The Clue of the Twisted Candle, Edgar Wallace [whitelam books txt] 📗

X. and tell him--'!"

She paused dramatically.

"Yes, yes," said T. X. quickly, "for heaven's sake go on, woman."

"'Tell him,'" said Mrs. Cassley, "'that Belinda Mary--'"

He sprang to his feet.

"Belinda Mary!" he breathed, "Belinda Mary!" In a flash he saw it all. This girl with a knowledge of modern Greek, who was working in Kara's house, was there for a purpose. Kara had something of her mother's, something that was vital and which he would not part with, and she had adopted this method of securing that some thing. Mrs. Cassley was prattling on, but her voice was merely a haze of sound to him. It brought a strange glow to his heart that Belinda Mary should have thought of him.

"Only as a policeman, of course," said the still, small voice of his official self. "Perhaps!" said the human T. X., defiantly.

He got on the telephone to Mansus and gave a few instructions.

"You stay here," he ordered the astounded Mrs. Cassley; "I am going to make a few investigations."

Kara was at home, but was in bed. T. X. remembered that this extraordinary man invariably went to bed early and that it was his practice to receive visitors in this guarded room of his. He was admitted almost at once and found Kara in his silk dressing-gown lying on the bed smoking. The heat of the room was unbearable even on that bleak February night.

"This is a pleasant surprise," said Kara, sitting up; "I hope you don't mind my dishabille."

T. X. came straight to the point.

"Where is Miss Holland!" he asked.

"Miss Holland?" Kara's eyebrows advertised his astonishment. "What an extraordinary question to ask me, my dear man! At her home, or at the theatre or in a cinema palace--I don't know how these people employ their evenings."

"She is not at home," said T. X., "and I have reason to believe that she has not left this house."

"What a suspicious person you are, Mr. Meredith!" Kara rang the bell and Fisher came in with a cup of coffee on a tray.

"Fisher," drawled Kara. "Mr. Meredith is anxious to know where Miss Holland is. Will you be good enough to tell him, you know more about her movements than I do."

"As far as I know, sir," said Fisher deferentially, "she left the house about 5.30, her usual hour. She sent me out a little before five on a message and when I came back her hat and her coat had gone, so I presume she had gone also."

"Did you see her go?" asked T. X.

The man shook his head.

"No, sir, I very seldom see the lady come or go. There has been no restrictions placed upon the young lady and she has been at liberty to move about as she likes. I think I am correct in saying that, sir," he turned to Kara.

Kara nodded.

"You will probably find her at home."

He shook his finger waggishly at T. X.

"What a dog you are," he jibed, "I ought to keep the beauties of my household veiled, as we do in the East, and especially when I have a susceptible policeman wandering at large."

T. X. gave jest for jest. There was nothing to be gained by making trouble here. After a few amiable commonplaces he took his departure. He found Mrs. Cassley being entertained by Mansus with a wholly fictitious description of the famous criminals he had arrested.

"I can only suggest that you go home," said T. X. "I will send a police officer with you to report to me, but in all probability you will find the lady has returned. She may have had a difficulty in getting a bus on a night like this."

A detective was summoned from Scotland Yard and accompanied by him Mrs. Cassley returned to her domicile with a certain importance. T. X. looked at his watch. It was a quarter to ten.

"Whatever happens, I must see old Lexman," he said. "Tell the best men we've got in the department to stand by for eventualities. This is going to be one of my busy days."


CHAPTER XII


Kara lay back on his down pillows with a sneer on his face and his brain very busy. What started the train of thought he did not know, but at that moment his mind was very far away. It carried him back a dozen years to a dirty little peasant's cabin on the hillside outside Durazzo, to the livid face of a young Albanian chief, who had lost at Kara's whim all that life held for a man, to the hateful eyes of the girl's father, who stood with folded arms glaring down at the bound and manacled figure on the floor, to the smoke-stained rafters of this peasant cottage and the dancing shadows on the roof, to that terrible hour of waiting when he sat bound to a post with a candle flickering and spluttering lower and lower to the little heap of gunpowder that would start the trail toward the clumsy infernal machine under his chair. He remembered the day well because it was Candlemas day, and this was the anniversary. He remembered other things more pleasant. The beat of hoofs on the rocky roadway, the crash of the door falling in when the Turkish Gendarmes had battered a way to his rescue. He remembered with a savage joy the spectacle of his would-be assassins twitching and struggling on the gallows at Pezara and--he heard the faint tinkle of the front door bell.

Had T. X. returned! He slipped from the bed and went to the door, opened it slightly and listened. T. X. with a search warrant might be a source of panic especially if--he shrugged his shoulders. He had satisfied T. X. and allayed his suspicions. He would get Fisher out of the way that night and make sure.

The voice from the hall below was loud and gruff. Who could it be! Then he heard Fisher's foot on the stairs and the valet entered.

"Will you see Mr. Gathercole now!"

"Mr. Gathercole!"

Kara breathed a sigh of relief and his face was wreathed in smiles.

"Why, of course. Tell him to come up. Ask him if he minds seeing me in my room."

"I told him you were in bed, sir, and he used shocking language," said Fisher.

Kara laughed.

"Send him up," he said, and then as Fisher was going out of the room he called him back.

"By the way, Fisher, after Mr. Gathercole has gone, you may go out for the night. You've got somewhere to go, I suppose, and you needn't come back until the morning."

"Yes, sir," said the servant.

Such an instruction was remarkably pleasing to him. There was much that he had to do and that night's freedom would assist him materially.

"Perhaps" Kara hesitated, "perhaps you had better wait until eleven o'clock. Bring me up some sandwiches and a large glass of milk. Or better still, place them on a plate in the hall."

"Very good, sir," said the man and withdrew.

Down below, that grotesque figure with his shiny hat and his ragged beard was walking up and down the tesselated hallway muttering to himself and staring at the various objects in the hall with a certain amused antagonism.

"Mr. Kara will see you, sir," said Fisher.

"Oh!" said the other glaring at the unoffending Fisher, "that's very good of him. Very good of this person to see a scholar and a gentleman who has been about his dirty business for three years. Grown grey in his service! Do you understand that, my man!"

"Yes, sir," said Fisher.

"Look here!"

The man thrust out his face.

"Do you see those grey hairs in my beard?"

The embarrassed Fisher grinned.

"Is it grey!" challenged the visitor, with a roar.

"Yes, sir," said the valet hastily.

"Is it real grey?" insisted the visitor. "Pull one out and see!"

The startled Fisher drew back with an apologetic smile.

"I couldn't think of doing a thing like that, sir."

"Oh, you couldn't," sneered the visitor; "then lead on!"

Fisher showed the way up the stairs. This time the traveller carried no books. His left arm hung limply by his side and Fisher privately gathered that the hand had got loose from the detaining pocket without its owner being aware of the fact. He pushed open the door and announced, "Mr. Gathercole," and Kara came forward with a smile to meet his agent, who, with top hat still on the top of his head, and his overcoat dangling about his heels, must have made a remarkable picture.

Fisher closed the door behind them and returned to his duties in the hall below. Ten minutes later he heard the door opened and the booming voice of the stranger came down to him. Fisher went up the stairs to meet him and found him addressing the occupant of the room in his own eccentric fashion.

"No more Patagonia!" he roared, "no more Tierra del Fuego!" he paused.

"Certainly!" He replied to some question, "but not Patagonia," he paused again, and Fisher standing at the foot of the stairs wondered what had occurred to make the visitor so genial.

"I suppose your cheque will be honoured all right?" asked the visitor sardonically, and then burst into a little chuckle of laughter as he carefully closed the door.

He came down the corridor talking to himself, and greeted Fisher.

"Damn all Greeks," he said jovially, and Fisher could do no more than smile reproachfully, the smile being his very own, the reproach being on behalf of the master who paid him.

The traveller touched the other on the chest with his right hand.

"Never trust a Greek," he said, "always get your money in advance. Is that clear to you?"

"Yes, sir," said Fisher, "but I think you will always find that Mr. Kara is always most generous about money."

"Don't you believe it, don't you believe it, my poor man," said the other, "you--"

At that moment there came from Kara's room a faint "clang."

"What's that?" asked the visitor a little startled.

"Mr. Kara's put down his steel latch," said Fisher with a smile, "which means that he is not to be disturbed until--" he looked at his watch, "until eleven o'clock at any rate."

"He's a funk!" snapped the other, "a beastly funk!"

He stamped down the stairs as though testing the weight of every tread, opened the front door without assistance, slammed it behind him and disappeared into the night.

Fisher, his hands in his pockets, looked after the departing stranger, nodding his head in reprobation.

"You're a queer old devil," he said, and looked at his watch again.

It wanted five minutes to ten.


CHAPTER XIII

"IF you would care to come in, sir, I'm sure Lexman would be glad to see you," said T. X.; "it's very kind of you to take an interest in the matter."

The Chief Commissioner of Police growled something about being paid to take an interest in everybody and strolled with T. X. down one of the apparently endless corridors of Scotland Yard.

"You won't have any bother about the pardon," he said. "I was dining to-night with old man Bartholomew and he will fix that up in the morning."

"There will be no necessity to detain