Max Carrados, Ernest Bramah [children's books read aloud .TXT] 📗

booty should be put into his employer’s hand. Half-way across Europe that employer was waiting with such patience as she could maintain, herself watched and shadowed at every step. The Countess X. was sufficiently exalted to be personally immune from the high-handed methods of her country’s secret service, but every approach to her was tapped. The problem was for Guido to earn a long enough respite to enable him to communicate his position to the Countess and for her to go or to reach him by a trusty hand. Then the whole fabric of intrigue could fall to pieces, but so far Guido had been kept successfully on the run and in the meanwhile time was pressing.

“They lost him after the Hutola,” Beedel reported, in explaining the circumstances to Max Carrados. “Three days later they found that he’d been back again in Copenhagen but by that time he’d flown. Now they’re without a trace except the inference of these ‘Orange peach blossom’ agonies in The Times. But the Countess has gone hurriedly to Paris; and Lafayard thinks it all points to London.”

“I suppose the Foreign Office is anxious to oblige just now?”

“I expect so, sir,” agreed Beedel, “but, of course, my instructions don’t come from that quarter. What appeals to us is that it would be a feather in our caps—they’re still a little sore up at the Yard about Hans the Piper.”

“Naturally,” assented Carrados. “Well, I’ll see what I can do if there is real occasion. Let me know anything, and, if you see your chance yourself, come round for a talk if you like on—to-day’s Wednesday?—I shall be in at any rate on Friday evening.”

Without being a precisian, the blind man was usually exact in such matters. There are those who hold that an engagement must be kept at all hazard: men who would miss a death-bed message in order to keep literal faith with a beggar. Carrados took lower, if more substantial, ground. “My word,” he sometimes had occasion to remark, “is subject to contingencies, like everything else about me. If I make a promise it is conditional on nothing which seems more important arising to counteract it. That, among men of sense, is understood.” And, as it happened, something did occur on this occasion.

He was summoned to the telephone just before dinner on Friday evening to receive a message personally. Greatorex, his secretary, had taken the call, but came in to say that the caller would give him nothing beyond his name—Brebner. The name was unknown to Carrados, but such incidents were not uncommon, and he proceeded to comply.

“Yes,” he responded; “I am Max Carrados speaking. What is it?”

“Oh, it is you, sir, is it? Mr Brickwill told me to get to you direct.”

“Well, you are all right. Brickwill? Are you the British Museum?”

“Yes. I am Brebner in the Chaldean Art Department. They are in a great stew here. We have just found out that someone has managed to get access to the Second Inner Greek Room and looted some of the cabinets there. It is all a mystery as yet.”

“What is missing?” asked Carrados.

“So far we can only definitely speak of about six trays of Greek coins—a hundred to a hundred and twenty, roughly.”

“Important?”

The line conveyed a caustic bark of tragic amusement.

“Why, yes, I should say so. The beggar seems to have known his business. All fine specimens of the best period. Syracuse—Messana—Croton—Amphipolis. Eumenes—Evainetos—Kimons. The chief quite wept.”

Carrados groaned. There was not a piece among them that he had not handled lovingly.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Mr Brickwill has been to Scotland Yard, and, on advice, we are not making it public as yet. We don’t want a hint of it to be dropped anywhere, if you don’t mind, sir.”

“That will be all right.”

“It was for that reason that I was to speak with you personally. We are notifying the chief dealers and likely collectors to whom the coins, or some of them, may be offered at once if it is thought that we haven’t found it out yet. Judging from the expertness displayed in the selection, we don’t think that there is any danger of the lot being sold to a pawnbroker or a metal-dealer, so that we are running very little real risk in not advertising the loss.”

“Yes; probably it is as well,” replied Carrados. “Is there anything that Mr Brickwill wishes me to do?”

“Only this, sir; if you are offered a suspicious lot of Greek coins, or hear of them, would you have a look—I mean ascertain whether they are likely to be ours, and if you think they are communicate with us and Scotland Yard at once.”

“Certainly,” replied the blind man. “Tell Mr Brickwill that he can rely on me if any indication comes my way. Convey my regrets to him and tell him that I feel the loss quite as a personal one.... I don’t think that you and I have met as yet, Mr Brebner?”

“No, sir,” said the voice diffidently, “but I have looked forward to the pleasure. Perhaps this unfortunate business will bring me an introduction.”

“You are very kind,” was Carrados’s acknowledgment of the compliment. “Any time ... I was going to say that perhaps you don’t know my weakness, but I have spent many pleasant hours over your wonderful collection. That ensures the personal element. Good-bye.”

Carrados was really disturbed by the loss although his concern was tempered by the reflection that the coins would inevitably in the end find their way back to the Museum. That their restitution might involve ransom to the extent of several thousand pounds was the least poignant detail of the situation. The one harrowing thought was that the booty might, through stress or ignorance, find its way into the melting-pot. That dreadful contingency, remote but insistent, was enough to affect the appetite of the blind enthusiast.

He was expecting Inspector Beedel, who would be full of his own case, but he could not altogether dismiss the aspects of possibility that Brebner’s communication opened before his mind. He was still concerned with the chances of destruction and a very indifferent companion for Greatorex, who alone sat with him, when Parkinson presented himself. Dinner was over but Carrados had remained rather longer than his custom, smoking his mild Turkish cigarette in silence.

“A lady wishes to see you, sir. She said you would not know her name, but that her business would interest you.”

The form of message was sufficiently unusual to take the attention of both men.

“You don’t know her, of course, Parkinson?” inquired his master.

For just a second the immaculate Parkinson seemed tongue-tied. Then he delivered himself in his most ceremonial strain.

“I regret to say that I cannot claim the advantage, sir,” he replied.

“Better let me tackle her, sir,” suggested Greatorex with easy confidence. “It’s probably a sub.”

The sportive offer was declined by a smile and a shake of the head. Carrados turned to his attendant.

“I shall be in the study, Parkinson. Show her there in three minutes. You stay and have another cigarette, Greatorex. By that time she will either have gone or have interested me.”

In three minutes’ time Parkinson threw open the study door.

“The lady, sir,” he announced.

Could he have seen, Carrados would have received the impression of a plainly, almost dowdily, dressed young woman of buxom figure. She wore a light veil, but it was ineffective in concealing the unattraction of the face beneath. The features were swart and the upper lip darkened with the more than incipient moustache of the southern brunette. Worse remained, for a disfiguring rash had assailed patches of her skin. As she entered she swept the room and its occupant with a quiet but comprehensive survey.

“Please take a chair, Madame. You wished to see me?”

The ghost of a demure smile flickered about her mouth as she complied, and in that moment her face seemed less uncomely. Her eye lingered for a moment on a cabinet above the desk, and one might have noticed that her eye was very bright. Then she replied.

“You are Signor Carrados, in—in the person?”

Carrados made his smiling admission and changed his position a fraction—possibly to catch her curiously pitched voice the better.

“The great collector of the antiquities?”

“I do collect a little,” he admitted guardedly.

“You will forgive me, Signor, if my language is not altogether good. When I live at Naples with my mother we let boardings, chiefly to Inglish and Amerigans. I pick up the words, but since I marry and go to live in Calabria my Inglish has gone all red—no, no, you say, rusty. Yes, that is it; quite rusty.”

“It is excellent,” said Carrados. “I am sure that we shall understand one another perfectly.”

The lady shot a penetrating glance but the blind man’s expression was merely suave and courteous. Then she continued:

“My husband is of name Ferraja—Michele Ferraja. We have a vineyard and a little property near Forenzana.” She paused to examine the tips of her gloves for quite an appreciable moment. “Signor,” she burst out, with some vehemence, “the laws of my country are not good at all.”

“From what I hear on all sides,” said Carrados, “I am afraid that your country is not alone.”

“There is at Forenzana a poor labourer, Gian Verde of name,” continued the visitor, dashing volubly into her narrative. “He is one day digging in the vineyard, the vineyard of my husband, when his spade strikes itself upon an obstruction. ‘Aha,’ says Gian, ‘what have we here?’ and he goes down upon his knees to see. It is an oil jar of red earth, Signor, such as was anciently used, and in it is filled with silver money.

“Gian is poor but he is wise. Does he call upon the authorities? No, no; he understands that they are all corrupt. He carries what he has found to my husband for he knows him to be a man of great honour.

“My husband also is of brief decision. His mind is made up. ‘Gian,’ he says, ‘keep your mouth shut. This will be to your ultimate profit.’ Gian understands, for he can trust my husband. He makes a sign of mutual implication. Then he goes back to the spade digging.

“My husband understands a little of these things but not enough. We go to the collections of Messina and Naples and even Rome and there we see other pieces of silver money, similar, and learn that they are of great value. They are of different sizes but most would cover a lira and of the thickness of two. On the one side imagine the great head of a pagan deity; on the other—oh, so many things I cannot remember what.” A gesture of circumferential despair indicated the hopeless variety of design.

“A biga or quadriga of mules?” suggested Carrados. “An eagle carrying off a hare, a figure flying with a wreath, a trophy of arms? Some of those perhaps?”

“Si, si bene,” cried Madame Ferraja. “You understand, I perceive, Signor. We are very cautious, for on every side is extortion and an unjust law. See, it is even forbidden to take these things out of the country, yet if we try to dispose of them at home they will be seized and we punished, for they are tesoro trovato, what you call treasure troven and belonging to the State—these coins which the industry of Gian discovered and which had lain for so long in the ground of my husband’s vineyard.”

“So you brought them to England?”

“Si, Signor. It is spoken of as a land of justice and rich nobility who buy these things at the highest prices. Also my speaking a little of the language would serve us here.”

“I suppose you have the coins for disposal then? You can show them to me?”

“My husband retains them. I will take you, but you must first give parola d’onore of an English Signor not to betray us, or to speak of the circumstance to another.”

Carrados had already foreseen this eventuality and decided to accept it. Whether a promise exacted on the plea of treasure trove would bind him to respect the despoilers of the British Museum was a point for subsequent consideration. Prudence demanded that he should investigate the offer at once and to cavil over Madame Ferraja’s conditions would be fatal to that object. If the coins were, as there seemed little reason to doubt, the proceeds of the robbery, a modest ransom might be the safest way of preserving irreplaceable treasures, and in that case Carrados could offer his services as the necessary intermediary.

“I give you the promise you require, Madame,” he accordingly declared.

“It is sufficient,” assented Madame. “I will now take you to the spot. It is necessary that you alone should accompany me, for my husband is so distraught in this country, where he understands not a word of what is spoken, that his poor spirit would cry ‘We are surrounded!’ if he saw two strangers approach the house. Oh, he is become most dreadful in his anxiety, my husband. Imagine only, he keeps on the fire a cauldron of molten lead and he would not hesitate to plunge into it this treasure and obliterate its