The Angel of Terror, Edgar Wallace [ebook audio reader .txt] 📗

to enter—as, of course, they had no right to enter—a block of flats in Cavendish Place, poor Talmot slipped and fell from the fourth floor window-sill, breaking his leg. Hoggins had to carry him to hospital."

The girl reached for bacon from the hot plate.

"He should have broken his neck," she said calmly. "I suppose now the police are making tender inquiries?"

"No, no," Mr. Briggerland hastened to assure her. "Nobody knows anything about it, not even the—er—fortunate occupant of the flat they were evidently trying to burgle. I only learnt of it because the manager of the club, who gets information of this character, thought I would be interested."

"Anyway I'm glad they didn't succeed," said Jean after a while. "The possibility of their trying rather worried me. The Hoggins type is such a bungler that it was almost certain they would fail."

It was a curious fact that whilst her father made the most guarded references to all their exploits and clothed them with garments of euphemism, his daughter never attempted any such disguise. The psychologist would find in Mr. Briggerland's reticence the embryo of a once dominant rectitude, no trace of which remained in his daughter's moral equipment.

"I have been trying to place this man Jaggs," she went on with a little puzzled frown, "and he completely baffles me. He arrives every night in a taxicab, sometimes from St. Pancras, sometimes from Euston, sometimes from London Bridge Station."

"Do you think he is a detective?"

"I don't know," she said thoughtfully. "If he is, he has been imported from the provinces. He is not a Scotland Yard man. He may, of course, be an old police pensioner, and I have been trying to trace him from that source."

"It should not be difficult to find out all about him," said Mr. Briggerland easily. "A man with his afflictions should be pretty well-known."

He looked at his watch.

"My appointment at Norwood is at eleven o'clock," he said. He made a little grimace of disgust.

"Would you rather I went?" asked the girl.

Mr. Briggerland would much rather that she had undertaken the disagreeable experience which lay before him, but he dare not confess as much.

"You, my dear? Of course not! I would not allow you to have such an experience. No, no, I don't mind it a bit."

Nevertheless, he tossed down two long glasses of brandy before he left.

His car set him down before the iron gates of a squat and ugly stucco building, surrounded by high walls, and the uniformed attendant, having examined his credentials, admitted him. He had to wait a little while before a second attendant arrived to conduct him to the medical superintendent, an elderly man who did not seem overwhelmed with joy at the honour Mr. Briggerland was paying him.

"I'm sorry I shan't be able to show you round, Mr. Briggerland," he said. "I have an engagement in town, but my assistant, Dr. Carew, will conduct you over the asylum and give you all the information you require. This, of course, as you know, is a private institution. I should have thought you would have got more material for your book in one of the big public asylums. The people who are sent to Norwood, you know, are not the mild cases, and you will see some rather terrible sights. You are prepared for that?"

Mr. Briggerland nodded. He was prepared to the extent of two full noggins of brandy. Moreover, he was well aware that Norwood was the asylum to which the more dangerous of lunatics were transferred.

Dr. Carew proved to be a young and enthusiastic alienist whose heart and soul was in his work.

"I suppose you are prepared to see jumpy things," he said with a smile, as he conducted Mr. Briggerland along a stone-vaulted corridor.

He opened a steel gate, the bars of which were encased with thick layers of rubber, crossed a grassy plot (there were no stone-flagged paths at Norwood) and entered one of the three buildings which constituted the asylum proper.

It was a harrowing, heart-breaking, and to some extent, a disappointing experience for Mr. Briggerland. True, his heart did not break, because it was made of infrangible material, and his disappointment was counter-balanced by a certain vague relief.

At the end of two hours' inspection they were standing out on the big playing fields, watching the less violent of the patients wandering aimlessly about. Except one, they were unattended by keepers, but in the case of this one man, two stalwart uniformed men walked on either side of him.

"Who is he?" asked Briggerland.

"That is rather a sad case," said the alienist cheerfully. He had pointed out many "sad cases" in the same bright manner. "He's a doctor and a genuine homicide. Luckily they detected him before he did any mischief or he would have been in Broadmoor."

"Aren't you ever afraid of these men escaping?" asked Mr. Briggerland.

"You asked that before," said the doctor in surprise. "No. You see, an insane asylum is not like a prison; to make a good get-away from prison you have to have outside assistance. Nobody wants to help a lunatic escape, otherwise it would be easier than getting out of prison, because we have no patrols in the grounds, the wards can be opened from the outside without a key and the night patrol who visits the wards every half-hour has no time for any other observation. Would you like to talk to Dr. Thun?"

Mr. Briggerland hesitated only for a second.

"Yes," he said huskily.

There was nothing in the appearance of the patient to suggest that he was in any way dangerous. A fair, bearded man, with pale blue eyes, he held out his hand impulsively to the visitor, and after a momentary hesitation, Mr. Briggerland took it and found his hand in a grip like a vice. The two attendants exchanged glances with the asylum doctor and strolled off.

"I think you can talk to him without fear," said the doctor in a low voice, not so low, however, that the patient did not hear it, for he laughed.

"Without fear, favour or prejudice, eh? Yes, that was how they swore the officers at my court martial."

"The doctor was the general who was responsible for the losses at Caperetto," explained Dr. Carew. "That was where the Italians lost so heavily."

Thun nodded.

"Of course, I was perfectly innocent," he explained to Briggerland seriously, and taking the visitor's arm he strolled across the field, the doctor and the two attendants following at a distance. Mr. Briggerland breathed a little more quickly as he felt the strength of the patient's biceps.

"My conviction," said Dr. Thun seriously, "was due to the fact that women were sitting on the court martial, which is, of course, against all regulations."

"Certainly," murmured Mr. Briggerland.

"Keeping me here," Thun went on, "is part of the plot of the Italian government. Naturally, they do not wish me to get at my enemies, who I have every reason to believe are in London."

Mr. Briggerland drew a long breath.

"They are in London," he said a little hoarsely. "I happen to know where they are."

"Really?" said the other easily, and then a cloud passed over his face and he shook his head.

"They are safe from my vengeance," he said a little sadly. "As long as they keep me in this place pretending that I am mad, there is no possible chance for me."

The visitor looked round and saw that the three men who were following were out of ear shot.

"Suppose I came to-morrow night," he said, lowering his voice, "and helped you to get away? What is your ward?"

"No. 6," said the other in the same tone. His eyes were blazing.

"Do you think you will remember?" asked Briggerland.

Thun nodded.

"You will come to-morrow night—No. 6, the first cubicle on the left," he whispered, "you will not fail me? If I thought you'd fail me——" His eyes lit up again.

"I shall not fail you," said Mr. Briggerland hastily. "When the clock strikes twelve you may expect me."

"You must be Marshal Foch," murmured Thun, and then with all a madman's cunning, changed the conversation as the doctor and attendants, who had noticed his excitement, drew nearer. "Believe me, Mr. Briggerland," he went on airily, "the strategy of the Allies was at fault until I took up the command of the army...."

Ten minutes later Mr. Briggerland was in his car driving homeward, a little breathless, more than a little terrified at the unpleasant task he had set himself; jubilant, too, at his amazing success.

Jean had said he might have to visit a dozen asylums before he found his opportunity and the right man, and he had succeeded at the first attempt. Yet—he shuddered at the picture he conjured—that climb over the high wall (he had already located the ward, for he had followed the General and the attendants and had seen him safely put away), the midnight association with a madman....

He burst in upon Jean with his news.

"At the first attempt, my dear, what do you think of that?" His dark face glowed with almost childish pride, and she looked at him with a half-smile.

"I thought you would," she said quietly. "That's the rough work done, at any rate."

"The rough work!" he said indignantly.

She nodded.

"Half the difficulty is going to be to cover up your visit to the asylum, because this man is certain to mention your name, and it will not all be dismissed as the imagination of a madman. Now I think I will make my promised call upon Mrs. Meredith."

Chapter XIII

There was one thing which rather puzzled and almost piqued Lydia Meredith, and that was the failure of Jean Briggerland's prophecy to materialise. Jean had said half jestingly that Jack Glover would be a frequent visitor at the flat; in point of fact, he did not come at all. Even when she visited the offices of Rennett, Glover and Simpson, it was Mr. Rennett who attended to her, and Jack was invisible. Mr. Rennett sometimes explained that he was at the courts, for Jack did all the court work, sometimes that he had gone home.

She caught a glimpse of him once as she was driving past the Law Courts in the Strand. He was standing on the pavement talking to a be-wigged counsel, so possibly Mr. Rennett had not stated more than the truth when he said that the young man's time was mostly occupied by the processes of litigation.

She was curious enough to look through the telephone directory to discover where he lived. There were about fifty Glovers, and ten of these were John Glovers, and she was enough of a woman to call up six of the most likely only to discover that her Mr. Glover was not amongst them. She did not know till later that his full name was Bertram John Glover, or she might have found his address without difficulty.

Mrs. Morgan had now arrived, to Lydia's infinite relief, and had taken control of the household affairs. The new maid was as perfect as a new maid could be, and but for the nightly intrusion of the taciturn Jaggs, to whom, for some reason, Mrs. Morgan took a liking, the current of her domestic life ran smoothly.

She was already becoming accustomed to the possession of wealth. The habit of being rich is one of the easiest acquired, and she found herself negotiating for a little house in Curzon Street and a more pretentious establishment in Somerset, with a sangfroid which astonished and frightened her.

The purchase and arrival of her first car, and the engagement of her chauffeur had been a thrilling experience. It was incredible, too, that her new bankers should, without hesitation, deliver to her enormous sums of money at the mere affixing of her signature to an oblong slip of paper.

She had even got over the panic feeling which