Jack O'Judgment, Edgar Wallace [lightest ebook reader .txt] 📗

and make her bolt quick and sudden, and I want you to provide the means."

Selby was waiting.

"I bought a motor-boat, one of those swift motor-boats that the Government used during the war. I have it ready at Twickenham, and you can get all your goods on board and go to——"

"Where?"

"Anywhere you like," said the colonel, "Holland, Denmark—one place is as good as another, and it'll be a good sea-going boat. You see, my idea is this. If I think Lollie is negotiating to put us away, I can give her a fright which will make her jump at the means of getting out of England by the quickest and shortest route. You can go with her and keep her under your eye until the trouble blows over."

He saw a look in the man's face and correctly interpreted it.

"I'm not worried about you double-crossing me," he said, "even if you are abroad. I've enough evidence against you to bring you back under an extradition warrant." He laughed as Selby's face fell. "You see Selby, there's nothing in it that you can take exception to. I don't even know that Lollie will refuse to go in the ordinary way, but I must make preparations."

"It is a reasonable suggestion," said Selby, after considering the matter for a few minutes. "I'll do it, colonel."

"You'd better bring a couple of men to London who can handle Lollie if she gives any trouble—no, no," said the colonel, raising his hand in dignified protest, "there's going to be nothing rough. How can there be? You'll be in charge of it all, and it is up to you as to how Lollie is treated."

It did not occur to Selby until an hour later to ask the colonel how he knew that his hobby was motor-boating, but by that time the colonel had gone.

It was true, as Boundary said, that the gang was scared—and badly scared. It was equally true that they needed only one jar before it became a case of every man for himself. Already even the minor members were making their preparations to break away. The red light was burning clear before all eyes. But none knew how readily the colonel had recognised the signs, and how, in spite of his apparent philosophy and his contempt of danger, he, more than any of the others, was preparing for the inevitable crash.

Jack o' Judgment, he told himself, was playing his game better than he could play it himself. The arrest of Phillopolis had removed one of the men who might have been an inconvenient witness against him. White was gone, Raoul was gone. He had planned the disappearance of Selby, a most dangerous man, and Lollie Marsh, an even more dangerous woman and there remained only Pinto and Crewe.

When he had taken leave of his agent, the colonel walked to Westminster and boarded a car which carried him along the Embankment to Blackfriars. He might have been followed, and probably was, but this possibility did not worry him. He walked across Ludgate Circus, up St. Bride Street to Hatton Garden, and turned into the office of Myglebergs'. Mr. Mygleberg, a very suave and polite gentleman, received him and ushered him into a private room. This shrewd Dutchman had no illusions as to the colonel's probity, but he had no doubt either that the big man could pay handsomely for everything he bought.

"I'm glad you've come, colonel," he said; "I have been expecting you for a couple of days. We have just had a wonderful parcel of stones from Amsterdam, and I think some of them would suit you."

He disappeared and came back with a tray covered with the most beautiful diamonds that had ever left the cutter's hands. The colonel went over them slowly, examining them and putting a selected number aside.

"I'll take those," he said, and Mr. Mygleberg laughed.

"They're the best," he chuckled. "Trust you to know a good thing when you see it, colonel!"

"What have I to pay for these?"

Mygleberg made a rapid calculation and put the figures before Colonel Boundary.

"It is a big price," said the colonel, "but I don't think you have overcharged. Besides, I could always sell them again for that much."

Mr. Mygleberg nodded.

"I think you are wise to put your money into stones, colonel," he said; "they always go up and never go down in value. You can lose other things. They're easy and they're always convertible. I always tell my partner that if I ever become a millionaire I shall invest every penny in stones."

The colonel paid for the gems from a thick wad of notes he took from his hip-pocket. They were, in point of fact, the identical notes which Maisie White had handed to him the night previous. He waited whilst the jewels were made up into a little oblong package, heavily sealed and inscribed with the colonel's name and address, and then, shaking hands with Mygleberg and fixing a further appointment, he came out into Hatton Garden, whistling a little song and apparently the picture of contentment.

He was getting ready for flight too. This, the first of many packages which he intended depositing in the private safe of his bank, would go with the ever-increasing pile of American gold bonds of high denomination which filled that steel repository. For months the colonel had been converting his property into paper dollars. They were more easily negotiated and less traceable than English banknotes, and they were more get-at-able. A big balance in the books of the bank might be creditable and, given time, convertible into cash. Then nobody knew but himself the amount standing to his credit. He was not at the mercy of prying bank clerks or a manager who might be got at by the police. At a minute's notice, and without anybody being the wiser, he could demand the contents of his safe and walk from the bank premises without a soul being aware that he was carrying the bulk of his fortune away.

He took a cab and drove now to the bank premises. Ferguson, the manager, received him.

"Good morning, colonel," he said. "I was just writing you a note. You know your account is getting very low."

"Is that so?" said the colonel in surprise.

"I thought you wouldn't realise the fact," said Ferguson, "but you've been drawing very heavily of late."

"I'll put it right," said the colonel. "It is not overdrawn?" he asked jocularly, and Ferguson smiled.

"You've eighty thousand pounds in Account B," he said. "I suppose you don't want to touch that?"

Account B was the euphonious name for the fund which was the common property of all the leaders of the Boundary Gang.

"Unless you're anxious that I should get penal servitude for fraudulently converting the company's funds?" said the colonel in the same strain. "No, I'll fix my account some time to-day. In the meantime"—he produced a package from his hip-pocket—"I want this to go into my safe."

"Certainly," said Ferguson, and struck a bell. A clerk answered the call. "Take Colonel Boundary to the vaults. He wants to deposit something in his safe," he said, "or would you like me to do it, colonel?"

"I'll do it myself," said the colonel.

He followed the clerk down the spiral staircase to the well-lit vault, and with the key which the man handed him opened Safe No. 20. It was divided into two compartments, that on the left consisting of a deep drawer, which he pulled out. It was half filled with American paper currency, as he knew—currency neatly parcelled and carefully packed by his own hands.

"I often wonder, Colonel Boundary," said the interested clerk, "why you don't use the bank safe. When a customer has his own, you know, we are not responsible for any of his losses."

"I know that," said the colonel genially. "Still one must take a risk."

He placed the package on the top of the money, pushed back the drawer, locked the safe and handed the key to the young man.

"I think the bank takes enough risks without asking them to accept any more," he said, "and besides, I like to take a little risk myself sometimes."

"So I've heard," said the clerk innocently, and the colonel shot a questioning look at the young man.

CHAPTER XXXI THE VOICE AGAIN

He left the bank with the sense of having done his duty by himself. He had not planned the route by which he was leaving the country, or the hour. Much was to happen before he shook the dust of England from his feet, and as he had arranged matters he would have plenty of time to think things over before he made his departure.

A great deal happened in the next few days to make him believe that the necessity for getting away was not very urgent. He met Stafford King in the Park one morning, and Stafford had been unusually communicative and friendly. Then the whispering voices in the flat had temporarily ceased, and Jack o' Judgment had given him no sign of his existence. It was five days after he had made his deposit in the bank that the first shock came to him. He found Snakit waiting on returning from a matinée, and the little detective was so important and mysterious that the colonel knew something had been discovered.

"Well," he asked, closing the door, "what have you found?"

"She is in communication with the police," said Snakit, "that's what I've found."

"Lollie?"

"Miss Marsh is the lady. In communication with the police," said the other impressively.

"Now just tell me what you mean," said the colonel. "Do you mean she's on speaking terms with the policeman on point duty at Piccadilly Circus?"

"I mean, sir," said Snakit with dignity, "that she's in the habit of meeting Mr. Stafford King, who is a well-known man at Scotland Yard——"

"He's well-known here too," interrupted the colonel. "Where does she meet him?"

"In all sorts of queer places—that's the suspicious part of it," said Snakit, who had joyously entered into the work which had been given to him, without realising its unlawful character.

He had accepted without question the colonel's story that he was the victim of police persecution, and as this was the first news of any importance he had been able to bring to his employer, he was naturally inclined to make the most of it.

"He has met her twice at eleven o clock at night, at the bottom of St. James's Street, and walked up with her, very deeply engaged in conversation," said Snakit, consulting his note-book. "He met her once at the foot of the steps leading down from Waterloo Place, and they were together for an hour. This morning," he went on, speaking slowly, and evidently this was his tit-bit, "this morning Mr. Stafford King went to the Cunard office in Cockspur Street and booked cabin seventeen on the shelter deck of the Lapland for New York."

"In what name?"

"In the name of Miss Isabel Trenton."

The colonel nodded. It was a name that Lollie had used before, and the story rang true.

"When does the Lapland sail?" he asked, and again the detective consulted his book.

"Next Saturday," he said, "from Liverpool."

"Very good," said the colonel; "thank you, Snakit, you've done very well. See if you can pick them up to-night, or, stay——" He thought a moment. "No, don't shadow her to-night. I'll have a talk with her."

The news disturbed him. Lollie was getting ready to bolt—that was unimportant. But she was bolting with the assistance of the police, who had booked her passage. That meant that they had got as much out of her as she had to tell, and were clearing her out of the country before the blow fell. That was not only important, but it was grave. Either the police were going to strike at once or——

An idea struck him, and he telephoned through to Pinto. Another got him into