Chapter XXXI

It came as something in the nature of a shock to Margaret Maddison to discover how completely changed were her feelings toward the man with whom she had passed through stages of toleration to liking, and from liking to a sort of passive affection, and from that again, in the cataclysmic revolution of feeling that her brother’s death had brought about, to the bitterest loathing.

For the first time in her life Margaret was in love, and in love with something which was neither a memory nor an idea, but something which was to her as real as her own hand. She had gained that sense of possession which is the wife’s own sense--an understanding of her obligations. She could not afford to waste time in regrets at the amazing follies and wicked errors of the past: in the days that followed her mind was occupied with schemes for helping him out of the morass in which he struggled.

She did not hear from Gunner Haynes, although she stayed up until nearly two o’clock the next morning, having the telephone switched through to her bedside. Nor did the next day bring news. She was out when Danty called, and having no occasion to go to her check book, she did not discover his theft.

The following morning brought the Sparrow--professionally.

“Did you give orders that none of your husband’s checks over a thousand pounds were to be cashed at the bank?” he asked.

She nodded.

“A young man brought one in for two thousand this morning. Very foolishly, Mr. Stiles didn’t call me up, and he got away before I arrived.”

“Was it in Luke’s handwriting?” she asked eagerly. “Where is he?”

The Sparrow could not supply information.

“I thought he was abroad--is it usual for your husband to send people to the bank with checks to cash? It seems queer to me.”

“The money was not paid?” she asked.

“No--Stiles said if it had been for a thousand he’d have cashed it.”

She was purposely evasive, and after the detective had gone she telephoned through to Stiles. He had little to add.

“The man who brought the check seemed very respectable.”

“But did you ask him where he got the check?” she demanded impatiently. “Surely, Mr. Stiles, you weren’t satisfied----”

“I thought that you expected him to send checks,” said Mr. Stiles.

She had never realized how dense a man this middle-aged manager was.

After she had rung off she sat down to think. Luke had broken into his flat to secure his passport and clothes. The passport was now in the Gunner’s possession--she must see that he had a change in case he arrived unexpectedly. She went herself to his flat, made a careful collection, packed such toilet articles as she thought he might require, including a case of razors, and had them taken down to her car. It was the first wifely duty she had performed, and it brought her a pleasing sense of novelty. Even that faint pleasure brought to her a realization of the strain under which she was living, and the ever increasing anxiety concerning Luke’s fate.

If she could have got into touch with Gunner Haynes she would have done so. She would almost have welcomed the arrival of Danty Morell. She had a reminder of his earlier visit when she went to her bureau to make out household checks. She took out the wrong check book and saw that some were missing. Putting through a call to the bank, she learned that the check presented that day was one of these. Then Danton Morell was in the conspiracy!

Her first inclination was to send for Inspector Bird. But at all costs the police must not be called in. She turned the leaves of the telephone directory to search for Danton’s number, and was on the point of calling him when she came to a decision to see him herself.

She did not wait for her car, but hailing a taxi and leaving certain very definite instructions behind her, drove to Half Moon Street. Pi Coles, who opened the door to her, stared in amazement at this unexpected vision.

“Come in, miss,” he said awkwardly. “The guv’nor’s inside.”

Danton heard her voice and was coming across the hall to meet her before the door was closed.

“This is an unexpected pleasure, Margaret,” he said. “Is anything wrong?”

She did not answer until she was in his room.

“Before I tell you why I’ve come,” she said, “I think it is only fair that you should know I have left instructions that unless I am back in my house in three quarters of an hour my butler will ring up Mr. Bird and tell him where I have gone.”

He frowned at this.

“What’s the idea?” he asked harshly. “That’s an extraordinary way to behave--why the dickens shouldn’t you be back in three quarters of an hour?”

“Where are the remainder of those checks that you stole from my check book when you called the other day?” she asked.

She saw his face go red.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said loudly. “I steal checks? What nonsense you’re talking----”

“You came into my house and you were in my sitting room long enough to extract ten checks. One of them was brought to the bank to-day, made out in Luke’s name and signed by him. On my instructions the check was not honoured.”

The colour left his face.

“Not honoured?” he stammered, and in his embarrassment he betrayed his share of the guilt.

“I’m less interested in the check than in my husband,” she said quietly. “Where is he?”

He strove vainly to recover his self-possession and forced a smile.

“Really, my dear girl----” he began.

“You’ll address me as Mrs. Maddison, if you have to address me as anything,” she said. “I want you to return those checks; I want you also to tell me exactly where Luke is.”

“As far as I know, he’s staying with a convicted thief named Haynes,” the man answered roughly, and to his surprise she nodded.

“I thought so, too. I went down to see him--but he had gone. I think Mr. Haynes was surprised to find that he had gone, and I’m only now understanding that Luke did not go of his own free will. Then I thought he may have wandered out by himself in order to escape association with Mr. Haynes. But the check explains a great deal. Where is Luke?”

He shook his head.

“I don’t know.”

“In that case I am going to do what I was trying to avoid,” she said. “I am going to the police, and I shall charge you with stealing the blank checks, and leave it to Mr. Bird to connect you with Luke’s disappearance.”

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

“For God’s sake, Margaret, consider what you’re doing!”

She saw he was really alarmed; his voice was tremulous, his whole air suggested panic.

“I swear to you I don’t know where Luke is--he was on a barge, where Connor was keeping him. The swine didn’t tell me that Maddison had signed a check. All he told me was that he jumped into the river and got away or was drowned--I don’t know which. That’s the truth. I knew nothing about it till Connor had found him. I swear to you this is the truth!”

“Where is Connor?” she asked.

“I don’t know. He was here this morning, and told me about Luke getting away. That is all the information I have. I didn’t believe him, and probably it’s a lie he told me.”

He saw she was undecided and eagerly sought to turn her from her intention. He had no doubt that she meant what she had said.

She did not know what to do.

“Could you find Haynes for me?”

“Find Haynes?” he almost shouted. “You don’t imagine I would communicate with that fellow, do you? He’s a dangerous man, Margaret----”

“Mrs. Maddison,” she said coldly.

“He’s dangerous--you oughtn’t to have any dealings with him.”

He did not attempt to deny the theft of the checks.

“You don’t know where Mr. Maddison is at all?”

He accepted the corrected relationship without demur.

“No, Mrs. Maddison, I’ve no idea. Connor’s been looking for him all night.”

When she returned home she found the Sparrow waiting for her on the doorstep. The sight of a large kitbag at his feet surprised her, and when he carried it into the house and into the little study on the ground floor, she was to have a shock. She did not recognize the crumpled clothes he took from the bag.

“These clothes were found in the possession of a river thief, who was trying to sell them this morning,” he said. “He didn’t know that your husband’s name was stitched in the inside pocket.”

“My husband’s name?” she gasped, turning pale. “Where did he get them?”

“That’s what I want to know. The yarn he tells is that last night he picked up a man who was wet through and who had come out of the river, and took him to a house. We’ve since verified that--though from the description I’ve had it couldn’t possibly be Mr. Maddison, who is still abroad, I presume?”

Was there a note of sarcasm in his voice? She thought she detected it, and very wisely did not answer.

“The man said the clothes were given to him, but that of course is the usual yarn. I have reason to believe that they were stolen while the owner was in bed. Can you throw any light upon them.”

She shook her head. It was a pitiable confession, but she knew she could not even recognize an old suit of clothes worn by her husband. It was the suit into which he had changed when he broke into his flat.

“What do you make of that, Mrs. Maddison?”

She shook her head helplessly.

“It couldn’t be a suit your husband gave away, because the date it was delivered is written on the tab, and it must have been new a month ago.”

He looked at her keenly.

“There’s a lot of mystery about this husband of yours, Mrs. Maddison, and I think you’re in some kind of trouble. I’d like to help you if I could.”

She was going to speak, but he held up his hand to stop her.

“Don’t tell me anything until I have told you just how much I know.” He ticked off the facts on the fingers of his hand. “I know your husband disappeared the day after your marriage. I know that there was a burglary at his flat, and that when the police arrived they recognized the man who had been concerned in a robbery that afternoon. I know that among the things stolen from his flat was a passport--I interviewed his servant subsequently, and he told me there was a passport in one of the drawers of the desk. Now, if there were any chance--and it seems one of those fantastic theories that writers make a lot of money from--that this man is Mr. Maddison, the best people to help him are the police. I know him well enough to be sure he wouldn’t hold up Taffanny’s. If it’s a question of impersonation--we can be more than useful. Won’t you tell me, Mrs. Maddison?”

She was silent. With a shake of his head the detective took his departure, carrying with him the suit of clothes and a very deep-seated conviction.

It was a curious coincidence that he should have brought those crumpled garments to the house when, neatly packed away in a new suitcase in her bedroom, was the change of garments she had arranged for Luke.

She was puzzled as to the arrangements she could make that would be most convenient. She decided ultimately upon leaving the suitcase at a railway cloakroom. The ticket could be sent to Luke as soon as he was discovered. She waited for the night to come to carry this plan into effect.

The night brought its problems for Danty Morell. That afternoon, after Margaret Maddison had left him, he made a discovery which turned him sick with apprehension. He had lost his hold on Margaret; at any moment she might go to the police, and just then he was most anxious not to renew acquaintance with Scotland Yard. Things had gone badly with him; he owed a very large sum of money which had to be paid in the City on the following day; and now, with the added possibility of police intervention, his position was perilous.

Danton Morell was in some ways a careful man. However extravagant he might be, he had reserved for himself a fat nest egg in cash which, in spite of all temptation, he had never touched. He had collected the money that day from two or three accounts which he ran in an assumed name. Nothing was needed now but to follow the line of retreat he had planned. There was a small aërodrome on the outskirts of London, from which exhibition flights were given. Danty had found it expedient to finance the small company which owned the airplanes, and by telephone he arranged his flight. This was facilitated by the fact that the company had recently acquired a big rebuilt monoplane which was capable of a long flight. Danty, who had decided upon Switzerland for his first hop, gave orders for the storage of petrol and necessities for the journey. He certainly did not anticipate taking a companion with him, but he was not the only panic-stricken man in London.

Danty made a very quick search for papers which, left behind, might have awkward consequences, and his first attention was directed to the little box in which he kept the most dangerous of his correspondence. He brought this into the dining room before he discovered that the lock had been forced. With an exclamation he threw up the lid, shook out the contents---- The one packet of letters that he had been mad to keep was gone! And the little telephone slip--that also had disappeared.

His hands were shaking so that he could hardly hold the papers he was examining. There was no need to speculate upon the identity of the man who had forced that box. The Gunner had been seen in the neighbourhood: Pi Coles had told him that, and it had been the Gunner who had made this search and found the documents. Danty Morell saw death grinning at him; hypnotized into sheer inaction. When there came a knock at the outer door, he leaped up from his chair, a shivering wreck of a man, not daring to open to the visitor.

He calmed himself sufficiently to go to the door and demand who was there, and when he heard Connor’s voice he could have cried aloud for joy.

“What’s the matter with you?” asked Connor, when they were back in the room.

“I’ve had a bit of a shock, and I’m not particularly well. You know they’re after those kites?”

Connor himself was not particularly happy-looking.

“I know. They’ve stopped a check I sent to the bank and half the busies in London are looking for him. They know who it is, too--that’s the worst of it. You’re in this, Danty.”

“We’re both in it, aren’t we?” snarled the other. “I’m getting out of London to-night.”

Connor laughed raucously.

“You’ve got a fine chance of getting out of London, unless you take a rattler.” And then, suddenly: “How are you going?”

It was on the tip of Danty’s tongue to invent a method of escape, but just now he needed the association of Connor. Connor was not above using a gun at a pinch, and, moreover, hated Gunner Haynes.

“I’m going by airplane from Elford,” he said. “We’ve got the Gunner to thank for this. He squealed.”

“He’s never stopped squealing,” said Connor without heat. “Where do you land in your flying machine?”

Danty told him his destination.

“That’ll do for me,” said Connor.

He looked at the papers on the table.

“Having a burn-up?” he asked pleasantly. And then: “How much stuff have you got?”

Here Danty lied. He could not tell the truth about money.

The conference was a brief one. They agreed to visit the aërodrome that evening and make final preparations for their journey. The journey through the suburbs into outer London was a silent one; now and again Danty lifted the flap at the back of the hired car in which they were travelling, and peered along the darkening road.

“What’s the matter with you?” growled Connor.

“There’s a car, a two-seater, following us.”

“Why shouldn’t it?” demanded the other sarcastically. “Do you want the road to yourself?”

A few minutes later, when Danty looked back, the little car had disappeared.

The preparations for the night’s journey were not easily made. The pilot had only just been communicated with. He was on a holiday in the Midlands.

“It’s a good job we came, or we might have been in Queer Street,” said Connor as they were driving back. “What time did you say you’d be here?”

“About midnight.”

“What are you looking for?” asked Connor ten minutes later. “The little car?”

He pushed his companion aside and peered.

“There’s a motor lorry: has that got anything on us?” he demanded.

Danty said nothing. No man could know the terror that was in his heart. Behind him stalked the grim shadow of vengeance, and every second he expected to see the hawklike face of the Gunner peering into his from the darkness.

Danty did not go near his flat. He telephoned to Pi Coles and they met in the park, Pi bringing with him an overcoat and wrap which were to be Danty’s sole luggage. His servitor he rewarded liberally. There was nothing to do now but to pass the few hours which intervened before he left England forever.

He telephoned to the hangar and learned to his satisfaction that the pilot had arrived. He would have liked to advance the hour of his departure, but he knew that for once he must keep faith--Connor was a dangerous man, and he had no desire to let two enemies grow in the place of one.

Once or twice, as he loafed about the less frequented streets of Pimlico, he had the impression that he was being shadowed; but when once he walked back in desperate boldness to interview the man who was following him, he found it was a perfectly inoffensive stranger to the neighbourhood who was trying to find a street and a number.

He had work to do--vengeful work--and he completed this in a teashop near Vauxhall Bridge. Making a wide detour, he reached the central post office and handed in the telegram addressed to Inspector Bird. It ran:

The man who was concerned in the Taffanny robbery was Luke Maddison. He is attempting to leave London to-night. His wife and Gunner Haynes are aware of the double life he has been living.

He signed it with his own name.

Late as was the hour, he knew that the telegram would be delivered. He went back to meet his companion in misfortune, feeling more cheerful than he had felt all day.