Piccadilly Jim, P. G. Wodehouse [romantic novels to read .TXT] 📗

“Chicago Ed.’s my monaker.”

“I don’t remember any Chicago Ed.”

“Well, you will after dis!” said Mr. Crocker, happily inspired.

Ogden was eyeing him with sudden suspicion.

“Take that mask off and let’s have a look at you.”

“Nothing doin’.”

“How am I to know you’re on the level?”

Mr. Crocker played a daring card.

“All right,” he said, making a move towards the door. “It’s up to youse. If you t’ink I’m not on de level, I’ll beat it.”

“Here, stop a minute,” said Ogden hastily, unwilling that a promising business deal should be abandoned in this summary manner. “I’m not saying anything against you. There’s no need to fly off the handle like that.”

“I’ll tell Buck I couldn’t get you,” said Mr. Crocker, moving another step.

“Here, stop! What’s the matter with you?”

“Are youse comin’ wit me?”

“Sure, if you get the conditions. Buck’s got to slip me half of whatever he gets out of this.”

“Dat’s right. Buck’ll slip youse half of anyt’ing he gets.”

“All right, then. Wait till I’ve got this shoe on, and let’s start. Now I’m ready.”

“Beat it quietly.”

“What did you think I was going to do? Sing?”

“Step dis way!” said Mr. Crocker jocosely.

They left the room cautiously. Mr. Crocker for a moment had a sense of something missing. He had reached the stairs before he realised what it was. Then it dawned upon him that what was lacking was the applause. The scene had deserved a round.

Jimmy, vigilant in the gallery, heard the library door open softly and, peering over the rail, perceived two dim forms in the darkness. One was large, the other small. They crossed the room together.

Whispered words reached him.

“I thought you said you came in this way.”

“Sure.”

“Then why’s the shutter closed?”

“I fixed it after I was in.”

There was a faint scraping sound, followed by a click. The darkness of the room was relieved by moonlight. The figures passed through. Jimmy ran down from the gallery, and closed the windows softly. He had just fastened the shutters, when from the passage outside there came the unmistakeable sound of a footstep.

Jimmy’s first emotion on hearing the footstep was the crude instinct of self-preservation. All that he was able to think of at the moment was the fact that he was in a questionable position and one which would require a good deal of explaining away if he were found, and his only sensation was a strong desire to avoid discovery. He made a silent, scrambling leap for the gallery stairs, and reached their shelter just as the door opened. He stood there, rigid, waiting to be challenged, but apparently he had moved in time, for no voice spoke. The door closed so gently as to be almost inaudible, and then there was silence again. The room remained in darkness, and it was this perhaps that first suggested to Jimmy the comforting thought that the intruder was equally desirous of avoiding the scrutiny of his fellows. He had taken it for granted in his first panic that he himself was the only person in that room whose motive for being there would not have borne inspection. But now, safely hidden in the gallery, out of sight from the floor below, he had the leisure to consider the newcomer’s movements and to draw conclusions from them.

An honest man’s first act would surely have been to switch on the lights. And an honest man would hardly have crept so stealthily. It became apparent to Jimmy, as he leaned over the rail and tried to pierce the darkness, that there was sinister work afoot; and he had hardly reached this conclusion when his mind took a further leap and he guessed the identity of the soft-footed person below. It could be none but his old friend Lord Wisbeach, known to “the boys” as Gentleman Jack. It surprised him that he had not thought of this before. Then it surprised him that, after the talk they had only a few hours earlier in that very room, Gentleman Jack should have dared to risk this raid.

At this moment the blackness was relieved as if by the striking of a match. The man below had brought an electric torch into play, and now Jimmy could see clearly. He had been right in his surmise. It was Lord Wisbeach. He was kneeling in front of the safe. What he was doing to the safe, Jimmy could not see, for the man’s body was in the way; but the electric torch shone on his face, lighting up grim, serious features quite unlike the amiable and slightly vacant mask which his lordship was wont to present to the world. As Jimmy looked, something happened in the pool of light beyond his vision. Gentleman Jack gave a muttered exclamation of satisfaction, and then Jimmy saw that the door of the safe had swung open. The air was full of a penetrating smell of scorched metal. Jimmy was not an expert in these matters, but he had read from time to time of modern burglars and their methods, and he gathered that an oxyacetylene blowpipe, with its flame that cuts steel as a knife cuts cheese, had been at work.

Lord Wisbeach flashed the torch into the open safe, plunged his hand in, and drew it out again, holding something. Handling this in a cautious and gingerly manner, he placed it carefully in his breast pocket. Then he straightened himself. He switched off the torch, and moved to the window, leaving the rest of his implements by the open safe. He unfastened the shutter, then raised the catch of the window. At this point it seemed to Jimmy that the time had come to interfere.

“Tut, tut!” he said in a tone of mild reproof.

The effect of the rebuke on Lord Wisbeach was remarkable. He jumped convulsively away from the window, then, revolving on his own axis, flashed the torch into every corner of the room.

“Who’s that?” he gasped.

“Conscience!” said Jimmy.

Lord Wisbeach had overlooked the gallery