CHAPTER IX

In the early days, when Trenter had known him, Mr. Superbus was a court bailiff, a man who seized the property of unsuccessful litigants, who served writs, attached furniture, and committed all those barbarous acts peculiar to his office. But progression, the inexorable law of getting on, the natural craving for success, brought Mr. Superbus from the atmosphere of a dull county court to a small office in the Insurance Trust Building, and the distinction of having his name painted upon the glass panel of the door. He was officially styled “First Enquiry Clerk.” The “detective” which was printed on the corner of his visiting card was wholly unofficial, and his request to his superiors that a nickel badge should be designed that he might wear on his waistcoat and display at fitting moments when it was necessary to disclose his identity, was refused as being “impracticable and undesirable.”

The cinematograph is at once educative and inspirational. Mr. Superbus spent most of his spare evenings in watching the pictures. Those he liked best dealt with the careers of young, beautiful but penurious girls, who were pursued by rich and remorseless villains, and were rescued in the nick of time from a fate which is popularly supposed to be worse than death, by a handsome young hero, with the assistance of a stern-faced officer of the law, who smoked cigars, wore a derby hat, and from time to time turned back his coat to display the badge of his calling. A film which had no detective, and dealt merely with the love of a millionaire’s beautiful young wife for his secretary, was unpalatable to him, even though it featured his favourite artists and showed, in the course of its telling, tremendous railway accidents, landslides, riots and the enervating effects of cocaine.

Before the open window of his parlour, Mr. Superbus sat in a state of profound meditation. Though the day was chilly, he was in his shirt-sleeves, for he was one of those hot-blooded men in whom the variations of climate peculiar to his native land produced no effect. It was an open secret that he was one of those hardy souls who swam in the Serpentine every Christmas Day, preferably breaking the ice to get in, and his portrait appeared with monotonous regularity every twenty-sixth of December in all the better-class illustrated newspapers.

His good lady came bustling in with a shiver. She restricted her own bathing operations to the decent privacy of a four by seven bathroom.

“You’ll catch your death of cold there, Julius,” she said. “Fancy sitting there from morning till night doing nothing!”

“I’m not doing nothing,” said Julius quietly. “I’m thinking.”

“Well, that’s what I call doing nothing,” said Mrs. Superbus, bustling round and laying the cloth.

She had an extraordinary appreciation of her husband’s qualities, admired him secretly, but felt that the smooth harmonies of matrimony might well be disturbed if she committed the error of showing her feelings.

“It’s beyond me how you puzzle these things out,” she said.

“It’s brains,” explained Julius.

“You get such ideas,” she said in despair. “I wonder you don’t go on the stage.”

It was her conviction that the stage was the ultimate goal of all genius; its greatest reward; its most natural line of development.

“This Double Dan is certainly a bit of a puzzle, though I’ve worked out bigger problems in my time, mother.”

She nodded in agreement.

“The way you mended the cistern last week beats me,” she said. “After that I’ll believe anything. Who is this Double Dan?”

“He’s a swindler,” said Mr. Superbus, “a parasite of society, a human vampire--but I’ll get him!”

“I’m surprised the police don’t go after him,” she said.

He was naturally irritated, and his laughter lacked sincerity.

“The police! No, mother, the man who’s going to get Double Dan has got to be clever, he’s got to be cunning, he’s got to be artful.”

“I don’t know anybody artfuller than you, Julius,” said his wife graciously, and Mr. Superbus accepted the compliment as his right.

He might speak disparagingly of the police, as he did; as all private detectives, authors of mystery stories and such-like are in the habit of doing. But his knowledge that Double Dan was in London, the hint that had been whispered up from the underworld that Mr. Gordon Selsbury was to be the new victim; these and a hundred other little pointers of incalculable value came to him fourth-hand from Scotland Yard. After his midday dinner he put on his coat and strolled to Cheynel Gardens. Gordon was out, and he was received by Diana.

“Why, of course, you’re Mr.----”

“Superbus,” said Julius.

“The Roman!”

Mr. Superbus confessed to that distinction. He might have added “ultimus Romanorum,” only he was unacquainted with the phrase. Instead he remarked, a little pathetically:

“There ain’t many of us left.”

“I bet there ain’t,” said Diana. “Sit down and have some tea. You want to see Mr. Selsbury, but he won’t be back for an hour.”

“I did and I didn’t,” said Julius the obscure. “What I want to do is to keep a certain eye on a certain fellow.”

He did not particularise the eye, but Diana guessed that it might be that which was nearest to her: it looked the less glassy of the two. In the matter of the certain fellow she sought information.

“Double Dan--I remember. Who is he, Mr. Superbus?”

“Well, ma’am----”

“Miss.”

“You don’t look it,” he said gallantly, if vaguely. “This Double Dan is a desperado, and is believed to emanate from the West.”

“Do you mean West London?”

“I mean America,” said Julius, “where most of the desperadoes come from. And go to,” he added, with a recollection of certain past defaulters, whose disappearance had been hampering to him as a bailiff of the court.

She listened attentively while Mr. Superbus described the misdoings of the impersonator.

“There’s nothing this fellow can’t do, miss,” said Superbus impressively. “He can make himself fat, he can make himself thin; he can impersonate a tall man or a short man, an old man or a young man. By all accounts he was an actor onthealls.”

“Onthealls?” She wrinkled her brow, thinking for the moment that Mr. Superbus had dug up one of those natty colloquialisms that enlivened the Senate in those days when Cicero could always be depended upon to pass a few bright, snappy remarks about the Tribune Clodius.

“An actor onthealls,” repeated Mr. Superbus, astounded that he was unintelligible.

“Oh, I see!” a great light dawning upon her mind. “On the halls? You mean the vaudeville stage?”

“So they say,” said Mr. Superbus. “Anyway, he’s been too clever for the regular police. It’s now up to them who have made a study of crime, so to speak, to bring him to justice.”

He looked cautiously round the apartment and lowered his voice.

“By all accounts, Mr. Selsbury’s the next.”

Diana sat bolt upright in her chair.

“You means he’s to be the next person robbed?”

Mr. Superbus nodded gravely.

“From information received,” he said.

“But does he know?”

“I’ve dropped an ’int, miss,” said Julius. “But on the whole it’s better that he didn’t know. A man gets jiggered, so to speak, if he knows a crook is after him, and that hampers the officers of the law.” He shook his head. “Many a good case have I lost that way.”

“What do you mean exactly by impersonation?” asked Diana, troubled. “Do you mean to say that, when Mr. Selsbury is out, somebody who looks very much like him is liable to walk into this house and help himself to anything that he can find?”

“Cheques mostly, or money,” affirmed Julius. “He works big, this fellow. Nothing small about him, you understand. You could leave your silver around, and he wouldn’t touch so much as an egg-spoon. He’s one of the big gang--I’ve had my eye on him for years.”

“This is very alarming,” said Diana after a long silence.

“It is alarming,” agreed Julius, “but at the same time, if you’ve got the right kind of man around to protect you, a fellow who’s a bit sharp, it’s not alarming. But he’s got to be clever, and he’s got to have experience of what I might term the criminal classes, I should say.”

“You mean yourself?” Diana smiled faintly, not in the mood to be amused.

“I mean me,” said Julius. “If I was you, miss, I’d drop a hint to Mr. Selsbury. Maybe he takes more notice of what his daughter says.”

At parting he took her hand in his own large, purple paw, called her “Miss Selsbury” and asked to be remembered to her father. When Gordon came home, she told him of the visit.

“Superbus, eh?” said Gordon good-naturedly. “He called for a tip. But why, in the name of heaven, he should start in to alarm you, I don’t know. I must speak to the Association about it.”

“He didn’t alarm me at all,” said Diana, “except when he asked to be remembered to my father, and said that you were more likely to be influenced by your young and gentle daughter----”

“Does he think I’m your father?” demanded Gordon indignantly. “That fellow’s got a nerve! As for Double Dan, I shouldn’t think very much about him if I were you, Diana. He certainly caught old Mendlesohn, but then, old Mendlesohn is a philandering old fool. He allowed himself to be trapped by the woman who works with the scoundrel and acts as his decoy duck.”

The mail boat was in, Gordon noted, glancing at his newspaper the next morning. He had arranged to remain at home that day, and his accountant called at the house with a carefully engrossed receipt form and the office cheque-book. Gordon filled a blank for eleven thousand and a few odd pounds.

“I want fifty thousand dollars in gold bills; you’ll buy them at the Bank of England. Bring them back here in a taxicab, Miller. You have told the office that wires are to be telephoned to me? Good. I expect a message from Mr. Tilmet.”

The message did not come until long after the bills had been deposited in The Study safe.

It was from Paris, to the effect that Mr. Tilmet had landed at Cherbourg and would be in London on the Sunday; he added that he would leave for Holland that same night. Gordon, in his genteel way, consigned the American to the devil.

He saw Heloise that afternoon. She was a being exalted at the prospect of the trip, and his last desperate appeal to her that it should be cancelled was unmade. They were to meet at a quarter to eleven on the platform at Victoria, and were to travel as strangers until they reached Ostend. The passage looked likely to be a good one; the weather bureau reported a smooth sea and light easterly winds.

Trenter had packed his big carry-all, and had included one of the new suits--that grey check with a little red in it--which had arrived belatedly from the tailor. The case had been secretly transported to a hotel in the neighbourhood of Victoria, where Gordon had to change. Nothing remained to be done but to prepare the telegrams which Trenter was to send. He could do this with a light heart, for it had occurred to him that if, taking advantage of his absence, the criminal impersonator should call (he regarded this as the least likely of any happening) the wires would confound and expose him. He felt almost as if he were doing a worthy deed.

The first he marked in the corner “Euston,” and inscribed “Just leaving, Gordon.” He wrote a number of “Good journey, all wells” for York, Edinburgh and Inverness.

Surprisingly, Diana came to him that day for some money.

“I arranged the transfer of my money to the London branch of the Bank of Australasia, but there has been some sort of hitch. I called to-day and the transfer has not arrived. Save me from penury, Gordon--I’m a ruined woman.”

She displayed dramatically the empty inside of a notecase. Gordon felt a queer satisfaction in signing a cheque for her, recovered a little of the kind-fatherly feeling appropriate to their relationship.

“And to think that, if you had really turned me out, I should have starved!” taking the slip from his hand. “Gordon, behind a rugged and unprepossessing exterior, you hide a heart of gold.”

“I sometimes wish you were a little more serious,” he said in good humour.

“I’m always wishing that you weren’t,” she said.

Gordon was temporarily deprived of the full use of The Study in the afternoon. There could be no more remarkable proof of Diana’s dynamic qualities than the arrival of post office linesmen to move the telephone from the hall to Gordon’s room--and that within forty-eight hours of her notifying the Postmaster General of her desires. Gordon demurred at first. The telephone was an invasion of his privacy. Diana was flippant and he was in no spirit for a fight.

Bobbie was at dinner that night, and, when they were alone, asked her a question that he had asked himself many times.

“Why do you stick this kind of existence, Diana? You’ve heaps of money and could be having a really good time instead of rushing round after Gordon.”

She looked up under her curling lashes.

“Does Gordon want me here? Has he ever wanted me? No, sir! When I came I left my baggage in the hall: I intended taking his advice about hotels and things. I never had the slightest intention of stopping--till I saw him and heard him, and read the panic he was in at the idea of my remaining in the house, and heard him become paternal and my-dear-little-girly. So I stayed. The day Gordon wants me to stay--I go!”

The atmosphere of the house was electric: Bobbie felt it, Diana was conscious of an uneasiness that was not to be accounted for by the errors of banking officials. Even in the servants’ hall hysteria made a mild manifestation. Eleanor had a premonition which she called by another name.

“I’m sure something’s going to happen.” When she was nervous her voice grew high-pitched.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Trenter’s voice lacked confidence.

“I wish you wasn’t--weren’t going away,” she sobbed. “I’ve got the creeps. That window man will do something. The moment I saw him I said ‘that man’s a villain,’ didn’t I, cook?”

“You did. You said ‘I’m sure there’s something wrong about that man,’” agreed cook.

As for Gordon Selsbury, he went to bed at ten. At one o’clock he was pacing his room. At three he went down to The Study and started the percolator working. Whilst the coffee was in process of making, he opened the safe and took out the fifty thousand dollars, counted them and put them back. The safe looked very fragile, he thought. Once this wretched trip was over he would attend to the matter. The house was not difficult to burgle. The big, stained-glass window--an enterprising craftsman with a penknife could get in....

In a corner of the room flush with the window was a small door, hidden behind a curtain. This led to the courtyard and was never used. As to its design, and what purpose it was intended to serve, only the builder and original owner of the house might testify. His name was Gugglewaite, he had been three times divorced, and was at the moment in heaven--or his well-edited epitaph lied.

Gordon went upstairs for his pass-key, opened the door and stepped out into the “garden.” It was very dark and still, and the wet wind smelt sweet and fresh. Across the yard was a door that gave to a small side passage. The wall was high, but no obstacle to an active burglar. He shivered and went in again to his coffee and a returning serenity induced by the fire he had kindled and the comfort of his surroundings.

He would have gladly given a thousand--ten thousand--to cancel his fool adventure; to remain here with ... well, with Diana. He told himself this with a certain defiance as though one half of a dual personality were challenging the other. Diana was really a dear. He wished he had been a little more loyal to her and had talked less about Dempsi ... a boy and girl affair and perfectly understandable. On Dempsi, his identity, his appearance, he mused till the light began to show in a ghostly fashion behind the painted window.

There was no thrill in the secrecy, the plotting, the wile within wile. Gordon smelt the meanness of it, and sometimes he quavered. It made matters a thousand times worse that Diana was so sweet about everything.

It had occurred to him that he would have to depend upon her to deal with Mr. Tilmet when he called. Nobody else could possibly cope with that elusive gentleman.

“Surely,” she said without hesitation. “Have you the receipt ready and the final contract? It isn’t worth paper unless it has been drawn up by an American notary. Auntie bought an oil well in Texas and she had to find an American attorney before the contract could be made.”

“And she was swindled, of course?” said Gordon. “All these oil properties are swindles.”

“She made seventy thousand dollars out of the deal,” said Diana. “Auntie had an irresistible attraction for bargain money. The bills are in the safe?”

“With the contract and the receipt. Really, Diana, you’re almost a business woman!”

“Your patronage is offensive, but I feel sure that you mean well,” said Diana without heat. “Let me see that money.”

He opened the safe and she counted it, bill by bill, before she snapped the door close and spun the handle.

“Good,” she said. “I will have a spring clean whilst you are away. I have sent for a man to clean the windows of The Study. They are in a shocking state. And, Gordon, with Trenter and you away, I shall need extra help. I will have a man and his wife here. There is an attic room where they can sleep: is that in order?”

Diana was brisk, business-like, imposingly capable. Gordon realised that she was unconsciously ramming home her indispensability.

Eleanor, coming in to put the room in order, found him in his dressing-gown, asleep before the black ashes of the fire, and her squeal of fear woke him.

“Oh, sir, you gave me such a fright!”

He rose stiffly, blinking at her.

“Did I ...? I’m sorry, Eleanor. Will you send Trenter to me in my room?”

A bad start to a very bad day’s business. He ached from head to foot, until his bath gave him some bodily ease.

“Eleanor says you were asleep before the study fire. When did you come down, Gordon?” Diana asked at breakfast.

“About three o’clock, I think. I remembered work that had to be done.”

She was concerned.

“Why don’t you go by the night train--you could sleep?” she suggested, and he forced a smile.

“I shall sleep all right,” he said with spurious gaiety.

The talk went off in another direction, and then Bobbie came in for final instructions. Gordon was unaccountably irritated by this act of devotion to duty, and his “Good-morning” was like the crack of a whip.

“After you have gone,” said Diana, “I shall ask Trenter to show me such of your clothes as need go to the cleaners.”

“Trenter is going before me,” he said hastily. “He’s catching a train to Bristol. His aunt is seriously ill.”

“What on earth’s the matter with you?” gasped Bobbie.

Gordon turned, ready to be offensive, but it was not he at whom Bobbie was staring. Diana’s face was ghastly; her eyes were wide with a terror she could not conceal; her skin the colour of chalk. Gordon jumped up and ran to her.

“Whatever’s the matter?” he asked, in genuine alarm.

“Nothing,” she said with a gasp. “Perhaps I’m feeling the parting. I always go like this when my cousins go away!”

“Have you had bad news?”

Her letters were open on the table. She shook her head.

“No; the butcher’s arithmetic is a little embrangled. Ever heard that word before, Gordon? I guess you haven’t! I found it in _Tom Brown’s School Days_. Bobbie, don’t stare, it’s very rude....”

Under her covering hand was the letter she had been reading.

Mr. Dempsi was very much alive: was in London at that moment. The opening lines of his letter were significant.

“My bride! I have come to claim you!”

Dempsi always wrote like that.