Elk 02 The Joker (2 page)

‘Naturally,’ murmured Mr Harlow.

He took a notebook from his pocket, opened it with the greatest deliberation and wrote for five minutes, the little lawyer watching him. When he had finished he tore out the sheet and passed it across the table.

‘I want to know all about this man Arthur Ingle,’ he said. ‘When his sentence expires, where he lives in London or elsewhere, his means and especially his grudge against life. I don’t know what it is, but I rather suspect that it is a pretty big one. I should also like to know where his niece is employed. Her name you will find on the paper, with a query mark attached. I want to know who are her friends, what are her amusements, her financial position is very important.’

‘I understand.’ Ellenbury put the paper carefully in a worn pocket-book. And then, with one of his habitual starts: ‘I had forgotten one thing, Mr Harlow,’ he said. ‘On Monday last I had a visit at my office in Lincoln’s Inn Fields from the police.’

He said the last two words apologetically as though he were in some way responsible for the character of his caller. Mr Harlow turned his pale eyes upon his companion, made a long scrutiny of his face before he asked: ‘in what connection?’

‘I don’t know exactly,’ said Ellenbury, who had a trick of reproducing at a second’s notice all the emotions he described. ‘It was rather puzzling.’ He screwed up his face into an expression of bewilderment. ‘You see, Mr Carlton did not come to any point.’

‘Carlton?’ demanded Harlow, quickly for him. ‘That’s the man at the Foreign Office, isn’t it?’

Ellenbury nodded.

‘It was about the rubber fire. You remember the fire at the United International factory? He wanted to know if Rata had any insurance on the stock that was burnt and of course I told him that as far as I knew, we hadn’t.’

‘Don’t say “we,”’ said Mr Harlow gently. ‘Say the Rata Syndicate hadn’t. You are a lawyer acting for undisclosed principals. Well?’

‘That was all,’ said Ellenbury. ‘He was very vague.’

‘He always is vague,’ interrupted Harlow with a faint smile, ‘and he’s always unscrupulous - remember that, Ellenbury. Sub-Inspector James Carlton is the most unscrupulous man that Scotland Yard has ever employed. Some day he will be irretrievably ruined or irretrievably promoted. I have a great admiration for him. I know of no man in the world I rate higher in point of intelligence, acumen and - unscrupulousness! He has a theory which is both admirable and baffling. Which means that he has the right theory. For rectitude is the most baffling of all human qualities, because you never know, if a man is doing right, what he will do next. I think that is almost an epigram, Ellenbury: you had best jot it down, so that if ever you are called upon to write my biography you may have material to lighten its pages.’ He looked at his watch. I shall be at Park Lane at eleven o’clock on Friday night, and I can give you ten minutes,’ he said.

Ellenbury twiddled his fingers unhappily.

‘Isn’t there a risk - to you, I mean?’ he blurted. ‘Perhaps I’m stupid, but I can’t see why you do…well, why you take chances. With all your money - ’

Mr Harlow leaned back in the cushioned seat, amusement faintly visible in his pale eyes.

‘If you had millions what would you do? Retire, of course. Build or buy a beautiful house - and then?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the older man vaguely. ‘One could travel…’

‘The English people have two ideas of happiness: one comes from travel, one from staying still! Rushing or rusting! I might marry but I don’t wish to marry. I might have a great stable of race-horses, but I detest racing. I might yacht - I loathe the sea. Suppose I want a thrill? I do! The art of living is the art of victory. Make a note of that. Where is happiness in cards, horses, golf, women - anything you like? I’ll tell you: in beating the best man to it! That’s An Americanism. Where is the joy of mountain climbing, of exploration, of scientific discovery? To do better than somebody else - to go farther, to put your foot on the head of the next best.’

He blew a cloud of smoke through the open window and waited until the breeze had torn the misty gossamer into shreds and nothingness.

‘When you’re a millionaire you either get inside yourself and become a beast, or get outside of yourself and become a nuisance to your fellows. If you’re a Napoleon you will play the game of power, if you’re a Leonardo you’ll play for knowledge - the stakes hardly matter; it’s the game that counts. Accomplishment has its thrill, whether it is hitting a golf ball farther than the next fellow, or strewing the battle fields with the bodies of your enemies. My thrill is harder to get than most people’s. I’m a millionaire. Sterling and dollars are my soldiers - I am entitled to frame my own rules of war, conduct my forays in my own way. Don’t ask any further questions!’

He waved his hand towards the door and Mr Ellenbury was dismissed; and shortly afterwards his hired car rattled loudly up the hill and past the gates of the jail. Mr Ellenbury studiously turned his face in the opposite direction.

SOME EIGHT months later there was an accident on the Thames Embankment. The girl in the yellow raincoat and the man in the black beret were of one accord - they were anxious, for different reasons, to cross the most dangerous stretch of the Embankment in the quickest possible space of time. There was a slight fog which gave promise of being just plain fog before the evening was far advanced. And through the fog percolated an unpleasant drizzle which turned the polished surface of the road into an insurance risk which no self-respecting company would have accepted.

The mudguard of the ancient Ford caught Aileen Rivers just below the left elbow, and she found herself performing a series of unrehearsed pirouettes. Then her nose struck a shining button and she slid romantically to her knees at the feet of a resentful policeman. He lifted her, looked at her, put her aside with great firmness and crossed to where the radiator of the car was staring pathetically up a bent lamp-post.

‘What’s the idea?’ he asked sternly, and groped for his notebook.

The young man in the beret wiped his soiled face with the back of his hand, a gesture which resulted in the further spread of his griminess.

‘Was the girl hurt?’ he asked quickly.

‘Never mind about the girl; let’s have a look at your licence.’

Unheeding his authoritative demand, the young man stalked across to where Aileen, embarrassed by the crowd which gathered, was assuring several old ladies that she wasn’t hurt. She was standing on her two feet to prove it.

‘Waggle your toes about,’ suggested a hoarse-voiced woman. ‘If they won’t move, your back’s broke!’

The experiment was not made, for at that moment the tall young man pushed his way to the centre of the curious throng.

‘Not hurt, are you?’ he asked anxiously. ‘I’m awfully sorry - really! Didn’t see you till the car was right on top of you.’

A voice from the crowd offered advice and admonition.

‘You orter be careful, mister! You might ‘a’ killed somebody.’

‘Tell me your name, won’t you?’

He dived into his pocket, found an old envelope and paused.

‘Really it isn’t necessary, I’m quite unhurt,’ she insisted, but he was also insistent.

He jotted down name and address and he had finished writing when the outraged constable melted through the crowd.

‘Here!’ he said, in a tone in which fierceness and reproach were mingled. ‘You can’t go running away when I’m talking to you, my friend! Just you stand still and show me that licence of yours.’

‘Did you see the blue Rolls?’ demanded the young man. ‘It was just ahead of me when I hit the lamp-post.’

‘Never mind about blue Rolls’s,’ said the officer in cold exasperation. ‘Let me have a look at your licence.’

The young man slipped something out of his pocket and held it in the palm of his hand. It was not unlike a driver’s licence and yet it was something else.

‘What’s the idea?’ asked the policeman testily.

He snatched the little canvas-backed booklet and opened it, turning his torch on the written words.

‘Humph!’ he said. ‘Sorry, sir.’

‘Not at all,’ said Sub-Inspector James Carlton of Scotland Yard. ‘I’ll send somebody down to clear away the mess. Did you see the Rolls?’

‘Yes sir, just in front of you. Petrol tank dented.’

Carlton chuckled. ‘Saw that too? I’ll remember you, constable. You had better send the girl home in a taxi - no, I’ll take her myself.’

Aileen heard the proposal without enthusiasm. ‘I much prefer to walk,’ she said definitely.

He led her aside from the crowd now being dispersed, authoritatively. And in such privacy as could be obtained momentarily, he revealed himself.

‘I am, in fact, a policeman,’ he said; and she opened her eyes in wonder.

He did not look like a policeman, even in the fog which plays so many tricks. He had the appearance of a motor mechanic, and not a prosperous one. On his head was a black beret that had seen better days; he wore an old mack reaching to his knees; and the gloves he carried under his arm were black with grease.

‘Nevertheless,’ he said firmly, as though she had given oral expression to her surprise, ‘I am a policeman. But no ordinary policeman. I am an inspector at Scotland Yard - a sub-inspector, it is true, but I have a position to uphold.’

‘Why are you telling me all this?’

‘He had already hailed a taxi and now he opened the door. ‘You might object to the escort of an ordinary policeman,’ he said airily, ‘but my rank is so exalted that you do not need a chaperon.’

She entered the cab between laughter and tears, for her elbow really did hurt more than she was ready to confess.

‘Rivers - Aileen Rivers,’ he mused, as the cab went cautiously along the Embankment. ‘I’ve got you on the tip of my tongue and at the back of my mind, but I can’t place you.’

‘Perhaps if you look up my record at Scotland Yard?’ she suggested, with a certain anger at his impertinence.

‘I thought of doing that,’ he replied calmly; ‘but Aileen Rivers?’ He shook his head. ‘No, I can’t place you.’ And of course he had placed her. He knew her as the niece of Arthur Ingle, sometime Shakespearean actor and now serving five years for an ingenious system of fraud and forgery. But then, he was unscrupulous, as Mr Harlow had said. He had a power of invention which carried him far beyond the creative line, but he was not averse to stooping on the way to the most petty deceptions. And this in spite of the fact that he had been well educated and immense sums had been spent on the development of his mind, so that lie might distinguish between right and wrong.

‘Fotheringay Mansions.’ He fingered his grimy chin. ‘How positively exclusive!’

She turned on him in sudden anger. ‘I’ve accepted your escort, Mr - ’ She paused insultingly.

‘Carlton,’ he murmured; ‘half-brother to the hotel but no relation to the club. And this is fame! You were saying?’

‘I was going to say that I wished you would not talk. You have done your best to kill me this evening; you might at least let me die in peace.’

He peered through the fog-shrouded windows. ‘There’s an old woman selling chrysanthemums near Westminster Bridge; we might stop and buy you some flowers.’ And then, quickly: ‘I’m terribly sorry, I won’t ask you any questions at all or make any comments upon your plutocratic residence.’

‘I don’t live there,’ she said in self-defence. ‘I go there sometimes to see the place is kept in order. It belongs to a - a - relation of mine who is abroad.’

‘Monte Carlo?’ he murmured. ‘And a jolly nice place too! Rien ne va plus! Faites vos jeux, monsieurs et mesdames! Personally I prefer San Remo. Blue sky, blue sea, green hills, white houses - everything like a railway poster.’ And then he went off at a tangent. ‘And talking of blueness, you were lucky not to be hit by the blue Rolls; it was going faster than me, but it has better brakes. I rammed his petrol tank in the fog, but even that didn’t make him stop.’

Her lips curled in the darkness. ‘A criminal escaping from justice, one thinks? How terribly romantic!’

The young man chuckled.

‘One thinks wrong. It was a millionaire on his way to a City banquet. And the only criminal charge I can bring home to him is that he wears large diamond studs in his shirt, which offence is more against my aesthetic taste than the laws of my country, God bless it!’

The cab was slowing, the driver leaning sideways seeking to identify the locality.

‘We’re here,’ said Mr Carlton; opened the door of the taxi while it was still in motion and jumped out.

The machine stopped before the portals of Fotheringay Mansions.

‘Thank you very much for bringing me home,’ said Aileen primly and politely, and added not without malice: ‘I’ve enjoyed your conversation.’

‘You should hear my aunt,’ said the young man. ‘Her line of talk is sheer poetry!’

He watched her until she was swallowed in the gloom, and returned to the cab.

‘Scotland Yard,’ he said laconically; ‘and take a bit of a risk, O son of Nimshi.’

The cabman took the necessary risk and arrived without hurt at the gloomy entrance of police headquarters. Jim Carlton waved a brotherly greeting to the sergeant at the desk, took the stairs two at a time, and came to his own little room. As a rule he was not particularly interested in his personal appearance, but now, glancing at the small mirror which decorated the upturned top of a washstand, he uttered a groan.

He was busy getting the grease from his face when the melancholy face of Inspector Elk appeared in the doorway.

‘Going to a party?’ he asked gloomily.

‘No,’ said Jim through the lather; ‘I often wash.’

Elk sniffed, seated himself on the edge of a hard chair, searched his pockets slowly and thoroughly.

‘It’s in the inside pocket of my jacket,’ spluttered Carlton. ‘Take one; I’ve counted ‘em.’