Читать бесплатно онлайн книгу  The Man who bought London

автор Edgar Wallace

The Man who bought London

Edgar Wallace

Chapter 1

 

Night had come to the West End, but though the hour was late, though all Suburbia might at this moment be wrapped in gloom—a veritable desert of deadness relieved only by the brightness and animation of the busy public-houses—the Strand was thronged with a languid crowd all agape for the shady mysteries of the night world, which writers describe so convincingly, but the evidence of which is so often disappointing.

Deserted Suburbia had sent its quota to stare at the evil night-life of the Metropolis. That it was evil none doubted. These pallid shop girls clinging to the arms of their protecting swains, these sedate, married ladies, arm in arm with their husbands, these gay young bloods from a thousand homes beyond the radius—they all knew the significance of those two words: "West End."

They stood for an extravagant aristocracy—you could see the shimmer and sheen of them as they bowled noiselessly along the Strand from theatre to supper table, in their brilliantly illuminated cars, all lacquer and silver work. They stood for all the dazzle of light, for all the joyous ripple of laughter, for the faint strains of music which came from the restaurants.

Suburbia saw, disapproved, but was intensely interested. For here was hourly proof of unthinkable sums that to the strolling pedestrians were only reminiscent of the impossible exercises in arithmetic which they had been set in their earlier youth. It all reeked of money—the Strand—Pall Mall (all ponderous and pompous clubs), but most of all, Piccadilly Circus, a great glittering diamond of light set in the golden heart of London.

Money—money—money! The contents bills reflected the spirit of the West. "Well-known actress loses 20,000 pounds worth of jewellery," said one; "Five million shipping deal," said another, but that which attracted most attention was the naming bill which The Monitor had issued—

KING KERRY TO BUY LONDON

(Special)

It drew reluctant coppers from pockets which seldom knew any other variety of coinage than copper. It brought rapidly-walking men, hardened to the beguilement of the contents-bill author, to a sudden standstill.

It even lured the rich to satisfy their curiosity. "King Kerry is going to buy London," said one man.

"I wish he'd buy this restaurant and burn it," grumbled the other, rapping on the table with the handle of a fork. "Waiter, how long are you going to keep me before you take my order?"

"In a moment, sir."

A tall, good-looking man sitting at the next table, and occupying at the moment the waiter's full attention, smiled as he heard the conversation. His grey hair made him look much older than he was, a fact which afforded him very little distress, for he had passed the stage when his personal appearance excited much interest in his own mind. There were many eyes turned toward him, as, having paid his bill, he rose from his chair.

He seemed unaware of the attention he drew to himself, or, if aware, to be uncaring, and with a thin cigar between his even white teeth he made his way through the crowded room to the vestibule of the restaurant.

"By Jove," said the man who had complained about the waiter's inattention, "there goes the chap himself!" and he twisted round in his chair to view the departing figure.

"Who?" asked his friend, laying down the paper he had been reading.

"King Kerry," said the other, "the American millionaire."

King Kerry strolled out through the revolving doors and was swallowed up with the crowd.

Following King Kerry, at a distance, was another well-dressed man, younger than the millionaire, with a handsome face and a subtle air of refinement.

He scowled at the figure ahead as though he bore him no good will, but made no attempt to overtake or pass the man in front, seeming content to keep his distance. King Kerry crossed to the Haymarket and walked down that sloping thoroughfare to Cockspur Street.

The man who followed was slimmer of build, yet well made. He walked with a curious restricted motion that was almost mincing. He lacked the swing of shoulder which one usually associated with the well-built man, and there was a certain stiffness in his walk which suggested a military training. Reflected by the light of a lamp under which he stopped when the figure in front slowed down, the face was a perfect one, small featured and delicate.

Herman Zeberlieff had many of the characteristics of his Polish-Hungarian ancestry and if he had combined with these the hauteur of his aristocratic forbears, it was not unnatural, remembering that the Zeberlieffs had played no small part in the making of history.

King Kerry was taking a mild constitutional before returning to his Chelsea house to sleep. His shadower guessed this, and when King Kerry turned on to the Thames Embankment, the other kept on the opposite side of the broad avenue, for he had no wish to meet his quarry face to face.

The Embankment was deserted save for the few poor souls who gravitated hither in the hope of meeting a charitable miracle.

King Kerry stopped now and again to speak to one or another of the wrecks who ambled along the broad pavement, and his hand went from pocket to outstretched palm not once but many times.

There were some who, slinking towards him with open palms, whined their needs, but he was too experienced a man not to be able to distinguish between misfortune and mendicancy.

One such a beggar approached him near Cleopatra's Needle, but as King Kerry passed on without taking any notice of him, the outcast commenced to hurl a curse at him. Suddenly King Kerry turned back and the beggar shrunk towards the parapet as if expecting a blow, but the pedestrian was not hostile.

He stood straining his eyes in the darkness, which was made the more baffling because of the gleams of distant lights, and his cigar glowed red and grey.

"What did you say?" he asked gently. "I'm afraid I was thinking of something else when you spoke."

"Give a poor feller creature a copper to get a night's lodgin'!" whined the man. He was a bundle of rags, and his long hair and bushy beard were repulsive even in the light which the remote electric standards afforded.

"Give a copper to get a night's lodging?" repeated the other.

"An' the price of a dri—of a cup of coffee," added the man eagerly.

"Why?"

The question staggered the night wanderer, and he was silent for a moment.

"Why should I give you the price of a night's lodging—or give you anything at all which you have not earned?"

There was nothing harsh in the tone: it was gentle and friendly, and the man took heart.

"Because you've got it an' I ain't," he said—to him a convincing and unanswerable argument.

The gentleman shook his head.

"That is no reason," he said. "How long is it since you did any work?"

The man hesitated. There was authority in the voice, despite its mildness. He might be a "split"—and it would not pay to lie to one of those busy fellows.

"I've worked orf an' on," he said sullenly. "I can't get work what with foreyners takin' the bread out of me mouth an' undersellin' us."

It was an old argument, and one which he had found profitable, particularly with a certain type of philanthropist.

"Have you ever done a week's work in your life, my brother?" asked the gentleman.

One of the "my brother" sort, thought the tramp, and drew from his armoury the necessary weapons for the attack.

"Well, sir," he said meekly, "the Lord has laid a grievous affliction on me head—"

The gentleman shook his head again.

"There is no use in the world for you, my friend," he said softly. "You occupy the place and breathe the air which might be better employed. You're the sort that absorbs everything and grows nothing: you live on the charity of working people who cannot afford to give you the hard-earned pence your misery evokes."

"Are you goin' to allow a feller creature to walk about all night?" demanded the tramp aggressively.

"I have nothing to do with it, my brother," said the other coolly. "If I had the ordering of things I should not let you walk about."

"Very well, then," began the beggar, a little appeased.

"I should treat you in exactly the same way as I should treat any other stray dog—I should put you out of the world."

And he turned to walk on.

The tramp hesitated for a moment, black rage in his heart. The Embankment was deserted—there was no sign of a policeman.

"Here!" he said roughly, and gripped King Kerry's arm.

Only for a second, then a hand like teak struck him under the jaw, and he went blundering into the roadway, striving to regain his balance.

Dazed and shaken he stood on the kerb watching the leisurely disappearance of his assailant. Perhaps if he followed and made a row the stranger would give him a shilling to avoid the publicity of the courts; but then the tramp was as anxious as the stranger, probably more anxious, to avoid publicity. To do him justice, he had not allowed his beard to grow or refrained from cutting his hair because he wished to resemble an anchorite, there was another reason. He would like to get even with the man who had struck him—but there were risks.

"You made a mistake, didn't you?"

The beggar turned with a snarl.

At his elbow stood Hermann Zeberlieff, King Kerry's shadower, who had been an interested spectator of all that had happened.

"You mind your own business!" growled the beggar, and would have slouched on his way.

"Wait a moment!" The young man stepped in his path. His hand went into his pocket, and when he withdrew it he had a little handful of gold and silver. He shook it; it jingled musically.

"What would you do for a tenner?" he asked.

The man's wolf eyes were glued to the money.

"Anything," he whispered, "anything, bar murder."

"What would you do for fifty?" asked the young man.

"I'd—I'd do most anything," croaked the tramp hoarsely.

"For five hundred and a free passage to Australia?" suggested the young man, and his piercing eyes were fixed on the beggar.

"Anything—anything!" almost howled the man.

The young man nodded.

"Follow me," he said, "on the other side of the road."

They had not been gone more than ten minutes when two men came briskly from the direction of Westminster. They stopped every now and again to flash the light of an electric lamp upon the human wreckage which lolled in every conceivable attitude of slumber upon the seats of the Embankment. Nor were they content with this, for they scrutinized every passer-by—very few at this hour in the morning.

They met a leisurely gentleman strolling toward them, and put a question to him.

"Yes," said he, "curiously enough I have just spoken with him—a man of medium height, who spoke with a queer accent. I guess you think I speak with a queer accent too," he smiled, "but this was a provincial, I reckon."

"That's the man, inspector," said one of the two turning to the other. "Did he have a trick when speaking of putting his head on one side?"

The gentleman nodded.

"Might I ask if he is wanted—I gather that you are police officers?"

The man addressed hesitated and looked to his superior.

"Yes, sir," said the inspector. "There's no harm in telling you that his name is Horace Baggin, and he's wanted for murder—killed a warder of Devizes Gaol and escaped whilst serving the first portion of a lifer for manslaughter. We had word that he's been seen about here."

They passed on with a salute, and King Kerry, for it was he, continued his stroll thoughtfully.

"What a man for Hermann Zeberlieff to find?" he thought, and it was a coincidence that at that precise moment the effeminate-looking Zeberlieff was entertaining an unsavoury tramp in his Park Lane study, plying him with a particularly villainous kind of vodka; and the tramp, with his bearded head on one side as he listened, was learning more about the pernicious ways of American millionaires than he had ever dreamt.

"Off the earth fellers like that ought to be," he said thickly. "Give me a chance—hit me on the jaw, he did, the swine—I'll millionaire him!"

"Have another drink," said Zeberlieff.

Chapter 2

 

The "tube" lift was crowded, and Elsie Marion, with an apprehensive glance at the clock, rapidly weighed in her mind whether it would be best to wait for the next lift and risk the censure of Mr. Tack or whether she should squeeze in before the great sliding doors clanged together. She hated lifts, and most of all she hated crowded lifts. Whilst she hesitated the doors rolled together with a "Next lift, please!"

She stared at the door blankly, annoyed at her own folly. This was the morning of all mornings when she wished to be punctual.

Tack had been mildly grieved by her innumerable failings, and had nagged her persistently for the greater part of the week. She was unpunctual, she was untidy, she was slack to a criminal extent for a lady cashier whose efficiency is reckoned by the qualities which, as Tack insisted, she did not possess.

The night before he had assembled the cash girls and had solemnly warned them that he wished to see them in their places at nine o'clock sharp. Not, he was at trouble to explain, at nine-ten, or at nine-five, not even at nine-one—but as the clock in the tower above Tack and Brighton's magnificent establishment chimed the preliminary quarters before booming out the precise information that nine o'clock had indeed arrived, he wished every lady to be in her place.

There had been stirring times at Tack and Brighton's during the past three months. An unaccountable spirit of generosity had been evinced by the proprietors—but it had been exercised towards the public rather than in favour of the unfortunate employees. The most extraordinary reductions in the sale price of their goods and the most cheeseparing curtailments of selling cost had resulted—so traitorous members of the counting-house staff said secretly—in a vastly increased turnover and, in some mysterious fashion, in vastly increased profits.

Some hinted that those profits were entirely fictitious, but that were slander only to be hinted at, for why should Tack and Brighten, a private company with no shareholders to please or pain, go out of their way to fake margins? For the moment, the stability of the firm was a minor consideration.

It wanted seven minutes to nine, and here was Elsie Marion at Westminster Bridge Road Tube Station, and Tack and Brighton's Oxford Street premises exactly twelve minutes away. She shrugged her pretty shoulders. One might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, she thought. But she was angry with herself at her own stupidity. The next lift would be as crowded—she was left in no doubt as to that, for it was full as soon as the doors were open—and she might have saved three precious minutes.

She was crowded to the side of the lift and was thankful that the unsavoury and often uncleanly patrons of the line at this hour in the morning were separated from her by a tall man who stood immediately before her.

He was bareheaded, and his grey hair was neatly brushed and pomaded. His high forehead, clean-cut aquiline nose and firm chin, gave him an air of refinement and suggested breed. His eyes were blue and deep-set, his lips a trifle thin, and his cheek-bones, without being prominent, were noticeable on his sun-tanned face. All this she took in in one idle glance. She wondered who he was, and for what reason he was a traveller so early in the morning. He was well-dressed, and a single black pearl in his cravat was suggestive of wealth. His hat he held between his two hands across his breast. He was an American, she gathered, because Americans invariably removed their hats in elevators when women were present.

The lift sank downward to the platform sixty feet below, and as it did she heard the faint sound of a "ting," which told her she had missed a train. That would mean another three minutes' wait. She could have cried with vexation. It was a serious matter for her—an orphan girl absolutely alone in the world and dependent upon her own exertions for a livelihood. Cashiers were a drug on the market, and her shorthand and typewriting lessons had only advanced to a stage where she despaired of their getting any further.

Her salary was very small, and she thought regretfully of the days when she had spent more than that on shoes, before dear old spendthrift Aunt Martha had died, leaving her adopted daughter with no greater provision for the future than a Cheltenham education, a ten-pound note, and a massive brooch containing a lock from the head of Aunt Martha's love of the sixties.

Between the beginning of a lift's ascent and the moment the doors open again a girl with the cares of life upon her can review more than a man can write in a year. Before the giant elevator touched bottom Elsie Marion had faced the future and found it a little bleak. She was aware, as she turned to make her exit, that the tall man before her was watching her curiously. It was not the rude stare to which she had now grown callous, but the deeper, piercing glance of one who was genuinely interested. She suspected the inevitable smut on her nose, and fumbled for her handkerchief.

The stranger stepped aside to let her pass down first, and she was compelled to acknowledge the courtesy with a little nod. He followed her closely, instinct told her that; but so many people were following closely in that hurried slither to the platform.

There was some time to wait—two full minutes—and she strolled to the deserted end of the platform to get away from the crowd. She disliked crowds at all times, and this morning she hated them.

"Excuse me!"

She had heard that form of introduction before, but there was something in the voice which now addressed her which was unlike any of the impertinent overtures to which she had grown accustomed.

She turned and confronted the stranger. He was looking at her with a pleasant little smile.

"You'll think I'm crazy, I guess," he said; "but somehow I just had to come along and talk to you—you're scared of elevators?"

She might have frozen him—at least, she might have tried—but for some unaccountable reason she felt glad to talk to him. He was the kind of man she had known in the heyday of Aunt Martha's prosperity.

"I am a little scared," she said, with a quick smile. "It is absurd, because they are so safe."

He nodded.

"I'm a little scared myself," he confessed easily. "Not that I'm afraid of dying, but when I think of the thousands of human beings whose future rests upon me and my life—why my hair goes up every time I cross the street."

He was not asking her to be interested in himself. She felt that he was just voicing a thought that had occurred to him in a simple, natural way. She looked at him with greater interest.

"I've just been buying a lunatic asylum," he said, and with an inquiring lift of his eyebrows, which at once asked permission and offered thanks when it was granted, he lit a cigar.

She stared at him and he laughed.

Whilst suspicion was gathering in her eyes, the train came hissing into the station.

The girl saw with dismay that it was crowded, and the mob which besieged each doorway was ten deep.

"You won't catch this," said the man calmly. "There'll be another in a minute."

"I'm afraid I must try," said the girl, and hurried along to where the surging throng were struggling to get aboard.

Her strange companion followed with long strides, but even with his assistance there was no chance of obtaining foothold, and she was left behind with a score of others. "Time's money," said the grey-haired stranger cheerfully. "Don't be mean with it!"

"I can't afford to be anything else," said the girl, pardonably exasperated. "Possibly you haven't to face the wrath of an employer with a watch in his hand and doom on his face."

She laughed a little in spite of her vexation.

"I'm so sorry," she pleaded; "but I did not intend allowing myself the luxury of a grumble about my worries—you were saying you have bought a lunatic asylum."

He nodded, a twinkle in his eye.

"And you were thinking I had just escaped from one," he said accusingly. "Yes, I've just bought the Coldharbour Asylum—lock, stock, and barrel—"

She looked at him incredulously.

"Do you mean that?" she asked, and her scepticism was justified, for the Coldharbour Asylum is the largest in London, and the second largest in the world.

"I mean it," he said. "I am going to build the cutest residential club in London on that site."

There was no time to say any more. Another train came in and, escorted by the grey-haired man, who in the shortest space of time had assumed a guardianship over her which was at once comforting and disconcerting, she found a seat in a smoking carriage. It was so easy to chat with him, so easy to confide hopes and fears which till that moment she had not put into words.

She found herself at Oxford Circus all too soon, and oblivious of the fact that the hands of the station clock pointed to twenty minutes after nine. "A sheep as a lamb," said her footsteps hollowly, as she went leisurely along the vaulted passage-way to the lift.

"Were you going to Oxford Circus?" she asked, suddenly seized with a fear that she had taken this purchaser of lunatic asylums out of his way.

"Curiously enough, I was," he said. "I'm buying some shops in Oxford Street at half-past nine."

Again she shot a swift glance at him, and he chuckled as he saw her shrink back a little.

"I am perfectly harmless," he said mockingly.

They stepped out into Argyll Street together, and he offered his hand.

"I hope to meet you again," he said, but did not tell her his name—it was King Kerry—though, he had read hers in the book she was carrying.

She felt a little uncomfortable, but gave him a smiling farewell. He stood for some time looking after her.

A man, unkempt, with a fixed, glassy look in his eye, had been watching the lift doors from the opposite side of the street. He started to cross as the grey-haired stranger made his appearance. Suddenly two shots rang out, and a bullet buzzed angrily past the grey man's face.

"That's yours, Mister!" howled a voice, and the next instant the owner was grabbed by two policemen.

A slow smile gathered at the corners of the grey man's lips.

"Horace," he said, and shook his head disapprovingly, "you're a rotten shot!"

On the opposite side of Oxford Street, a man watched the scene from the upper window of a block of offices.

He saw the racing policemen, the huge crowd which gathered in a moment, and the swaying figures of the officers of the law and their half-mad prisoner. He saw, too, a grey-haired man, unharmed and calm, slowly moving away, talking with a sergeant of police who had arrived on the scene at the moment. The watcher shook a white fist in the direction of King Kerry.

"Some day, my friend!" he said between his clenched teeth, "I will find a bullet that goes to its mark—and the girl from Denver City will be free!"

Chapter 3

 

Mr. Tack stood by the cashier's desk in the ready-made department. He wore upon his face the pained look of one who had set himself the pleasant task of being disagreeable, and yet feared the absence of opportunity.

"She won't come; we'll get a wire at eleven, saying she's ill, or her mother has been taken to the infirmary," he said bitterly, and three sycophantic shop-walkers, immaculately attired in the most perfect fitting of frock-coats who stood at a respectful distance, said in audible tones that it was really disgraceful.

They would have laughed at Mr. Tack's comment on the sick mother, but they weren't sure whether he wanted them to laugh, because Mr. Tack was a strict Churchman, and usually regarded sickness as part and parcel of the solemn ritual of life.

"She goes on Saturday week—whatever happens," said Mr. Tack grimly, and examined his watch. "She would go at once if it wasn't for the fact that I can'tget anybody to take her place at a minute's notice." One of the shop-walkers, feeling by reason of his seniority of service that something was expected from him, remarked that he did not know what things were coming to.

It was to this unhappy group that Elsie Marion, flushed and a little breathless, came in haste from the stuffy dressing-room which Tack and Brighton's provided for their female employees.

"I'm so sorry!" she said, as she opened the glass-panelled door of the cash rostrum and swung herself up to the high stool.

Mr. Tack looked at her. There he stood, as she had predicted, his gold chronometer in his hand, the doom on his face, an oppressive figure.

"Nine o'clock I was here, miss," he said.

She made no reply, opening her desk, and taking out the check pads and the spikes of her craft.

"Nine o'clock I was here, miss," repeated the patient Mr. Tack—who was far from patient, being, in fact, in a white heat of temper.

"I'm very sorry!" she repeated.

A young man had strolled into the store, and since the officials responsible for piloting him to the counter of his desire were at that moment forming an admiring audience about Mr. Tack, he was allowed to wander aimlessly. He was a bright boy, in a fawn dustcoat, and his soft felt hat was stuck on the back of his head. He had all the savoir-faire and the careless confidence which is associated with one profession in the world—and one only. He drew nearer to the little group, having no false sense of modesty.

"You are sorry!" said Mr. Tack with great restraint. He was a stout little man with a shiny bald head and a heavy, yellow moustache. "You are sorry! Well, that's a comfort! You've absolutely set the rules—my rules—at defiance. You have ignored my special request to be here at nine o'clock—and you're sorry!"

Still the girl made no reply, but the young man in the soft felt hat was intensely interested.

"If I can get here, Miss Marion, you can get here!" said Mr. Tack.

"I'm very sorry," said the girl again. "I overslept. As it is, I have come without any breakfast."

"I could get up in time," went on Mr. Tack.

Elsie Marion turned on him, her patience exhausted. This was his way—he would nag from now till she left, and she wanted to see the end of it. She scented dismissal, anyway.

"What do you think I care?" she asked, stung to wrath, "about what time you got up? You're horribly old compared to me; you eat more than I, and you haven't my digestion. You get up because you can't sleep, probably. I sleep because I can't get up."

It was a speech foreign to her nature, but she was stung to resentment.

Mr. Tack was dumbfounded. Here were at least six statements, many of them unthinkably outrageous, which called for reprimand.

"You're discharged," he snorted. The girl slipped down from her stool, very white of face.

"Not now—not now!" said Mr. Tack hastily. "You take a week's notice from Saturday."

"I'd rather go now," she said quietly.

"You'll stay to suit my convenience," breathed Mr. Tack, "and then you will be discharged without a character."

She climbed back to her stool, strangely elated.

"Then you've got to stop nagging me," she said boldly. "I'll do whatever it is my duty to do, but I won't be bullied. I don't want your linen-draper's sarcasms," she went on recklessly, encouraged by the sympathetic smile of the young man in the soft felt hat, who was now an unabashed member of the audience, "and I won't have your ponderous rebukes. You are the head of a beastly establishment in which your hirelings insult defenceless girls who dare not resent. One of these days I'm going to take the story of Tack and Brighten to The Monitor.'"

It was a terrible threat born of a waning courage, for the girl was fast losing her exhilaration which came to her in her moment of temporary triumph; but Mr. Tack, who was no psychologist, and did not inquire into first causes, turned pink and white. Already The Monitor had hinted at scandal in "a prosperous sweating establishment in Oxford Street," and Mr. Tack had the righteous man's fear of publicity.

"You—you dare!" he spluttered. "You—you be careful, Miss—I'll have you out of here, by Jove! Yes—neck and crop! What can we do for you, sir?"

He turned sharply to the young man in the trilby hat, having observed him for the first time.

"My name's Gillett," said the youth bluntly, "and I am a representative of The Monitor—er—I want to see this young lady for two minutes.

"Go to the devil!" said Mr. Tack defiantly.

The young man bowed.

"After I have interviewed this young lady," he said.

"I forbid you to give this man information about my business," exploded the enraged partner.

The reporter closed his eyes wearily.

"My poor fellow," he said, shaking his head, "it isn't about your business I want to see this lady, it's about King Kerry."

Mr. Tack opened his mouth in astonishment.

"Mr. King Kerry?" he said. "Why, that's the gentleman who is buying this business!"

He blurted it out—a secret which he had so jealously guarded. He explained in one sentence the reason for the economies, the sales at less than cost, the whole disastrous and nefarious history of the past months.

"Buying this business, is he?" said Gillett, unimpressed. "Why, that's nothing! He was nearly murdered at Oxford Circus Tube Station half an hour ago, and he's bought Portland Place Mansions since then."

He turned to the alarmed girl.

"Told me to come along and find you," he said. "Described you so that I couldn't make any mistake."

"What does he want?" she asked, shaking.

"Wants you to come to lunch at the Savoy," said Mr. Gillett, "and tell him whether Tack and Brighton's is worth buying at the price."

Mr. Tack did not swoon, he was too well trained. But as he walked to his private office he swayed unsteadily, and the shop-walker in the Ribbon Department, who was a member of the Anti-Profanity League, heard what Mr. Tack was saying to himself, and put his fingers in his ears.

Chapter 4

 

A bewildered man sat in a cell at Vine Street, his aching head between his large, grimy hands. He was trying, in his dull brutish way, to piece together the events of the previous night and of that morning. He remembered that he had met a man on the Thames Embankment. A gentleman who had spoken coldly, whose words had cut like a steel knife, and yet who had all the outward evidence of benevolence. And then that this man had struck him, and there had come another, a smooth-faced, young-looking man, who had taken him to a house and given him a drink.

The stranger had led him to a place, and told him to watch, and they had followed this grey-haired man through streets in a taxi-cab.

Horace Baggin had never ridden in a motor car of any description before, and he remembered this. He remembered all that had happened through a thin alcoholic haze. They had gone to South London and then they had come back, and the man had left him at a tube station with a pistol. Presently the grey-haired man had made his appearance, and Baggin, mad with artificial rage, unthinking, unreasoning, had stepped forward and shot wildly, and then the police had come. That was all.

Suddenly a thought struck him, and he started up with an oath. He was wanted for that other affair in Wiltshire. Would they recognize him? He pressed a little electric bell, which was placed in the wall of the cell, and the turnkey came and surveyed him gravely through the grating.

"What is the charge?" Baggin asked eagerly.

"You know what the charge is," said the other; "it was read over to you in the charge-room."

"But I have forgotten," said the man sullenly. "It won't hurt you to tell me what I am charged with, will it?"

The officer hesitated. Then—

"You are charged with attempted murder and with manslaughter."

"What manslaughter?" asked Baggin quickly.

"Oh, an old affair, you know, Baggin!"

"Baggin!"

So they knew his name.

Well, there was one gleam of hope, one chance for him. This rich stranger who had lured him out to shoot the grey-haired man, he could help. He was a toff, he was; he lived in a grand house.

What was his name?

Baggin paced his cell for some quarter of an hour, racking his aching brain for the name which eluded him. Yes, curiously enough, he had seen the name, though the other might not have suspected the fact. In the hallway of the house to which the stranger took him was a tiny stand with glass and silver things, fragile and dainty, on which, as they had entered, Baggin had seen some letters addressed to the man, and he, naturally curious, and gifted moreover with the ability to read handwriting, had deciphered the name as—as—Zeberlieff!

That was the name, "Zeberlieff," and Park Lane, too—the house was in Park Lane. He remembered it now. He was elated at the result of his thought, a little exhausted too.

He called the gaoler again, and the weary official obeyed, not without resentment.

"What do you want now?" he asked bitterly.

"Can you let me have a sheet of paper, an envelope and a pencil?"

"I can," said the gaoler. "Who do you want to write to—a lawyer?"

"That's it," said Baggin. "He is my own private lawyer," he said proudly. "A regular 'nut' he is, too; he won't half put it across you people if you don't behave properly."

"Not so much lip!" said the gaoler, and went away, to return in a few moments with the necessary vehicles of communication.

He passed them through the open grating in the door, and Horace sat down to the unaccustomed task of composing a letter, which was not incriminating to his employer, but which conveyed to him a sense of his responsibility, and the danger in which he stood if he did not offer, the succour which was required of him.

"Honoured Sir," the letter ran (it would serve no useful purpose to faithfully expose the liberties he took with the English language), "some time ago I did a job of work for you. I am now in great trouble having shot the gentleman, and I should be very much obliged if you would assist me to the best of your ability."

It was a noteworthy contribution to the literature of artfulness. Horace Baggin had been inspired to remember Zeberlieff as an old employer in the mythical period when Horace Baggin preferred hard work to the illicit calling which had ended so disastrously for him.

"Zeberlieff," said the gaoler as he read the address and scanned the letter; "why, that's an American millionaire, ain't it?"

"That's so," said Horace Baggin complacently; "he's been a good friend of mine. I used to be his "—he hesitated—"his gamekeeper," he said. "He had an estate down our way," he went on grimly. "Very good shot, too."

"I will send it down if you like," said the gaoler; "though he will probably only give you the cold shoulder. You know when a man gets into trouble he can't expect his old master to come prancing round getting him out. Not in these days, anyway."

Nevertheless, he sent it on at Baggin's request.

After that effort of thought and diplomacy Horace Baggin felt at peace with the world. In the afternoon he was called before the magistrate. Formal evidence was taken, and he was remanded for one day and removed back to the cell; that meant another day at the police court.

Well, he was prepared to face it. It was not the first time he had been in trouble, but it was the first time he had been in a position where, in spite of the enormity of the crime, hope had extended so rosy a vista of possibilities. He had received news that his letter had been delivered, and waited hopefully for his partner in crime to make a move. It was fine, he thought, to have such a pal. The prospect of succour had almost entirely eclipsed the seriousness of the charges which the man had to face.

Morning found Baggin more sober and more bitter. So this sweet pal of his had gone back on him, had made no attempt to answer his call of distress, even though the imprisoned man had made it apparent that no immediate danger threatened the confederate. Well, there was another way out of it, another way in which he might excuse his conduct and find himself the centre of a sensational case. He waited till the gaoler passed, and then—

"I want to see the inspector in charge of this case," he said. "I have got a statement to make."

"Right-o!" said the gaoler. "You had better have your breakfast first. You will be one of the first to go into court, you know."

Baggin nodded.

"Coffee and toast have been sent in for you."

"Who by?" asked Baggin, with some show of interest.

"One of your pals," said the gaoler, and vouchsafed no further information.

So Zeberlieff had moved, had he?

Baggin had no pals, save the pal for whom he was waiting, and in whom he had placed his faith. His spirits rose again. He remembered that it would be as well not to be too emphatic. There might come a time when it would be necessary to admit the existence of the other man.

"Here is your breakfast," said a detective, as the door swung open again, and he was accompanied by a warder with a little tray, carrying a steaming jug of coffee and a plate of toast. "Now, just think it out, and let me know how you feel before you go into court. It might make all the difference in the world to you. Why should you stand the racket for another man's crime?" the detective asked.

Baggin was not to be cajoled, but no sooner had the door closed behind the detective than he moved mechanically across to where the writing-pad lay and picked it up. He would give the stranger a chance; in the meantime he was hungry.

He took a draught of the coffee, at the same time wondering how his new-found pal would get him out of the scrape.

Five minutes later a detective and the gaoler strolled down to his cell.

"I will have a talk with him," said the detective, and the gaoler, without troubling to look through the grating, inserted the key and pulled the door open.

The detective uttered an exclamation and sprang into the cell. Baggin lay in a huddled heap amongst a litter of broken china and spilt coffee. The detective lifted him up bodily and turned him over.

"My God!" he said, "he's dead! He has been poisoned! There is the scent of cyanide of potassium in this cell."

"Poisoned?" asked the startled gaoler. "Who did it? How did he get it?"

"It was in the coffee," replied the detective slowly, "and the man that sent it in was the man who employed Baggin to do his dirty work."

Chapter 5

 

Before the lunch hour arrived at Tack and Brighton's, there came to Elsie Marion, through the medium of the senior shopwalker, an invitation to attend upon Mr. Tack. It was couched in such elegant language, and delivered with grace that no doubt could exist in the mind of any intelligent being that message and messenger had been most carefully rehearsed.

At five minutes to one Elsie presented herself at the partners' office. Mr. Tack was not alone; his partner sat bunched up in a chair, biting his knuckles and scowling furiously.

The firm of Tack and Brighten was not distinguished by the fact that one member of the firm whose name appeared upon the facade had no incorporate existence. There may have been a Brighten in the old days, but nobody had ever seen him or met him. He was a business legend. The dominant partner of the firm was James Leete.

He was a stout man, stouter than the fiery Mr. Tack. He walked with a waddle, and his face was not pleasant. It was creased and puffed into a score of unhealthy rolls and crevices; his nose was red and bulbous and to accentuate and emphasize his unloveliness, he wore a black-rimmed monocle. Immensely rich, he fawned a way through life, for he sought inclusion in ducal house parties and was happiest in the society of rank.

"This is the girl?" he asked.

He had a thick, husky voice, naturally coarse, through which ran with grotesque insistence a tone of mock culture which he had acquired by conscientious imitation of his models.

"This is Miss Marion," said Tack gloomily.

Leete leered up at him.

"Pretty girl! I suppose you know it, Miss What's-your-name?"

Elsie made no reply, though the colour came to her cheek at the undisguised insolence of the man.

"Now, look here!"—Leete swung his gross shape round on the revolving chair till he faced her and wagged a fat finger in her direction—"you've got to be very careful what you say to my friend King Kerry: everything you tell him he'll repeat to me, and if you tell one solitary, single lie about this business I can have you clapped into gaol for criminal libel."

The girl smiled in spite of herself.

"You can grin!" growled Leete; "but I mean it—see? Not that you know anything that we mind you saying. You're not exactly in the confidence of the firm—and if you were," he added quickly, "you'd know no more to our detriment than you do."

"Don't worry!" answered the girl coolly. "I shall tell him nothing except that you have said you are a friend of his."

"It's not necessary to tell him that," said Leete hastily.

"I think it is only fair to him to know what awful things people are saying about him," said Elsie sweetly. She was in her "sheep and lamb" mood, and she was very hungry. Later she was to marvel at her courage and her impertinence, but just at the moment she was conscious of nothing so much as a terrible sense of absence in the region of her little diaphragm.

"My girl," said Leete slowly, "I don't inquire as to how you got to know my friend Kerry, and I won't inquire, and I won't hint—"

"You'd jolly well better not!" flared the girl, her eyes shining angrily; "because as I'm feeling just now I'd throw this inkstand at your head for two pins!"

Mr. Leete pushed his chair back in alarm as the girl lifted the inkwell from the table and gripped it suggestively.

"Don't misunderstand me!" he begged with a warding arm raised. "I'm only talking to you for your good. I want to see you get on. I'll tell you what I've suggested, Miss Marion: we keep you on, we double your salary, and we put you in charge of the checking department."

For one moment only the magnificence of the offer overcame her. A larger room—the little luxuries which on her old salary were impossible—

"And," added Mr. Leete impressively, "a bonus of a hundred pounds the day this business is transferred to its new proprietor."

"A hundred pounds!" she repeated.

She put down the inkwell: it was out of place under the circumstances.

"And what would you ask me to do for this?" she demanded.

"Nothing," put in Tack, a silent spectator till now.

"You shut up, Tack!" snarled the partner. "Yes, of course, we want something: we want you to tell Mr. Kerry all the good you can about the firm."

She understood now.

"That will take me exactly half a second," said Elsie.

Her duty was clear. They were binding her to lie. She had not taken Gillett's message seriously. She had not even grasped the elementary fact that the grey-haired stranger in the tube was the great King Kerry, multi-millionaire and controller of billions. Her head was whirling with the happenings of the day—she was intoxicated by novelty, and only the natural and buoyant healthy outlook of the girl kept her anyway near to normal.

Leete took stock of her and wondered he had not noticed her before. She was a beautiful girl with her fine grey eyes, and the mass of hair that half-framed her face in a cloud of russet gold. The hands were small and shapely, the figure slender and straight. Even the unattractive uniform which Messrs. Tack and Brighten insisted upon their girls wearing did not detract from her beauty. Now, with faint shadows which an insufficiency of sleep and a lack of food had painted beneath her eyes, she was ethereal and rather adorable. So thought Mr. Leete, no mean judge, and he stroked his bristly grey-black moustache reflectively.

She half turned to the door.

"You will not require me any more?" she asked.

"Remember!" Again Leete was shaking his ridiculous finger at her. "Criminal libel means imprisonment."

"I don't feel like laughing this morning," said Elsie Marion; "but you are tempting me awfully."

She closed the door behind her before Mr. Leete had time to express his wishes about her eyes, her soul, and her obscure relations. For Mr. Leete had no respect for anybody whose name was not in Burke's "Landed Gentry."

She turned up to the dressing-room and found herself besieged by an admiring crowd of girls, for the news that Miss Marion had "cheeked" Tack and lived to tell the tale was common property.

She repressed a natural and human inclination to reveal the fact that she was lunching at the Savoy, and fled from the building before she betrayed her great secret.

Mr. Kerry was waiting in the entrance hall of the hotel alone. It seemed to the girl that every eye in the great vestibule was focused on him and in this surmise she was probably right, for a billionaire is something out of the ordinary; but a billionaire who had escaped assassination at the hands of a former "friend," and whose name in consequence, was on every evening newspaper placard in London, was most wonderful of all.

Throughout the meal, taken at a table overlooking the river, they talked on a variety of subjects. He was an especially well-read man, with a penchant for the Persian poets, and was a delighted and unconventionally demonstrative man—leaning across the table to stroke her hand—when she capped a couplet from Hafiz with a verse from Sadi—

"Though we are straws laid down to warm the sod, We once were flowers in the eyes of God."

"Excellent! splendid!" he cried. "I don't remember that rendering of the poem."

"It is a rendering I made myself," she confessed. She had seen a translation and had improved upon it.

They meandered through the most delicious lunch Elsie had eaten since the extravagant days of Aunt Martha. He encouraged her to talk of that relative. "A fine woman," he called her enthusiastically. "I love these people who spend all their money."

She shook her head laughingly.

"That is not your creed, Mr. Kerry," she challenged.

"It is—it is!" he said eagerly; "here is my parable of finance. Money is water. The sea is the wealth of the nations. It is evaporated and drawn up to the sky and is sprinkled upon the earth. For some of us it runs in deep channels, and if we are skilful we can dam it for our use. Some of us dam it deeply, and some shallowly. With some it just filters away and is swallowed up, only to reappear in somebody else's dam."

She nodded. It was a new imagery, and the conceit pleased her.

"If you keep it stagnant it is no use," he went on, as eager as a boy. "You must let it pass along, always keeping a reserve; it shouldn't run out faster than it runs in. I have a big dam—high up on the hills it stands; a great and mighty reservoir always filling, always running off. Farther down the hill hundreds of other men are collecting the waste from my overflow; farther down smaller men with smaller dams, and so on—till it runs away to the sea, as it must in time, to the great ocean of world-wealth which collects everything and gives back everything."

She looked at him in amazement, this man who had escaped death by an inch and was so absorbed in his philosophy of wealth that he had forgotten how near he had stood to the brink of eternity, and her heart warmed to this courageous man.

He came to earth quickly, fished in his inside pocket and produced a fat little book with a soiled leather cover. He placed it tenderly on the table and opened it. It was a book which had been in use for years. Some of the pages were covered with minute writings, some had become detached and had been carefully fastened in again.

"I owe you an explanation," he said, and sorted from a few loose papers a photograph. He looked at it for a moment and laid it on the table for the girl to see.

She gave a gasp.

"Why, that is me!" she said, and looked at him in amazement.

"It is rather like you, isn't it?" He replaced the photograph, his lips pressed tight together. "As a matter of fact it isn't you; some time you shall know who it is—that is," he smiled again, "if I am not the victim of an imitator of the late Horace—"

"Late?" she repeated.

The other nodded gravely.

"He took cyanide of potassium in his cell at Marlborough Street," he said, "leaving his good work for his employer to carry on. What time have you to be back?" he asked suddenly.

"Two o'clock," she said in a sudden panic, for no great reason.

"It's now three," he said. "You need not go back till four."

"But, Mr. Tack—"

"I am the head of the firm," he smiled. "I have bought Tack and Brighton's—closed the deal on the 'phone just before you arrived. I have taken the liberty of raising your wages to fifteen pounds a week. Shall I order you another coffee?"

Elsie opened her mouth to say "yes," but no sound came. For the first time in her life she was at a loss for words.

Chapter 6

 

Though all the world now knows of King Kerry, and his life and achievements are inscribed more or less accurately in the scrappy works of reference which are so popular nowadays, only a privileged few know of the inception of the great Trust which came to London in 19—.

It came about indirectly as a result of the Shearman Anti-Trust Law which caused wholesale resignations from the boards of American companies, and drove what is known on the other side of the Atlantic as the "mergers" out of business. These were Trust men who had done nothing in their lives but combine conflicting business interests into one great monopoly. They found themselves scarcely within the pale of the law—they found, too, that their opportunities were limited. These men had dealt in millions. They had liquid assets, hard cash ready for employment at a moment's notice. They came in a body to England—the eight greatest financiers of the United States. Bolscombe E. Grant rented Tamby Hall from the Earl of Dichester; Thomas A. Logge (the Wire King) settled in London; Gould Lampest bought an estate in Lincolnshire; and the others—Verity Sullivan, Combare Lee, Big Jack Simms, and King Kerry—settled down in London.

There were others who joined forces with them; but they were unimportant. Cagely H. Smith put a million into the pool, but backed out after the Orange Street affair. The eight dispensed with his million without noticing that it had gone. He was a little man, and they made clear, for when Cagely tried to sneak back into the pool offering, not only the five million dollars he had originally staked, but half a million pounds in addition as evidence of his faith, his overtures were rejected. Another small man was Morris Lochmann, who subscribed roughly 600,000 pounds—and there were several of his kidney. The "L Trust," as it called itself, was autocratic to a degree. Men who came in with inflated ideas as to their importance were quashed as effectively as a fly is swotted. Hermann Zeberlieff was one of these. He was a big man in a small place, one of the little kings of industry, who measured themselves by the standard of local publicity. He threw some 1,200,000 pounds into the pool—but he talked. The fever for notoriety was so strong in him that he committed the unpardonable crime of having a photograph of "this mammoth cheque" (so the letterpress typed on the back of the picture called it) sent to all the papers.

The cheque was never presented. He had jeopardized the success of the project by alarming a public too ready to be scared by one of two words—"trust" and "conscription."

Zeberlieff was a large holder of United Western Railway stock. On the morning the photograph appeared the stock stood at £23 per share in the market. By the next afternoon it had beaten down to £12 10s. On the following day it slumped to £8—a sensational drop. The most powerful group in the world had "beared" it. Hermann crawled out of the mess with a loss of £800,000.

"What can I do?" he wailed to Bolscombe Grant, that gaunt man of money.

"I guess the best thing you can do," said Mr. Grant, chewing the end of his cigar thoughtfully, "is to send a picture of yourself to the papers."

It was the first hint to Hermann Zeberlieff that he was the subject of disciplinary measures.

It was typical of the Trust that it made no attempt to act collectively in the sense that it was guided by a majority. It delegated all its powers to one man, gave him a white card to scribble liabilities; neither asked for explanations nor expected them. They found the money, and they placed it at the disposal of King Kerry because King Kerry was the one man of their number who understood the value of real estate properties. They worked on a simple basis. The rateable value of London was £45,000,000. They computed that London's income was £150,000,000 a year. They were satisfied that with the expenditure of £50,000,000 they could extract ten per cent of London's income.

That was roughly the idea, and to this was added the knowledge that vast as was the importance of the metropolis, it had only reached the fringe of its possibilities. London would one day be twice its present size, and ground value would be enormously increased. Its unique situation, the security which came from the geographic insularity of England and the strength of its navy, the feeding quality of its colonies, all combined to mark London as a world capital.

"I see London extended to St. Albans on the north, Newbury on the west, and Brighton on the south," wrote King Kerry in his diary. "It may even extend to Colchester on the east; but the east side of any township is always an unknown quantity in a scheme of development."

There were difficulties to overcome, almost insuperable difficulties, but that was part of the game and made the players keener. Patience would do much: judicious pressure tactfully applied would do more.

King Kerry wanted to buy the big block of buildings comprising Goulding's Universal Stores. Goulding's stood out, so Kerry bought the next block, which was Tack and Brighten's.

Elsie Marion presented herself at ten o'clock punctually at the modest suite of offices which the "L Trust" occupied in Glasshouse Street. It was unusual that a great financial corporation should be habited so far west, but a peculiarity of the Trust and its operations was the fact that never once did it attempt to handle property in the area between Temple Bar and Aldgate Pump. It was not in the scheme of King Kerry to disturb conditions in the City of London itself.

The office in Glasshouse Street occupied the ground floor of a modern block. The floors above were let out to an insurance company, a firm of solicitors, and an estate agent—all firms of undoubted integrity, and all, moreover, largely associated with the working of the Trust.

The girl had read something of this office in the newspapers. A flippant evening journal had christened it "The Jewel House," because it bore some resemblance to the famous store of Britain's treasures in the Tower of London. In her desire to be punctual she had arrived a quarter of an hour before the appointed time, and she had leisure to inspect the remarkable facade. A small brass plate against the entrance gave the seeker after information the news that this was the registered office of the "L Financial Corporation, Limited," for a small company with a ridiculous capital had been registered as a matter of expediency. The company owned the building in which it was situated and little more, but it served as a cover for everyday purposes. It supplied an office and a repository for the documents of larger concerns, and, by the very publicity it afforded, effectively veiled the private transactions of its select shareholders.

The windows of the office reached to the ground. They were made of three huge sheets of plate-glass set roughly bow-shaped between solid brass pillars. Before them were three screens of large-meshed steel netting, held in their place by pillars of gun-metal.

It was this which inspired the reference to "The Jewel House," for here the resemblance ended. Yet the interior of the front office was remarkable. It was bare of furnishing. A blood-red carpet covered the floor, and in the centre, supported by a square pedestal of granite which ran up from the basement, was a big safe. Apparently, it rested on the floor, but no ordinary floor could support the weight of metal, and the central pedestal had been put in whilst the building was in course of erection.

Nor was this the only remarkable feature of the room.

The walls were completely covered by lengths of mirror, two of which were set at an angle in the far corners of the room. Add six arc lamps depending upon independent supplies, and hung so that their rays fell upon the safe at every aspect and burning day and night, and you have some idea of this unique department which attracted all London and became one of the sights of the metropolis.

Day or night, the passer-by had a full view of the safe, and no man entered that room save King Kerry and the armed guard which watched the cleaners at their work every morning.

Even in the clear light of day it was an impressive sight, and Elsie entered the building a little awe-stricken. She was taken to the back office by a uniformed commissionaire and found the grey-haired young man alone in his office, writing. He jumped up as she came in and pulled forward a luxurious chair.

"Sit down, Miss Marion," he said. "I shall be calling you Elsie soon, because"—he smiled at the little flush that came to her cheek—"in America, why, I guess we're more friendly to our business associates than you are in this country."

He pushed a button and the commissionaire came in.

"Are your two comrades outside?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," said the man.

"Tell them to come in."

A few seconds later the man returned, bringing two other commissionaires. They stood stiffly by the door.

"This is Miss Marion," said King Kerry, and the girl rose.

The men scrutinized her seriously.

"Do you mind standing over by the wall?" asked Kerry.

She obediently walked across the room as Kerry switched on all the lights.

"You will know Miss Marion now," said Kerry, "in whatever light she appears. She is to have access to this office day or night. That is all."

The men saluted and withdrew as Kerry extinguished the electric bulbs.

"I'm sorry to bother you," he said; "but since you are the only other person in the world who will have this privilege, it is necessary that I should be very thorough. These men are in charge of the guards, and one of them is on duty day and night."

She seated herself again with a pleasurable sense of importance.

"May I ask you one question?" she said.

He nodded.

"Why have you chosen me? I am not a proficient secretary, and you know nothing whatever about me. I may be an associate of the worst characters."

He leant back in a padded chair, surveying her quizzically.

"All that I know about you," he said, "is that you are the daughter of the Rev. George Marion, a widower, who died seven years ago and left you little more than would carry you to your aunt in London. That you have an uncle in America, who is raising a large family and innumerable mortgages in the middle west; that you had a brother who died in childhood; and that you have been engaged by three firms—Meddlesohn, of Eastcheap—you left them because you refused to be party to a gross fraud: Highlaw and Sons, of Moorgate Street—which you left because the firm failed; and Tack and Brighten—which you would have left, anyway."

She stared at him in amazement.

"How did you find this out?"

"My dear child," he said, rising and laying a fatherly hand upon her shoulder, "how does one find things out? By asking the people who know. I take few risks; I came down to Southwark to see you, and if possible to speak to you before I engaged you or you knew that I wanted to engage you. Now!"

He returned to his desk briskly.

"This is business. You receive fifteen pounds weekly from me and a bonus at the end of every year. Your duty is to act as my confidante, to write letters—not as I shall dictate them, for I hate dictating—but in the sense of my instructions."

She nodded.

"There is one other thing," he said, and lowered his voice as he leant across the desk. "I want you to remember three words."

She waited, expecting a conventional little motto which pointed out the way of efficiency.

"Those three words," he went on in the same tone, "must never be uttered to a living soul whilst I am alive; must be repeated to nobody but myself."

Elsie felt incapable of being further amazed than she was. The last twenty-four hours had held, so it seemed to her, the very limit of surprises.

"To my partners, to my friends, or to my enemies—and especially to my enemies," he continued with a fleeting smile, "you must never employ them—until I am dead. Then, in the presence of the gentlemen who are connected with this corporation you shall say "—he dropped his voice to a whisper—"you shall say, 'Kingsway needs Paving.'"

"'Kingsway needs Paving,'" she repeated in a whisper.

"Whatever happens do not forget those words," he said gravely. "Repeat them to yourself till you know them as you know your own name."

She nodded again. Bewildered as she was, half inclined to laugh, with the old suspicion as to his sanity recurring, she knew that immense issues hung upon those meaningless words—"Kingsway needs Paving."

Chapter 7

 

At the moment when Elsie was being initiated into the mysteries of King Kerry's office, two men sat at breakfast in the sumptuous dining-room of Mr. Leete's flat in Charles Street.

One of these was the redoubtable Leete himself, in a dressing-gown of flowered silk, and the other the young-looking Mr. Hermann Zeberlieff. He was a man of thirty-eight, but had one of those faces which defy the ravages of time and the consequence of excess.

Leete and he were friends. They had met in Paris in the days when Millionaire Zeberlieff's name was in every paper as the man who had cornered wheat.

They had something in common, these two men, and when a Wall Street syndicate had smashed the corner, ruining hundreds of small speculators, but leaving Hermann Zeberlieff ten times over a dollar millionaire, Leete had accompanied the young man on the yachting cruise which the execration of the American public and the virulence of the Press had made advisable, and the friendship ripened.

Later Millionaire Zeberlieff was to court publicity more disastrously to himself, and the operations of the "L Trust" were to rob him of half his fortune. They were talking of money now. It was a subject which absorbed both men.

"You're a pretty rich man yourself, aren't you, Leete?"

Zeberlieff put the question in a tone that suggested that he was not particular whether he was answered or not.

"Fairly," admitted the unprepossessing Mr. Leete.

"A millionaire?"

Leete nodded.

"Then why the devil did you sell Kerry your store?" asked the other in astonishment.

Mr. Leete's face puckered into a grin.

"There was a bigger store next door," he said cheerfully. "Goulding's were doing twice the trade—taking all our customers, and prospering. They've got the best position—street corner and a double show of shop fronts. That's why!"

"But why hasn't he bought Goulding's?"

The smile on Mr. Leete's face was expressive.

"Goulding's won't sell. He bought the land and is ground landlord, but he can't disturb Goulding's because they've eighty years' lease to run."

Zeberlieff whistled.

"That will upset him," he said with satisfaction.

"As a matter of fact, Tack and Brighton's is a dying concern," Mr. Leete went on frankly. "Unless he can buy Goulding's he's as good as lost his money. Goulding's will sell—at a price."

He winked.

"By the way," he said suddenly, "did you hear that Kerry had been attacked in the public street—shot at?" The other nodded. "Well, the man that shot at him is dead!"

Zeberlieff raised his eyebrows.

"Indeed!"

Mr. Leete nodded.

"Apparently he was mad drunk when he got to the station, and when one of his pals sent him in a mug of coffee the police let him have it—thought it would sober him."

"And did it?" asked the other without any great show of interest.

Mr. Leete nodded again.

"It killed him—cyanide of potassium in the coffee. My doctor," he paused and raised his voice ever so little, "my doctor, Sir John Burcheston, who happened to be passing, was called in, and he told me all about it."

"Extraordinary!" said Mr. Zeberlieff, obviously bored. "How did it get to him?"

"I don't know—they found the boy who brought the coffee, but he says he was sent by a stranger who can't be found."

"Sounds thrilling," said Zeberlieff coolly.

"Thought you'd be interested," said the other.

"I'm more interested in your deal with Kerry. Didn't he know that Goulding's wouldn't sell?" asked Zeberlieff incredulously; "it doesn't seem possible!"

"He thinks he has got a bargain," chuckled the other. "We knocked the prices down and put the profits up—your Trust folk aren't as clever as they pretend."

But Zeberlieff shook his head. "If you underrate the ability of the 'Big L,'" he said seriously, "you're going to nose trouble—that's all. King Kerry smells the value of property just as crows scent carrion: he doesn't make mistakes."

Leete looked up at the other, showing his yellow teeth in a sneer.

"If I'm speaking disparagingly of a friend of yours—" he began.

The plump baby-face of Zeberlieff went a dull red and his eyes glittered ominously.

"A friend of mine?" he cried savagely. "A friend of mine—Leete, I hate that man so much that I'm afraid of myself! I hate the look of him and the sound of his voice: I hate him, and yet he fascinates me."

He strode rapidly up and down the long room.

"Do you know," he asked, stopping suddenly in his walk, "that I often follow him for hours on end—dog his footsteps literally, for no other reason than because I hate him so much that I cannot let him out of my sight?" His face was pale now; his hands, moist with perspiration, were clenched till the knuckles showed whitely. "You think I'm mad—but you don't know the fascination of hate. I hate him, my God, how I hate him!"

He hissed the last words between his clenched teeth. Mr. Leete nodded approvingly. "Then I'm going to give you good news," he said slowly. "Kerry is going to be bled."

"Bled?" There was no mistaking the almost brutal joy in the other's tone.

"Not the way you mean," said Mr. Leete facetiously; "but we're going to make him pay for Goulding's."

"We?"

"We," repeated Leete, "My dear man, Goulding's is mine—has always been my business. I built up Goulding's out of Tack and Brighten. I have sold the failure; I have kept the success."

Again Zeberlieff frowned.

"Kerry didn't know?" he asked, his incredulity apparent.

Mr. Leete shook his head, and laughed—he laughed a curiously high laugh, almost falsetto. Zeberlieff waited until he had finished.

"I'd like to bet you all the money in the world he did know," he said, and the smile vanished from Mr. Leete's homely face.

"He knows now," he said, "because I've told him."

"He knew all the time," said the other. "I wonder what dirt he has in store for you."

He thought a moment. That active brain which had foreseen the drought of '04 and banked on the cotton famine of '08 was very busy.

"What is he going to do?" he asked suddenly. "What is the plan on which he is working?—I don't know, although I was in the syndicate: none of the others know. He has got the whole thing written out and deposited in the Jewel House. No eye but his has seen it."

Leete rose to change into his street clothes.

"We could smash Kerry if we knew," continued Zeberlieff thoughtfully. "I'd give a million dollars to know what his plans are."

Whilst Leete dressed, the other sat with his chin on his clenched fists, frowning at the street below. Now and again he would change his position to make a note.

When Leete returned, ready for an interview which he had arranged with King Kerry, Zeberlieff was almost cheerful.

"Don't go till Gleber comes," he said. And Mr. Leete looked at his watch regretfully. Before he could excuse himself, the servant announced the man for whom Zeberlieff was waiting.

Gleber proved to be a little colourless man, with a very bald head and a manner which was bird-like and mysterious.

"Well?"

"The young lady came at ten o'clock," he said. "She stood outside the office for ten minutes, then went in."

"The same girl that lunched at the Savoy?" asked Zeberlieff, and the man nodded.

"That's the Marion girl," said Leete with a grin, "A bit of a shop-girl—is he that sort of fellow?"

Zeberlieff shook his head with a frown.

"He's a pretty good judge. How long did she stay?" he asked the man.

"She hadn't come out when I left. I think she's permanent there."

"Rot!" snapped Leete. "What is he going to keep a girl in his office for—a girl of that class?"

Still Zeberlieff indicated that he did not accept the other's view.

"This is the perfect secretary he has always been chasing," he said. "That girl is going to be a factor, Leete—perhaps she is already." He bit his forefinger reflectively. "If she knew!" he said half to himself.

Leete took a hurried farewell, and reached the office of the Big Trust a few minutes after time.

King Kerry was there, and Miss Marion was also there, seated at a rosewood desk behind a pile of papers with every indication of permanency.

"Sit down, Mr. Leete," invited Kerry with a nod, as his visitor was announced. "Now, exactly what is your proposition?"

Mr. Leete glanced significantly at Elsie, and the girl half rose. A movement of Kerry's hand checked her.

"I have no business secrets from Miss Marion," he said.

Mr. Leete's irascible bosom glowed with wrath. That he, a magnate by all standards, should be obliged to speak openly before a shop-girl—even an ex-shop-girl—was galling to his proud spirit.

"There's not much to say," he said with an assumption of carelessness which he was far from feeling. "I've told you in my letter, that I am Goulding's, and I sell at a price."

"You did not reveal the fact that you were the guiding spirit of Goulding's before I bought your other business," said Kerry with a little smile. "You were not even on the board—your solicitor acted for you, I presume?"

Mr. Leete nodded.

"Of course, I knew all about it," said King Kerry calmly. "That is why I bought the cheaper property. What do you want for your precious store?"

"A million and a quarter," replied Leete emphatically; "and not a penny less."

Kerry shook his head.

"Yours is a hand to mouth business," he said slowly. "You pay medium dividends and you have no reserves."

"We made a profit of a hundred and fifty thousand last year," responded Leete with a quiet smile.

"Exactly—a little over ten per cent. of the price you ask—yet I offer you five hundred thousand pounds in cash for your business."

Mr. Leete got up from his chair very deliberately and pulled on his gloves.

"Your offer is ridiculous," he said. And, indeed, he thought it was.

King Kerry rose with him.

"It is a little under what the property is worth," he said; "but I am allowing a margin to recoup me for the sum I gave for Tack and Brighten—the sum in excess of its value."

He walked with the visitor to the door.

"I would ask you to come to lunch and talk it over," he said; "but, unfortunately, I have to go to Liverpool this afternoon."

"All the talking-over in the world wouldn't alter my offer," said Mr. Leete grimly. "Your proposition is absurd!"

"You'll be glad to take it before the year's out," said King Kerry, and closed the door behind the inwardly raging Mr. Leete.

He hailed a taxi, and arrived at his flat incoherent with wrath, and Hermann Zeberlieff listened with calm interest to a story calculated to bring tears to the eyes of any speculative financier.

That afternoon a young and cheerful reporter of The Monitor, prowling about Middlesex Street in search of copy, saw a familiar face disappear into the "Am Tag," a frowsy club frequented by Continental gentlemen who described themselves variously as "Social Democrats" and "Anarchists," but who were undoubtedly expatriated criminals of a very high order of proficiency.

The enterprising reporter recognized the gentleman in spite of his poor dress, and followed him into the club with all the aplomb peculiar to the journalist who scents a good story.

Chapter 8

 

Elsie Marion went back to her lodgings in Smith Street, Southwark, humming a little tune. It was incredible, yet here was the patent fact. She patted her little suede bag tenderly, and the crackle of stationery brought a happy little smile to her lips.

For in the bag was deposited that most wonderful of possessions—a contract. A contract drawn up in the most lucid phraseology which lawyers permit themselves, typed on a stiff sheet of paper inscribed with the tiny "L" and an address which characterized the stationery of the Big Trust, in which she "hereinafter called the employee of the one part," agreed to serve for the term of five years the president of the London Land Trust, "hereinafter called the employers of the other part," for the sum of £780 per annum, payable weekly.

Presently, she thought, she would wake up from her dream to the sordid realities of life spent amidst the bricks and mortar of mean streets, to the weary, hungry round of days divided between a high stool and a lumpy flock bed. Yet though her heart sang gaily at the new vistas opening for her, at the wondrous potentialities of her miraculously-acquired wealth, something like a pang came to her at the thought of leaving Smith Street. The bed was lumpy, the breakfast served solidly, thick bread and butter on thick plates, and glutinous coffee in what she had christened Mrs. Gritter's sound-proof cups; the room, with its tiny bookshelves, its window-boxes, and its general neatness was redolent of much happiness. It was home to her—the only one of her own where she was mistress—that she had known.

Mrs. Glitter's daughter was a trial certainly. Henrietta was a slatternly girl of twenty-four, mysteriously married and as mysteriously deserted—(the mystery was all Mrs. Gritter's, for the neighbourhood knew the story). She was now a chronic inebriate, and the lodgers of 107, Smith Street were for ever meeting her in her most dazed condition, to the intense annoyance of Mrs. Gritter, who was in the habit of saying that she did not mind Henrietta's weakness, but strongly condemned Henrietta's indiscretion in making it known.

But there were pleasant associations. Elsie had made friends amongst people who worked hard and lived decently on salaries which would scarcely suffice to pay for her Savoy lunch. As she was about to insert her key in the door of number 107, it opened and a young man stood in the entrance.

"Hullo, Miss Marion," he said cheerily. "You're home early to-night."

Gordon Bray occupied the second floor front, and was something outside of the run of men she had met. He was a splendid specimen of the self-educated man who had triumphed over the disadvantages which a poverty-stricken upbringing and inadequate schooling had brought him. He had been denied even the opportunities for securing a scholarship through the council schools, for his association with the unbeautiful school in Latimer Road had ended abruptly when he found himself the sole support of a widowed mother at the age of fourteen. Errand boy, printers' devil, shop boy, clerk—he had progressed till the death of his mother had shocked him to a realization of actualities. Tragic as that death had been, it had offered him a larger opportunity for advancing himself. His tiny income, which had sufficed for both, now offered a margin of surplus, and he had thrown himself into new fields of study.

There are thousands of Gordon Brays in the world: young men fighting bravely against almost insuperable odds. Handicapped by a lack of influence, they must fight for their own openings, and woe to them if they have no goal or, having one, deviate by one hairbreadth from the path they have set themselves.

The girl looked at him kindly. She was not in love with this good-looking boy, nor he with her. Between them existed a sympathy rarer than love. They were fellow-fighters in the big conflict of life, possessed common enemies, found similar inspirations.

"I'm off to the 'Tec,'" he said, and swung a bundle of books without shame. "I'm getting so tired of Holdron's—they raised my salary by five shillings a week to-day and expected me to be overwhelmed with gratitude."

She wanted to tell him her great news, but the fear that even a tiny spark of envy might be kindled in his heart stopped her. She would tell him another time when he was more cheerful.

"How are the models?" she asked. His goal was architecture, and those splendid models of his were the joy of his life. Moreover, they had material value, for he had won two gold medals at the school with a couple.

A momentary cloud passed over his face; then he grinned cheerfully.

"Oh, they're all right," he said, and with a nod left her.

She ran up the stairs lightheartedly, passing on her way Mrs. Gritter's disreputable daughter already far advanced in intoxication. Mrs. Gritter brought the inevitable tea herself, and offered the inevitable comments on the weather and the inevitable apology for her daughter's condition.

"I'm going to leave you, Mrs. Gritter," said the girl.

"Oh, indeed?" Mrs. Gritter felt such occasions called for an expression of injured innocence. She regarded "notice" in the 'light of a censure upon her domestic capacities.

"I—I've got something better to do," the girl went on; "and I can afford a little more rent—"

"There's the first floor front, with foldin' doors," suggested Mrs. Gritter hopefully. "If you could afford another ten shillings."

The girl shook her head laughingly.

"Thank you, Mrs. Gritter," she said; "but I want to live nearer my work—"

"Tube practically opposite the 'ouse," persisted the landlady; "'buses to and fro, so to speak. It's very hard on me losin' two lodgers in a week."

"Two?" asked the girl in surprise.

The landlady nodded.

"Between you and me and the gatepost," she said confidentially and polishing her spectacles with the corner of her alpaca apron, "Mr. Bray has been a trial—always behind with his rent an' owes me three weeks."

The girl was shocked. She had never troubled to inquire into the young man's affairs. She knew, of course, that he was not any too well off, but it never occurred to her that he was so desperately hard up. She understood now the bitterness in his voice when he spoke of his five shillings rise.

"It's studying that does it," said Mrs. Gritter mournfully; "wastin' money on puttin' things in your head instead of puttin' 'em in your stummick an' on your back. What's the good of it? Education! It fills the prisons an' the workhouses and—and the army!"

She had a son in the army, and she bore the junior service a grudge in consequence; for sons in Southwark mean a contribution to the family finance.

The girl bit her lip in thought.

"Perhaps," she hesitated. "Perhaps if I were to pay you—the arrears?"

A gleam came into the landlady's eyes only to vanish again. .

"That's no good," she said. "Besides, he's given me some things to hold for the money."

"Some things?" Elsie looked at the woman from under her brows. "What things?"

Mrs. Gritter avoided her eyes.

"Not his models?" asked the girl quickly.

Mrs. Gritter nodded.

"To 'ave and to 'old," she said, mistakenly imagining she was indulging in legal terminology, "until he doth pay."

She had a passion for phrases of a certain sonorous type.

"You ought not to have allowed him to do so," said the girl, stamping her foot. "You knew that he would pay in time!"

Mrs. Gritter sniffed.

"He didn't exactly give 'em to me," she said; "but I seized 'em according to lawr!"

The girl stared at her as though she were some strange new insect.

"You seized them?" she asked. "Took them out of his room?"

Mrs. Gritter nodded complacently.

"According to the lawr," she justified herself.

"Why—why, you're not honest!" cried the girl.

A dull red rose to the cheeks of the excellent Mrs. Gritter. "Not honest!" she said, raising her voice to its full strident pitch. "Don't you go saying things like that about respectable people, miss—"

There came a knock at the door, a sharp authoritative knock. Then, without waiting for permission to enter, the door opened and two men came in.

"Marion?" asked one.

"I am Miss Marion," replied the girl, wondering what this unceremonious entry meant.

The man nodded in a friendly way.

"I am Sergeant Colestaff of the Metropolitan Police," he said, "and I shall take you into custody on a charge of stealing the sum of fourteen pounds, the property of your employers, Messrs. Tack and Brighten."

She did not faint.

She stood like a figure carved in stone, motionless.

Mrs. Gritter eyed her darkly and muttered, "Not honest!"

"Who charges me?" the girl asked faintly.

"Mr. King Kerry," said the detective.

"King Kerry—no, no!" her hands went out and caught the detective's arm imploringly.

"It is Mr. King Kerry," he said gently. "I am executing this warrant on information which he has sworn."

"It's impossible—impossible!" she cried, her eyes filling with tears. "It can't be—there must be a mistake! He couldn't do it—he wouldn't do it!"

The detective shook his head.

"There may be a mistake. Miss Marion," he said gently; "but what I have said is true."

The girl sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands.

The detective's hand fell upon her shoulder. "Gome along, please," he said. She rose, and, putting on her hat mechanically, went down the stairs with the two men, leaving the landlady speechless.

"Not honest!" she said at last. "My gawd! What airs these shop-girls give theirselves!"

She waited till she heard the front door close, then she stooped to pull the girl's box from under the bed. If ever there was a time to pick up a few unexpected trifles it was now.

Chapter 9

 

Elsie Marion sat on the wooden bed and stared at the whitewashed wall of her cell. She heard a church clock strike twelve. She had been six hours in custody; it seemed six years. She could not understand it.

King Kerry had parted from her cheerfully that afternoon to go to Liverpool to meet Cyrus Hatparl, newly arrived from America. She had accompanied the millionaire to the station and had stood chatting with him, taking his instructions for the work he wished her to do on the following day.

At Liverpool—so she had gathered from a sympathetic station inspector—he had sworn an affidavit before a justice of the peace, and at the telegraphed request of the Liverpool police a London magistrate had issued the warrant.

Why could he not have waited until he returned? She could have explained—whatever there was to be explained—but he was too impatient to shatter the little paradise which he so lately created. All through the evening she had sat wondering, racking her brains to think of some explanation for this terrible change in her fortunes. The thing was inexplicable—too vast a tragedy for her comprehension.

She had never handled large sums of money; accounts were made up daily, and they had never been questioned. There was another mystery. At eight o'clock that night her dinner had been sent in. It had been brought in a cab from the best hotel in London, the newly-erected Sweizerhof; as perfect a meal as even an epicure could desire. She was young and healthy, and in spite of the seriousness other position, she enjoyed the meal. As to why it came she could only elicit the information that it had been ordered by telephone from Liverpool by a gentleman.

The inconsistency of the man was amazing. He could cause her arrest for a charge of stealing a few pounds and could spend almost as much as she was supposed to have stolen on one meal.

One o'clock struck; she tried to sleep but could not.

At half-past one the wardress came down the corridor and unlocked her cell door.

"Come this way, miss," she said, and the girl followed her through another steel-faced door, up a flight of steps to the charge-room. She stopped dead as she entered the room, for standing by the inspector's desk was King Kerry.

He came towards her with outstretched hands. "My poor child!" he said, and she could not doubt the genuineness of his concern. He led her to the desk. The girl was too dazed to resist.

"I think it is all right, inspector," he said.

"Quite all right, sir," said the officer, smiling at the girl. "You are at liberty, miss."

"But I don't understand," she began. Then King Kerry took her arm and led her from the room.

Outside three cars were waiting and little groups stood on the side-walk chatting. They turned as if at an order as the two came down the steps of the station, and one came up and raised his hat.

"I think, sir, we had better go to 107, Smith Street, first," he said.

"I agree, superintendent," said Kerry gravely.

He opened the door of the first car and lifted the girl in.

"My child," he said when they were alone, "you must suspend your judgment on me; none of my friends were in town. I had to take a drastic action, one which I was sure would not miscarry."

"But, but—why?" she was crying, and her sobs went straight to the man's heart.

"Suspend your judgment," he said gently. "I believe that in arresting you I saved your life."

He spoke so earnestly, so solemnly, that the tears ceased as a natural curiosity overcame her sense of grievance.

"I had a telegram on the train," he said. "I got It just as we were pulling into Liverpool—it must have come aboard at Edgehill. It was from my agent—a youngster on The Monitor—and was to the effect that for a reason which I understand and which, one of these days, you will understand, an attempt was to be made, to-night, on your life."

"Impossible!"

He nodded.

"I could have informed the police, but I doubt whether they would have taken me seriously. I was terrified lest they protected you in some half-hearted way."

"But who would want to harm me?" she asked. "I haven't an enemy in the world."

He nodded.

"You have as many enemies as any other member of society," he said; "that is to say, you have the enemies which are invariably opposed to the honest and decent members of society."

He did not speak again until the car stopped before her lodging. The other cars were pulling up as she descended with her employer, and there was a brief consultation between Kerry and the detectives—for Scotland Yard and Pinkerton's men they were. Then King Kerry walked to the door of the dark and silent house and knocked along, thundering roll.

He turned to the girl.

"Is your room in the front of the house?" he asked.

She shook her head smilingly.

"That has been far too expensive a situation," she said. "No, I have a room at the back on the first floor, with an excellent view of other people's back windows and a private promenade—if I had the courage to climb out."

"A private promenade?"

He asked the question sharply, and she hastened to explain her facetious reference.

"I can step out of my window on to the leads," she said. "They form the roof of the kitchen. I rather like the idea because I am terrified of fire."

"So am I," said the multi-millionaire grimly.

The door opened as he spoke and Gordon Bray stood in the doorway fully dressed. He recognized Elsie immediately.

"Thank God, you have come!" he said. "I've been worrying myself to death about you; I called at the station. I suppose they didn't tell you?" She introduced the millionaire, and the young man glanced curiously at her large escort.

"Mr. Bray," said Kerry, "we want to arouse your landlady; can you do this for us?"

"Certainly."

He led the way to the fusty little sitting-room and lit the gas.

"Couldn't I?" asked the girl. "I have to go up to my room."

"Not yet, please," answered Kerry quickly. "Whatever happens, you are not to sleep in your room to-night. I have arranged a suite at the Sweizerhof, and I have already sent two ladies there to chaperon you," he chuckled. "You wouldn't think it was possible to get a chaperon in the middle of the night, would you?"

"No," she smiled.

"Yet I got two," he said. "I telegraphed to the London Hospital and told them to send two of their nicest nurses—there was a chance that you might have collapsed and I knew that they would serve as guardians anyway. One thing more."

He was very serious now.

"Yesterday I told you to remember three words—words I made you swear you would never reveal to any soul save me, or in the event of my death to my executors!"

She nodded. He had dropped his voice to a little above a whisper.

"You remember them?"

"Yes," she replied in the same tone; "the words were 'Kingsway needs paving.'"

He nodded. "I asked you never even to use words."!

"I kept my promise," said the girl quickly.

He smiled. "You need not, any more," he said. "After to-night you may employ them as often as you like. I ought not to have told you."

They were interrupted by the return of Bray.

"Mrs. Gritter is on her way down," he said. "She isn't an elaborate dresser."

King Kerry threw a swift glance at the young man, a glance which took him in from head to toe. He saw a fair-haired youth of twenty-two, with two honest blue eyes and as firm a chin as he himself possessed. The forehead was high and broad and the fingers which drummed noiselessly on the table were long and delicate.

It was said of King Kerry that he understood two things well—land and men, and in the general term "men" was included woman in some of her aspects. He knew Gordon Bray from that moment of scrutiny, and never knew him better—as a man.

Mrs. Gritter came blinking into the light; a shawl, a skirt, and a pair of slippers, plus an assortment of safety pins, being sufficient to veil her night attire. "Hello!" she said, a little flustered by the sight of Kerry and not a little embarrassed by the unexpected spectacle of Elsie; "thought you was safe for the night."

Her humour was forced, and she was obviously uncomfortable.

"I wish to go to Miss Marion's room and collect some other things," said Kerry to the girl's surprise.

Mrs. Gritter was more embarrassed than ever, but it was not at the impropriety of a gentleman invading a lady's bedroom in the small hours of the morning.

"Oh," she said a little blankly, "that's awkward, my dear."

She fixed a speculative and thoughtful eye upon Elsie.

"The fact is "—she cleared her throat with a little cough—"the fact is. Miss Marion, I've taken a great liberty." They waited. "Ria happened to come in at ten minutes to eleven," said the landlady apologetically, "an' not feelin' well."

Elsie concealed a smile. She had seen the lack-lustre eyes of Ria when she was "not feeling well."

"'Mother,' she sez to me," continued Mrs. Gritter with relish, "'Mother,' she sez, 'you're not goin' to turn your only daughter into the street,' she sez. 'Well,' I sez, 'well, Ria, you know how I'm placed. There ain't a bed to spare except Miss Marion's, who's gone away to the country.' I said that," exclaimed Mrs. Gritter, seeking approval, "to keep the matter quiet."

"In fact, your daughter is sleeping in Miss Marion's bed?" asked Kerry, and Elsie made a wry little face.

"And tools the liberty of borrowin' Miss Marion's night-gown," added Mrs. Gritter, with a desire to get her sin off her mind.

Elsie laughed helplessly, but King Kerry was serious.

"Let us go in," he said. "You stay here, my child!"

Mrs. Gritter walked to the door slowly.

"She's a heavy sleeper when she ain't well," she said resentfully. "What do you want to go up for?"

"I want to find out whether you are speaking the truth or not," said Kerry, "and whether it is your daughter or some other person occupying Miss Marion's room."

"Oh, is that all?" asked Mrs. Glitter, relieved; "well, come up!"

She led the way, taking a lamp from the hall and lighting it. She paused outside the door of the first floor back.

"If Miss Marion misses anything from her box," she said, "it's nothing to do with me, or with my daughter."

She turned the handle of the door and entered. Kerry followed. By the light of the lamp he saw a figure huddled beneath the bedclothes, and a tangle of disorderly hair spread on the pillow.

"Ria!" called Mrs. Gritter loudly; "Ria, wake up!" But the woman in the bed did not move.

Kerry passed the landlady swiftly, and laid the back of his hand on the pale cheek.

"I think you'd better go down," he said gently, "and tell the men you see outside the door I want them."

"What do you mean?" asked the trembling landlady. He took the lamp from her shaking hand and put it on the chest of drawers.

"Your daughter is dead," he said quietly. "She has been murdered by somebody who came across the leads through that window." He pointed to the window that was open.

King Kerry was speaking the truth in that solemn voice of his. She was dead, this poor, drunken soul, murdered by men who had come to force from Elsie's lips the words which would unfasten the combination lock on King Kerry's giant safe.

For Hermann Zeberlieff in his prescience had guessed right—King Kerry still locked his safe with the name of a street, and that street was "Kingsway."