Chapter XVI

Life in Ginnett Street might be rather amusing, thought Luke Maddison.

It was his third day in his lodging, and he was not averse to his new life. He had discovered unsuspected physical weaknesses as he had made his way from the hospital, and was glad of a rest, the freedom from worry, the utter irresponsibility of this queer life into which he had obtruded.

Mrs. Fraser did not bother him with her presence. She brought in a surprisingly interesting collection of books to read, supplied him with plain but very wholesome meals, and gave him the freedom of the house, though she suggested that he had better only go out at nights. He was mystified by the attention she was paying him, though he realized that she was acting on behalf of the unknown Connor.

Some of the mystery was cleared up on the third day when she asked him a number of questions about Australia, a country to which he had never been. When he said as much she smiled cryptically.

“If that Lewing had had as much sense as you and had kept his mouth shut, he might have been alive and well to-day. If he’d had the sense to keep his mouth shut, nobody would have known anything about you. But he was a rare one to boast, was Lewing, God rest him, always boasting what his crowd could do against our crowd, though he must have known that we had all the money.”

Gradually it came out. Lewing had boasted of a man who was coming from Australia to work with his “crowd.” Luke gathered that the new man had a fairly hectic reputation in the Dominion, but that he had never been convicted.

“The moment Connor heard you were coming, he said: ‘That’s the man for us--get him.’ He reckons that Sydney bank affair was the cleverest job that’s ever been done.”

Now Luke discovered his identity, and began to piece together the little scraps of information he had had from time to time. If Lewing was not the brains, or the leader, of the Borough gang, he was at least a person of considerable importance. It was he who had arranged for the Australian’s services, and apparently had recruited him by correspondence.

Luke learned that the gang warfare in South London had a special significance. The Borough gang were mainly river thieves, and several of the members had grown rich out of the cargoes they had broached.

“Now let us get this straight, Mrs. Fraser. You’re under the impression that I’m an Australian criminal. When I say ‘you’ I mean your principals.”

“My how much?” asked Mrs. Fraser, puzzled.

Luke explained.

“Well, I’m not the man you were expecting,” he insisted. “The fact that I happened to be with Lewing the night he was killed means nothing--it was the purest fluke. I can certainly drive a car, but I’m afraid I can be of very little use to your friends, who, I gather, are on the wrong side of the law.”

She smiled cryptically at this.

“What I like about you, Mr. Smith,” she said, “is that you know how to keep yourself to yourself.”

It was late that night that he saw the redoubtable Connor. As he shook hands with the stranger he shuddered, for he had heard that deep voice before on the night when Lewing met his end.

“I shan’t want you for a day or two, Smith,” said Connor brusquely. “Everything being done for you? That’s right.”

His tone was commanding; it was the same voice that had challenged Lewing, but more cultured. Before Luke could explain who he was, or at any rate explain who he was not, the man had taken his departure. A day or two later came another surprise. There walked into his room as he was sitting at the table, a book before him, his head upon his hands, a pretty, fair-haired girl, who eyed him with a certain amount of amused interest.

“Connor sent me down to see you. Did your new clothes arrive?”

Luke shook his head and smiled.

“No,” he said. “Am I getting an outfit?”

She looked at him critically.

“And you want a barber. I’ll have one sent up to you to-night. That beard of yours wants trimming. Could you bear taking a little drive with me to-morrow?”

He laughed again.

“I could bear worse things than that,” he said, wondering who she was or whence she had come.

She was well but not too smartly dressed, and he guessed that her attire was designed so that she should not attract too much attention.

“This is a hole you’re in!” she said contemptuously, looking out onto the street. “It must be hell here. How these people manage to exist I don’t know.”

He said nothing to this; he had gained a working knowledge of these children of the poor; had watched in the earlier hours of the dawn the street doors open and discharge the workers; had seen the brave, drab wives battling to make a sixpence do the work of a shilling. At eight-thirty their daughters, neatly attired, in flesh-coloured stockings and cheaply smart coats, went forth to the City to add theirs to the meagre family resources. The children of the poor! The victims of a thousand preying vultures! For the poor are robbed as the rich are never robbed. There existed a dozen gangs of little sneak thieves, who would pick their pockets in omnibuses, snatch their bags, sneak into their houses when they were out, to collect a few pence worth of their poor belongings. He had seen one night a gang of three young ruffians attack a middle-aged workman, knock him down and empty his pockets. He had heard of glib men who had come down this street, pretending they had been sent by some absent husband to fetch tools he had left behind; and once, to his great joy, he had seen a swift car rush through the street and discharge half-a-dozen detectives to the arrest of a bully who had lived on the wages of infamy.

The police gave them what protection they could. He had seen a wife-beater lying stark and unconscious on the pavement after a detective had used his rubber truncheon on him. But as a rule these human parasites that preyed upon the poor escaped unharmed.

The girl turned from the contemplation of misery.

“Meet me near the Guards Memorial in Green Park. I shall be in a car and will pick you up,” she said.

She looked him up and down, admiration in her eyes.

“You’ve got a good voice,” she said. “You’d pass for a swell.”

The clothes came that night; they fitted him remarkably well, and when the promised barber had finished his work and Luke was arrayed in his new clothes, he was almost reconciled to the beard.

In the interest of his new, strange life he found it fairly easy to forget. The spirit of adventure was on him. Margaret belonged to a dim, almost unbelievable, past. She was of the substance of dreams.

He went gaily to the rendezvous on the following afternoon, and was delighted to find how springy was his step. He had hardly taken his place in front of the Guards Memorial when he saw an electric brougham approach and, catching the girl’s signal, stepped to the side of the road as the car stopped.

She was in excellent spirits.

“It’s a great idea to let yourself be seen in a certain kind of car,” she said. “You don’t know what I mean? I’ll bet you don’t!”

They crossed into Hyde Park, made a slow progress near the edge of the sidewalk, and he found himself enjoying the novel experience. She was very pretty, though older than he had thought.

“Do you see that fat man over there? That’s the Sparrow. You want to keep away from him.”

He started at the name.

“You mean Bird?” he stammered, and looked guiltily in the direction she indicated.

He saw Mr. Bird. He was walking with a very pretty girl, but the woman who was at that moment seating herself on one of the park benches he did not recognize.

As the brougham turned and came back on the other side of the road, she said suddenly:

“There will be a car waiting near the Cavalry Barracks. I hope you can drive?”

“Another car?” he asked in astonishment.

She nodded.

“I want to try you out.”

He laughed.

“All this is very mysterious,” he said.

The car was waiting for them, a closed light car of English make. There was nobody in attendance, but without hesitation she stopped the brougham and gave the driver instructions.

“Here it is,” she said. “Get in.”

Luke sank into the driver’s seat and put his foot on the self-starter, and she came in after him, slamming the little door behind her.

“Grafton Street,” she said, in a businesslike tone. “Pull up opposite the Rean Club.”

He thought she was testing his driving ability, for he had to pass through three traffic blocks before he brought the machine to a standstill at a place she indicated.

“Now you understand,” she said, dropping her voice and speaking rapidly, “I’m going in to see my husband.”

She looked him straight in the eyes.

“If he makes a fuss I shall expect you to help me. If he doesn’t make a fuss, we’ll drive quietly away down Albemarle Street, make for Vauxhall Bridge and Tooting Common.”

“Your husband?” he stammered.

She gave him one quick look of suspicion.

“That is what you tell the flattie if there is any fuss.”

What a flattie was she did not explain, and was gone before he could ask her. He kept the engine running according to her instructions. She was gone some twenty minutes. Presently, looking out, he saw her turn the corner from Bond Street and walk with apparent unconcern toward him. As she stepped into the car, a man in his shirt-sleeves darted round the corner, flew at her, and gripped her by the arm. She tried to wrench herself free, and before Luke realized what he was doing he had struck her assailant and sent him tumbling to the pavement.

“Drive!” she snapped, and mechanically Luke Maddison sent the machine leaping forward.

They crossed Oxford Street, down St. James’s Street, through the park, and were over Vauxhall Bridge before he partly realized what had happened.

“Why did that fellow grab you?” he asked.

“My husband--I had a row with him,” she said calmly. And then: “I knew Connor was wrong,” she said, and whistled. “If I hadn’t had my wits about me and started that husband story, I’d have been half-way to Holloway!”

He saw her look at every policeman they passed, out of the corner of her eye, and his heart was beating faster as they came to the edge of Tooting Common, and at her command he stopped the car.

“We’ll get out here,” she said. “You can go back by bus, I’ll take a taxi. If Connor comes to-night, tell him I’ve got the stuff.”

She turned to go, but he caught her by the arm.

“What stuff?” he asked sternly.

And then he saw the flat case she carried under her leather coat.

“My God!” gasped Luke Maddison. “You stole that!”

There was amusement in her fine eyes as she nodded.

“Of course I did, you poor simp!”

A taxicab was passing and she hailed it. Slowly his grip on her arm relaxed. He watched the taxi recede like a man in a dream, too stunned even to think. He could never remember that journey back to Lambeth. He had crossed Westminster Bridge when he saw a newsboy with a placard: “Daring West End Robbery.” He stood dead still, gazing open-mouthed at the contents bill, and then he felt in his pocket and dropped a penny from his trembling hand into the newsboy’s palm.

He dared not look inside the newspaper until he was in a quiet street. Then he read:

DARING WEST END ROBBERY

Bearded Man and Pretty Girl Rob Taffanny’s of £20,000 Diamond Necklace.

A daring robbery was committed this afternoon at Messrs. Taffanny’s jewel shop in Bond Street. At about 3:50 a well-dressed woman walked into the shop and asked to be shown some plain gold rings. Whilst the assistant’s back was turned, she must have broken a glass case with a rubber-headed hammer. When he came back, he found not only the woman but a valuable diamond necklace had disappeared. He flew out into the street and overtook the woman as she was entering a motor car. He was immediately struck down by her companion, who is described as a man of great height, with a fair, well-trimmed beard, dressed in a gray tweed suit.…

“That’s me!” groaned Luke Maddison, and almost swooned.