating his footsteps as he went. Where now? The front way would be too unhealthy. But he had to put as big a space between himself and Lisman's as soon as possible. The telephone would be busy. He would have to risk it. He could not remember where the gate lay, but he knew where the road was, and made for that, stumbling over shrubs and afraid to show a light. There seemed to be no gate. To and fro he went in the blackness, desperate and trapped. But there was a gate; it had been part of the knowledge he and Carroll had gathered in their preparation, that gate. He would have to use his presser. Not using it was just a fad of Carroll's. There was no time…
And then he came on the gate. It was unlocked. He was through, walking down the open naked road at a pace as leisured as he could make it.
It took the whole force of his will to keep his rising heels in subjection. The effort exhausted him as a physical strain would have done. At each step he felt that another at the same rate was more than he could achieve. And yet they went on, those difficult even paces.
Someone was coming in front. A man. They had passed. He had done it. This hell of a street ended in another hundred yards. At the end of this wall. No, that man was coming back. Looking round he saw the flicker of a half-touched torch in the man's hand. His heart leaped sickeningly. There was no time to think. Without stopping he heaved the case over the high wall at his side and heard the 'hush' as it dropped into some shrubbery. In a moment the man behind overtook him and the torch-light ran over him.
'Late to be out, isn't it?'
Kif stopped. 'What d'you say? Do you mind taking that beastly thing off my face?' He felt surreptitiously in his pocket for the automatic—the mere feel of it would give him courage. It was no longer there. God! he had dropped it somewhere. Where had he dropped it?
'Sorry, sir,' said the constable, pacified by his inspection of Kif's clothes, his lack of impedimenta and his Barclay manner. 'We've got to be careful in this district. Too many good hauls lying about for us to take any chances.'
Kif made his stiff lips smile. 'That's all right, constable. Cold work on a night like this.'
'You may say that, sir! And beginning to snow, too.'
It was, but Kif was aware of a much more portentous phenomenon; the hum of a motor filled the night in a rapid crescendo. He must get away.
'Well—' he said, beginning to move on.
'Have you got the right time about you, sir? The cold's made mine crazy, I think.'
As they compared watches a car whizzed round the corner and came to a sudden halt with a squeal of brakes a yard or two past them.
'What's this? What's this?' said an irritated voice, and a man came to them from the car. The constable, seeing the shape of a police-helmet in the rear of the car, said:
'I was just making sure of the time from this gentleman, sir.'
'You on the beat?'
'Yes, sir.'
'There's been trouble at sixty-four. Who's this?'
'I was making my way home when the officer thought he had better make sure of my respectability,' said Kif. With the only part of him that was still capable of emotion, he prayed that the new-comer would be content with the dim backwash of light from the head-lights.
But the new-comer took the torch from the constable and turned it on Kif's face with a quick flash up and down his person. 'What are you doing here, and where have you—' he stopped. Then with a change of tone he said: 'Do you mind taking off your hat for a moment?'
There was nowhere to run to. The constable was on his left, and the new-comer on his right. At his back was the wall. Kif removed his hat.
'Well, well, Vicar! This is a pleasure. It's a long time since we met, but I remember it very well. Very well. You've become quite well-known since then.'
'I don't know what you're talking about,' said Kif, utterly without hope.
'No? Well, you'd better come along with us, and we can have further explanations in a warm station. It's a cold night.'
'Are you arresting me?'
'That's what I'm doing.'
'But you have nothing against me. You can't arrest me just on spec.'
'Nothing against you!— Hayward !—That's good, from an old lag like you! What about acting suspiciously, just for a go-off? Are you strolling round Kew at two in the morning for your health? You and your respectability! That's a good one. Put your hands up. Run him over, Hayward.'
'Nothing,' reported Hayward, having examined Kif.
'Well, we're not taking any chances. Put these on him. He ruined one of my best collars once.'
'Get in!' he added, and Kif got silently and despairingly into the car between the two men, and while the man on the beat stood on the foot-board, they were borne back to the Lisman gate.
'You take him to the station,' said Wilkins, 'and come back for me.' He disappeared into the lodge gate with the constable, and Hayward escorted Kif to the police-station in the car.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Baba was cutting up steak for beef-tea and listening to an account of scandal in high life as recounted by Pinkie's successor, whose brother was a footman in the best circles, when Mrs Campany arrived, her thin face flushed and her expression a mixture of dismay and importance. Mr Vicar had not been in all night, and this morning two plain-clothes men had come and searched his rooms.
Baba gaped at her, obviously trying to drag her mind from the delightful inconsequence of Lady Blank's indiscretions to the contemplation of immediate trouble. When Mrs Campany had told all she knew—which was very little, since the officers had been uncommunicative—and had some of the importance wiped from her face by Baba's unrestrained scorn of the meagreness of her information, Baba stood looking long at the chopped and oozing fragments under her knife, and then said:
'All right. Have some tea. Gladys'll give you some. I'll see what can be done.
She poured some soup into a bowl, ad leaving Mrs Campany to be fortified by Gladys went upstairs to her brother's room on the second floor. There was no help in her father—he was really ill this morning, and she was waiting for the doctor—but perhaps Angel would have some ideas, even if he had a temperature.
Angel turned his flushed face on the pillow, and seeing the steaming bowl said: 'Oh, give me something cold, there's a good kid,' and then immediately: 'What's the matter?'
She set down the bowl beside him. 'They've got Kif.'
Angel started upright, gazing incredulously at her, and sank back with a groan of dismay.
'Oh, hell!…How d'you know?'
Baba explained.
'Nothing in the papers?'
'No.'
'Perhaps they haven't got him. Perhaps he's just lying low. What did they search his rooms for? He's probably got away. You'd better go round and warn Dago though. Oh, Lord! what a mess! And everyone tied by the leg!'
When Baba asked Barney, the half-Irish half-Italian owner of the hair-dressing establishment where Danny worked, if she could see Danny he was delighted to oblige Miss Carroll, and Dago would be sent for immediately. He ushered her into a small room and left her.
One glance at Danny's dark face when he appeared was all that Baba needed.
'How do you know?' she asked. 'Has he been to you?'
'No, I'm afraid they've got him.'
'Then how did you know?'
'It's in the paper.' He pulled forward a chair and pushed her gently into it.
'What did it say? Did they get him with the stuff on him?'
'Haven't you seen a paper?' he asked.
'No, Mrs Cam. came round to say he hadn't been home, and that they'd searched his rooms this morning. So we hoped he'd got away. How do you know he didn't? What does it say?'
Danny went out and came back with the latest edition of the morning paper.
'You'd better read it,' he said.
GREEK MERCHANT MURDERED AT KEW.
Mr Lisman shot.
'Oh, Danny, he hasn't!'
'You'd better read it,' he said again gently.
At an early hour this morning, Mr Lisman, the well-known diamond merchant of —— Street, was shot dead by burglars whom he had interrupted in the course of their operations. According to his butler, Mr Lisman had returned from an evening engagement rather earlier than usual. That he was aware of the presence of the intruders is indicated by the fact that he was grasping in his hand a heavy service revolver, which was contrary to his habit, and which he must have fetched from his bedroom. One shot had been fired from this weapon, but had apparently missed Mr Lisman's assailants. The thief or thieves made their escape from the garden by a side wall, and in their haste dropped an automatic revolver which is regarded as a valuable clue. Nothing was missing from the safe, which had not been opened, though the attempt showed the work of an expert.
; Mrs Lisman, who is at present in the south of France, is a well-known beauty. It is understood that an arrest has been made.
Baba's eyes, stony as green agate, were once more on Danny. He moved uneasily.
'Don't mind so much, Baba,' he said. 'They may not have him.'
She was still speechless.
'They always say that about an arrest being made.'
'No, they don't,' she said, 'and you know it. When they have nothing they say a clue. They've got him. And there's nothing we can do. There's Tommy and Father in bed with flu' and no one to do anything!'
'There's me,' said Danny.
'Yes, there's you, but what can you do?'
'I'll do whatever I can. You believe that, don't you?'
'Of course I do,' she said impatiently. 'We all will. I'll have to go back to Father and Tommy. Oh, Kif! Why did he!'
She left Danny, a mournful little figure, without a backward glance, bought the later morning papers, and took the truth home to Angel.
Angel's aghast blue eyes lifted from the welter of shrieking headlines to his sister, rocking herself in pent emotion on the edge of his bed.
'Old Kif!' he said. 'What a damned mess!'
'The fool! Oh, the fool!' she said between her teeth.
Angel was cogitating.
'Look here,' he said at last, 'if they haven't got him, by any chance, let's say he was here all last night. You can say he stayed to help look after Dad.'
'Not I!' she said. 'Do you take me for a fool?'
Angel looked genuinely astonished. 'Why?' he asked. 'What are you afraid of?' And as she did not answer immediately he added with a twist of his mouth: 'Your reputation?'
'Now you're being a fool. No one can prosecute me for my reputation. But I'm not going to find myself in the dock for perjury.'