From a man in the Department of the Public Prosecutor at Whitehall, Rayne often learnt much of the inner workings of Scotland Yard and of secret inquiries, for a civil servant at a well-laid sumptuous table is frequently prone to indiscretion.
Arthur Benton was a well-meaning and very straight-dealing public servant with a splendid record as a detector of crime, but against money and such influence he could not cope. Indeed, more than once Rayne declared to me that he intended evil against Benton.
Yet I rather like him, he had said when we were discussing him one day. After all, hes a real good sportsman!
So according to Raynes orders I met the hunchback Tarrant at the Three Nuns Hotel at Aldgate. I had taken another car from Lloyds garage a Fiat landaulette, stolen, no doubt and in it, at the old mans directions, I drove out to Maldon, in Essex, where at a small house outside the town I found, to my surprise, Rayne already awaiting us.
What, I wondered, was in progress?
CHAPTER IV
THE FOUR FALSE FINGERS
The house outside Maldon proved to be a newly built, detached, eight-roomed villa in a lonely spot on the high road to Witham. As I idled about it, I smelt a curious odor of melting rubber. Apparently the place had been taken furnished, but with what object I could not guess. Tarrant was a queer, rather insignificant-looking old fellow with a shock of white hair and a scraggy white beard.
Both he and Rayne were closeted together in the little dining-room for nearly two hours, while I sat in the adjoining room. I could hear them conversing in low tones, and the smell of rubber warmed by heat became more pungent. What game was being carried on? Something very secret without a doubt. I thought I heard the sound of a third mans voice. Indeed, there might be a third person present, for I had not been admitted to the room.
At last, leaving Rayne there, I drove the old man on to Witham, where I left him at his own request at a point near the wireless telegraph station, and turning, went back to the thieves garage and there left the car.
I did not see Rudolph Rayne again for several days, but according to instructions I received from Madame Duperré, I went by train up to Yorkshire and awaited their arrival.
From Duperré, who arrived three days after I had got to Overstow, I gathered that Rayne had suddenly been called away to the Continent on one of his swift visits, on a little matter of business, added Vincent with a meaning grin.
We were smoking together in the great old library, when I told him of my narrow escape on Clifton Bridge.
Yes, he said. Benton is always trying to get at us. It was sly of him to impersonate old Morley. I wonder how he got to know that you were meeting him? Someone must have betrayed Rayne. I have a suspicion who it may be. If he has, then woe betide him! Rudolph never forgives an enemy or a blunderer.
I tried to get from Duperré the reason why the hunchback had met Rayne in such secrecy, but he would divulge nothing.
Next day his wife and Lola returned, and that same evening as I sat with the latter in the chintz-covered drawing-room for though I had been engaged as chauffeur I was now treated as one of the family I had a delightful chat with her.
That she was sorely puzzled at her fathers rapid journeys to and fro across Europe without any apparent reason, of the strange assortment of his friends and the secrecy in which he so often met them, I had long ago observed.
The truth was that I had fallen deeply in love with the sweet dainty girl whose father was the most audacious and cunning crook the modern world had produced. I believed, on account of the small confidence we had exchanged, that Lola, on her part, did not regard me with actual disfavor.
When will your father be back, do you think? I asked her as she lounged upon a settee with a big orange silk cushion behind her. She looked very sweet. She wore a pretty but very simple dance-frock of flame-colored ninon, in which I had seen her at the Carlton on the night when I set out to meet the man Tarrant and was so nearly caught.
I had given her a cigarette, and we were smoking together cosily Duperré and his wife being somewhere in the great old house. I think Duperré was, after all, a sportsman, even though he was a practiced crook, for on that night he and his wife allowed me to be alone with Lola.
Do you know a friend of your father, an old man named Tarrant? I asked her suddenly.
Tarrant Morley Tarrant? she asked. Oh! yes. Hes such a funny old fellow. Three years ago he often used to visit us when we lived in Biarritz, but I havent seen him since.
Who is he?
He was the manager of the branch of the Crédit Foncier. He is French, though he bears an English name.
French! But he speaks English! I remarked.
Of course. His mother was English. He was once employed by Morgans in Paris, I believe, but I havent seen him lately. Father said one day at table that the old fellow had overstepped the mark and owing to some defalcations had gone to prison. I was sorry. What do you know of him?
Nothing, I replied. Ive heard of him.
She looked me very straight in the face from beneath her long dark lashes.
Ah! you wont tell me what you know, she said mysteriously.
Neither will you, Lola! Then, after a pause, I added: I want to know whether he is your fathers friend or his enemy.
His friend, no doubt.
Why should your father have as friend a man who robs a bank, eh? I asked very earnestly.
Ah! That I dont know! replied the girl as she bent towards me earnestly. I Im always so puzzled. Ever since my dear mother died, just after I came back from Roedene, I have wondered and always wondered. I can discover nothing absolutely nothing! Father is so secret, and neither Madame nor he will tell me anything. They only say that their business is no affair of mine. My father has business, no doubt, Mr. Hargreave. From his business he derives his income. But I cannot see why he should so constantly meet men and women in all sorts of social positions and give them orders, as it were. I am not blind, neither am I deaf.
You have listened in secret, eh? I asked.
I confess that I have. Then, after a slight pause, she went on: And I have overheard some very strange conversations. My father seems to direct the good fortunes of certain of his friends, while at the same time he plots against his enemies. But I suppose, after all, it is business.
Business! Little did the girl dream of the real occupation of her unscrupulous father, or the desperate characters of his friends, both male and female.
Truly, she was very sweet and charming, and I hated to think that in her innocence she existed in that fevered world of plotting and desperate crime.
We walked along the broad terrace in the twilight. Beyond spread the wide park to a dark belt of trees, Shermans Copse, it was called, a delightfully shady place in summer where we had often strolled together.
As we chatted, I reflected. So old Morley Tarrant was a gaol-bird! Hence it was but natural that Rudolph Rayne, who preserved such a high degree of respectability, would hesitate to meet him providing he knew that the police were watching. He certainly knew that, hence the secrecy of their appointment.
As we walked Madame suddenly emerged from the French windows of the drawing-room and joined us.
Ive just had a wire from Rudolph, she said. Hes leaving Copenhagen to-night and will be back to-morrow night. Id no idea that he had been over in Denmark. But there! he is such a bird of passage that one never knows where he may be to-morrow. And she laughed.