The Joker, Edgar Wallace [books you have to read TXT] 📗
- Author: Edgar Wallace
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door, which Mr Harlow opened and stood courteously aside to allow his
companion to pass.
They went up a long flight of stairs to another door, which Harlow
unlocked.
‘Here we are, my dear fellow,’ he said, closing the door gently. ‘This is
what is called a labour-saving flat; one of the modern creations designed
by expensive architects for the service of wealthy tenants who are so
confoundedly mean that they weigh out their servants’ food! Here we shall
live in comparative quiet for a week or two.’
‘What has happened?’ asked Marling.
The big man shrugged his shoulders.
‘I do not know—I rather imagine that I recognise the inevitable, but I
am not quite sure. Your room is here, at the back of the house. Do you
mind?’
Marling saw that it was a more luxurious apartment than that which he had
left. Books there were in plenty. The only drawback was that the windows
were covered with a thin coating of white paint which made them opaque.
‘I prepared this place for you two, nay, three years ago,’ said Harlow.
‘For a week or two, until we can make arrangements, I am afraid we shall
have to do our own housework.’
He patted the other on the shoulder.
‘You’re a good fellow,’ he said. ‘There are times when I would like to
change places with you. Vivit post funera virtus! I, alas! have no
virtues, but a consuming desire to make wheels turn.’
He pursed his thick lips and then said, apropos of nothing: ‘She is
really a very nice girl indeed!… And she has a sense of humour. How rare
a quality in a woman!’
‘Of whom are you talking?’ asked the bearded man, a little bewildered.
‘The might-have-been,’ was the flippant reply. ‘Even the wicked cannot be
denied their dreams. Would you call me a sentimentalist, Marling?’
Marling shook his head, and Mr Harlow laughed not unkindly. ‘You’re the
most appallingly honest man I’ve ever met,’ he said, in admiration; ‘and
I think you’re the only human being in the world for whom I have a
genuine affection.’
His companion stared at him with wide-open eyes. And Mr Harlow met the
gaze without faltering. He was speaking the truth. His one nightmare in
the past twenty years was that this simple soul should fall ill; for if
that catastrophe had occurred, Stratford Harlow would have risked ruin
and suffering to win him back to health. Marling was the only joke in
life that he took seriously.
Every morning for three years, two newspapers had been thrust under the
door of Harlow’s flat and had been disposed of by the hired servant who
came to keep the place in order. Every morning a large bottle of milk had
been deposited on the mat and had been similarly cleared away by the
servant, who would come no more, for she had received a letter dispensing
with her services on the morning Harlow and his companion arrived. The
letter was not signed ‘Stratford Harlow,’ but bore the name by which she
knew her employer.
The first day was a dull one. Harlow had nothing to do and inactivity
exasperated him. He was down early the next morning to take in milk and
newspapers; and for a long time sat at his ease, a thin cigar between his
teeth, a cup of cooling coffee by his side, reading of his disappearance.
The ports were watched; detectives were on duty at the termini of all
airways. The flying squad was scouring London. The phrase seemed
familiar. The flying squad from police headquarters spend their lives
scouring London, and London seems none the cleaner for it.
There was his portrait across three columns, headed ‘The Splendid
Harlow,’ and only hinting at the charge which would be laid against him.
He learnt, without regret or sorrow, of the arrest of Mrs Edwins—he had
a lifelong grudge against Mrs Edwins, who had a lifelong grudge against
him. She was wholly incapable of understanding his attitude to life. She
had wondered why he did not live abroad in the most luxurious and exotic
atmosphere. She would have excused a seraglio; she could not forgive his
industry and continence.
She had made no statement, the newspapers said, and he suspected her of
making many of a vituperative character.
There was a hint of Marling in the paragraph:
‘The police are particularly desirous of getting into touch with the man
who left the Park Lane house at the same time as Harlow. He is described
as tall, rather pale, with a long yellow beard. None of the servants of
the house has ever seen him. It may be explained that Mr Harlow’s
domestic arrangements were of an unusual character. All the servants
slept out in a house which Harlow had hired… ‘
Mr Harlow turned over the page to see the sporting cartoon. The humour of
Tom Webster never failed to amuse him. Then he turned back to the Stock
Exchange news.
Markets were recovering rapidly. He made a calculation on the margin of
the paper and purred at his profits.
He could feel a glow of satisfaction though he was a fugitive from
justice; though all sorts of horrid possibilities were looming before
him; though it seemed nothing could prevent his going the dreary
way-Brixton Prison, Pentonville, Wormwood Scrubs, Dartmoor… if not
worse. If not worse.
He took out his cigar and looked at it complacently. Mrs Gibbins had died
a natural death, though that would take some proving. It was a most
amazingly simple accident. Her muddy shoes had slipped on the polished
floor of his library; and when he had picked her up she was dead. That
was the truth and nothing but the truth. And Miss Mercy Harlow had died
naturally; and the little green bottle that Marling had seen had
contained nothing more noxious than the restorative with which the doctor
had entrusted him against the heart attack from which she succumbed.
He rose and stretched himself, drank the cold coffee with a wry face, and
shuffled along leisurely in his slippered feet to call Saul Marling. He
knocked at the door, but there was no answer. Turning the handle, he went
in. The room was empty. So, too, was the bathroom.
Mr Harlow walked along the passage to the door leading down to the
street. It was open. So also was the street door. He stood for a while at
the head of the stairs, his hands in his pockets, the dead cigar between
his teeth. Then he descended, closed the door and, walking back to the
sitting-room, threw the cigar into the fireplace, lit another and sat
down to consider matters; his forehead wrinkled painfully.
Presently he gave utterance to die thought which filled his mind.
‘I do hope that poor fellow is careful how he crosses the road—he isn’t
used to traffic!’
But there were policemen who would help a timid, bearded man across the
busy streets, and it was rather early for heavy traffic.
That thought comforted him. He took up the newspaper and in a second was
absorbed in the Welbury divorce case which occupied the greater part of
the page.
AILEEN RIVERS might well have excused herself from attending her office,
but she hated the fuss which her absence would occasion; and she felt
remarkably well when she woke at noon.
Mr Stebbings greeted her as though she had not been absent until
lunch-time, to his great inconvenience; and one might not imagine, from
his matter-of-fact attitude, that he had been badgered by telephone
messages and police visitations during the twelve hours which preceded
her arrival.
He made no reference to her adventure until late in the afternoon, when
she brought in some letters for him to sign. He put his careful signature
to each sheet and then looked up. ‘James Carlton comes of a very good
family. I knew his father rather well.’
She went suddenly red at this and was for the moment so thrown off her
balance that she could not ask him what James Carlton’s parentage had to
do with a prosaic and involved letter on the subject of leases.
‘He was most anxious about you, naturally,’ Mr Stebbings rambled on
aimlessly. ‘I was in bed when he called me up—I have never heard a man
who sounded so worried. It is curious that one does not associate the
police force with those human emotions which are common in us all, and I
confess it was a great surprise—in a sense a gratifying surprise! I have
seen him once; quite a good looking young man; and although the
emoluments of his office are not great, he appeals to me as one who has
the capacity of making any woman happy.’ He paused. ‘If women can be made
happy,’ he added, the misogynist in him coming to the surface.
‘I really don’t know what you mean, Mr Stebbings,’ she said, very hot, a
little incoherent, but not altogether distressed.
‘Will you take this letter?’ said Mr Stebbings, dismissing distracted
detectives and hot-faced girls from his mind; and immediately she was
plunged into the technology of an obscure trusteeship which the firm of
Stebbings was engaged in contesting.
As Aileen grew calmer, the shock of the discovery grew in poignancy. A
girl who finds herself to be in love experiences a queer sense of
desolation and loneliness. It is an emotion which seems unshareable; and
the more she thought of Jim Carlton, the more she was satisfied that the
affection was one-sided; that she was wasting her time and thought on a
man who did not care for her any more than he cared for every other girl
he met; and that love was a disease which was best cured by fasting and
self-repression.
She was in this frame of mind when there came a gentle tap at her door.
She called ‘Come in!’—the handle turned and a man walked nervously into
the room. A tall man, hatless, collarless, and inadequately clad. An
overcoat many times too broad for him was buttoned up to the neck, and
although he wore shoes he was sockless and his legs were covered by a
pair of dark-blue pyjamas. He stroked his long beard nervously and looked
at the girl in doubt.
‘Excuse me, madam,’ he said, ‘is this the office of Stebbings, Field and
Farrow?’
She had risen in amazement. ‘Yes. Do you wish to see Mr Stebbings?’
He nodded, looked nervously round at the door and dosed it behind him.
‘If you please,’ he said.
‘What name?’ she asked.
He drew a long breath.
‘Will you tell him that Mr Stratford Harlow wishes to see him?’
Her mouth opened in amazement.
‘Stratford Harlow? Is he here?’
He nodded. ‘I am Stratford Harlow,’ he said simply.
The gentleman who for twenty-three years had borne the name of Stratford
Harlow was drinking a cup of China tea when the bell rang. He finished
the tea, and wiped his mouth with a silk handkerchief. Again the bell
shrilled. Mr Harlow rose with a smile, dusted the crumbs from his coat
and, pausing in the passage to take down an overcoat and a hat from their
pegs, walked down the stairs and threw open the door.
Jim Carlton was standing on the sidewalk, and with him three gentlemen
who were unmistakably detectives.
‘I want you, Harlow,’ he said.
‘I thought you might,’ said Mr Harlow pleasantly. ‘Is that your car?’ He
patted his pockets. ‘I think I have everything necessary to a prisoner of
state. You may handcuff me
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