Chapter VII

The Duke looked at the workman tinkering awkwardly with a pendant. The "workman" in his inmost soul was fervently praying that this would be the last job. For an hour and a half he had sweated and toiled. The Duke had received him on his arrival, figuratively speaking, with open arms.

"You are just the man we want," he said enthusiastically, and had put him through a short catechism. Did he know anything about plumbing? Yes, said the workman doubtfully; and glazing and fixing water pipes, and gardening? added Hank.

The workman who was not quite sure whether all these accomplishments were comprehended in the profession of gas-fitter, thought however that it would be wisest to be on the safe side, and had answered "Yes."

So the Duke had led him to the little cellar, where he laboured hotly at a refractory electric battery, and Hank had pushed him up through a trap door out of the roof, where he, trembling, fixed a misplaced slate, and the Duke had insisted upon the ground being opened in the garden so that a defective drain-pipe might be repaired. After digging industriously, if unskilfully, for half an hour, it was discovered that the drain-pipe was in another part of the garden altogether.

Then he was taken into the common-room to fix the gas. Between the fear that his excessive exertions and their attendant perspiration, would melt the wax that affixed his noble moustache and the desire for information, Mr. Nape was more than ordinarily embarrassed. For there is little one may learn in a four-foot excavation, and the news whispered abroad on suburban housetops is scarcely worth remembering. Therefore he welcomed the adjournment to the common-room. Whilst he tinkered, the men talked, and at their first words Roderick pricked up his ears.

"Duke," said Hank, "I want to ask you something."

"Wait till the man is out of the room," said the Duke warningly.

Hank shrugged his broad shoulders.

"He's too interested in his work," he said, "and besides----"

He shrugged again.

"Well, what is it you want?"

"Isn't it time," asked Hank with sinister emphasis, "that you and I shared out the swag?"

The Duke rose and agitatedly paced up and down.

"Let us go into the next room," he said.

The front drawing-room, from the back was divided by a pair of light folding doors. Mr. Nape descended from the chair, and crept noiselessly towards the partition.

"Duke," said Hank's voice, "or 'Jim Duke,' to give you your right name----"

"Hush," said the Duke's voice appealingly.

"Jim Duke," continued the other callously, "as you are known in Pentonville and Sing Sing, it's time for a share out."

"How much do you want," sullenly.

"I don't know," said Hank's voice, "it ought to be considerable. There's the Countess of B----'s diamond necklace, the Princess of Saxony's tiara, and the proceeds of the Hoxton Bank robbery."

Mr. Nape could scarcely contain himself.

He heard the Duke's footfall as he strode up and down the room, then he heard him speak,

"I will give you twenty thousand pounds," he said shortly.

Mr. Nape heard a sharp laugh.

"Twenty thousand! why I'll get that for turning King's evidence--about the Lylham Hall affair!"

There was a pause.

"If I killed him, you were an accessory," said the Duke.

"I helped to bury him, if that's what you mean," said Hank coolly, "and that was against my wishes; you will remember that I suggested that he should be chucked into the river."

"True," said the Duke moodily, "it has always been my cursed failing, this burying business--you forget I was intended for the Church."

"You didn't bury the Earl," said Hank significantly, and they both laughed boisterously.

As for Mr. Nape, his blood froze and his teeth started chattering.

He was left in doubt as to the dreadful end of the unfortunate nobleman, for the Duke changed the subject.

"Look here, Hank, will you be content if I hand over the necklace, and the tiara, and a cheque for L5,000?"

"A crossed cheque?" asked the cautious Hank.

"A crossed cheque," said the Duke firmly, "on the London and South Western Bank."

There was another pause whilst Hank considered the proposition.

"Yes," he agreed, "on condition you give me a paper exonerating me from any knowledge of the scuttling of the _Prideaux Castle_."

"Oh, that," said the Duke carelessly, "that was a private matter entirely between the captain and myself, and I shall be very pleased to give you the paper."

"Very good," said Hank's voice, "when that paper is in my possession duly signed and witnessed and stamped at Somerset House, the partnership is dissolved."

Mr. Nape, almost fainting in his excitement, had time to get back to his chair, when the two men returned.

The Duke glanced at the pendant.

"Finished?" he asked politely.

"Yes, sir," muttered Mr. Nape unsteadily.

"Well, I don't think there is anything else we want done--do we?"

Hank shook his head.

Mr. Nape stole a glance at him and saw the gloomy frown. "It was the face" (I quote Mr. Nape's secret diary) "of a man haunted with the memory of his black past."

With great solemnity the Duke tipped the workman half a crown and led him to the door. When he returned he found Hank doubled up on the divan.

"Ill?" he asked anxiously, "poisoned, by any chance?"

But Hank continued to laugh till he subsided into helpless chuckles.

Curiously enough the Duke, whose sense of humour was of the keenest, did not share in his friend's amusement. He smiled once or twice as he paced the room. Then--

"Hank," he said seriously, "do you think young Sherlock Raffles came here entirely out of curiosity?"

"Sure," said the exhausted Hank.

The Duke shook his head doubtingly.

"There's some little game on that I do not quite fathom. Do you know that the concert has been postponed?"

"No."

"Well, it has--and who do you think is responsible? Sir Harry Tanneur."

Hank jerked his head inquiringly in the direction of 66.

"Yes," said the Duke seriously, "for some unaccountable reason he has prevailed upon the vicar to change the date. I've just had a note from the vicar to tell me this. Tanneur is paying all the expenses incidental to the change, the printing and the advertisements, and that is not like Sir Harry, from what I know of him."

"To-day is Tuesday," meditated, Hank, "and to-morrow is Wednesday."

"You're a devil of a chap for finding things out," said the Duke with amused irritation. "You'd put Jacko out of business in a week."

In their less serious moments, the tenants of 64 invariably referred to Roderick as "Jacko Napes."

"I can see no connexion between Jacko and the concert," said Hank, "can you?"

The Duke shook his head.

"It is an instinct," he said seriously, "a premonition of some sort of danger--the sort of thing that turns you creepy just before cattle stampede."

"Run away and play," said the unimaginative Hank, "go into the garden and lasso worms--you're losing your nerve."

The Duke stood undecided.

"I want something and yet I don't know exactly what I want. I need a moral tonic."

"You'll find the step ladder in the greenhouse," suggested Hank.