Chapter II: 'vive Le Sport'

Detective-Inspector Strickland was a busy man. On the evening of the day after the affair of Spike Moseley he did not get back to his flat in Buckingham Gate until after ten. As he struggled out of his dripping overcoat, his twin sister appeared at the door of the sitting-room and surveyed him gravely.

'Hallo, Jill. Filthy weather. I'm drowned.'

'Better change,' advised Jill.

'I hope there's a decent fire,' pursued Jack Strickland, ignoring the advice.

Jill smiled, a swift, flickering smile that lit up her small, delicate features.

'Fed?' she inquired.

'Mentally or physically?'

'Physically. The other thing's fairly obvious.'

Jack grinned.

'As a matter of fact, I could do with some food; but Kate's gone to bed, hasn't she? I saw a light in her window.'

'Trained observer,' said Jill, in a soft, abstracted voice. 'Nothing escapes the eye of the great detective. I can cook, though. What will you have?'

'Angel! Eggs, very much in the plural, and gallons of hot coffee, and possibly bread and cheese. Can do?'

'Can do,' said Jill with a nod, and without more words went off to the kitchen.

Jack, shivering, made for the sitting-room and pulled up a chair to the fire with a sigh of relief. For a minute or two he sat in drowsy contemplation of the blazing coals, and then he reached up to the mantelpiece for his evening's mail. There were three letters there, all with typewritten addresses. Two of them had halfpenny stamps, and these he threw unopened into the waste-paper basket with an accuracy suggestive of long practice. The third he opened without much interest, and then sat up with a jerk. It contained only a visiting-card; a small piece of pasteboard on which were printed the words: 'Vive le Sport.' Jack turned it over, and on the back was written, in a small, neat hand:

I propose to call upon you between eleven and twelve to-night, and
hope to find you enjoying an hour's holiday. In other words (one
can't make oneself too clear on this point), I am relying on you
not to arrest me.

NICK

Strickland grinned. 'Thoroughly characteristic!' he murmured. Then his eyes shifted from the card in his hand to the fire, and the smile faded. When his sister entered the room some minutes later, she noticed his worried frown, but refrained from comment. Instead, she laid a place at the table and set down a large dish of eggs and bacon.

'Supper's ready,' she mentioned.

Jack rose slowly to his feet.

'I'm expecting an old friend to turn up to-night, Jill,' he said.

His sister stared at him with wide grey eyes.

'Not--not Nick?' she said.

'Guessed it in one,' said Jack, with the sudden surprise that her intuitions always awoke in him, even though he almost expected them.

'But, Jack, how splendid! Aren't you longing to see him again?'

'Of course I am. But I wish to goodness I were a bank clerk or a bus-driver, or anything but a blinking cop. Here's the best friend I've got in the world, and he must needs turn burglar. It's so damned difficult.'

The exasperated twinkle in his eyes woke a response in Jill's.

'You're off duty now,' she suggested.

'Woman, you have no more conscience than--than Nick himself! Here's his communication.' He held out the card to her.

'Oh, that's all right,' said Jill when she had read it. 'I believe he's going to reform or something.'

'Something, perhaps,' conceded Jack, hungrily attacking his eggs and bacon.

'Don't you believe he'll ever give up his burgling?'

'My dear, the man took up crime because he found life so dull after he came out of the Army. He wanted excitement, and, by Jove, he got it! He's had eleven narrow escapes from being quodded to my certain knowledge.'

'He'll get tired of excitement soon,' said Jill.

'Didn't look like it last time I saw him,' said Jack, with his mouth full.

'When was that?'

'Two years ago. Over that Fairleigh case. I begged him then to chuck it, and he only laughed and said he was enjoying life enormously. Since then he's pulled off two really big hauls, and got away by the skin of his teeth the last time. That was about a year ago.'

'He'll give it up when he falls in love,' said Jill gravely.

Jack chuckled profanely.

'That gives him plenty of time,' he observed. 'Nick's a jolly sight too popular with women to apply his mind seriously to any one of them.'

'When he marries----' began Jill, unruffled.

'For Heaven's sake!' protested Jack. 'Give the man a chance, old lady. We don't know what his trouble _is_ yet, but there's no need to assume it's impending matrimony.'

Jill smiled tolerantly, and held her peace until her brother had finished his meal and settled himself once more by the fire. Then she looked up from her knitting to ask:

'Have you any idea at all why he wants to see you?'

'Nick? Not the slightest. I hope it's just a friendly call.'

'_That's_ not likely,' said Jill, with serious decision.

'Aren't you a little unflattering?'

Jill blinked, and then smiled.

'Owl! You know what I mean. Jack, you've often talked about Nick, but you've never told me very much about him. Why did he start burgling?'

'Sheer desire for excitement. Nick's half Irish, you know; and I believe it's that strain that gives him his light-hearted love of danger. I first met him in France, at the beginning of the war. He was the best subaltern I ever had. An absolutely first-rate man.'

'I should have thought he lacked discipline,' said Jill, who knew how to get information out of her brother.

'So he did, but it didn't matter. Nick was always sneaking off by himself to explore, but no one seemed to realise he'd gone until he returned; and not then, unless he brought something with him--a wounded man, or a prisoner, or some valuable information. I've never met anyone who took so many risks, and yet, unlike most of these reckless devils, he never ran his men into unnecessary danger. They adored him, and would have followed him to blazes if he'd asked them to. I tell you, the man was wasted in the Line; he ought to have been in the Secret Service, but the powers that be had a positive genius for using razors to cut grindstones. I tried to get him shifted when they transferred me to the Intelligence, but it was no use. Nick would have been far better at the game than I.'

'And then?' asked Jill.

'Oh, I lost sight of him after that, and didn't see or hear from him again until 1919, when he turned up at the Yard and we had lunch together. I told you about that, and how he said he was going to be a burglar because everything else was so tame in comparison to the war. I laughed at him. Never dreamt he meant it. He went off saying: "Henceforth we meet as foes, worthy, I hope, of each other's steel. Vive le Sport!" It wasn't till we found his card in the safe, over that jewel robbery, that I believed it.'

'Did he laugh too?'

'Yes, like anything. But Nick always seems amused, whether he's serious or not. Oh, confound the man! I wish he'd chuck it. And yet ... his motive for burgling does call for one's sympathy.'

'I know he always robs profiteers,' said Jill.

'Yes; and practically all the money he gets goes into anti-Bolshevik propaganda. He's jolly well-off, you know; he doesn't have to earn his living, either honestly or dishonestly, now; but the curse of it is that I am paid to catch him, and every failure I make is a smack in the eye to my reputation, even if it's a relief to me personally.'

Jill shook her head.

'It's stupid to try to catch him,' she said. 'He's like a rook; he does more good than harm.'

Jack laughed outright.

'What a gloriously unflattering simile!'

'Nick wouldn't mind,' said Jill.

Jack looked at her. 'How do you know? You've never met him.'

''Deed I have. You brought him here once when you were both on leave. He stayed for three days.'

'By Jove, I'd clean forgotten! So he did. That was twelve years ago. And you remember him?'

'Rather!'

A shade of anxiety crossed Jack Strickland's face. He glanced at his sister, and then quickly transferred his gaze to the fire. Jill watched him with quiet amusement.

'Don't worry, old man,' she said soothingly.

'What d'you mean?'

'I mean'--she spoke slowly, with soft deliberation--'that although I am very fond of him, I'm not the woman Nick's going to marry; nor do I want to be.'

Jack grinned rather sheepishly.

'You're a dashed sight too quick,' he said. 'It's positively indecent. Anyway, I shouldn't mind if you were. Nick's the best----'

He was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell and leapt to his feet. Jill rose, and shifted the débris of his supper to the side-table. As she removed the last crumbs, Jack returned, ushering in a tall man, whose steady eyes and friendly smile seemed as familiar to her as if she had seen them only yesterday.

'You remember my sister?' said Jack.

'Of course I do! How are you, Jill? It's a long time since we met, but you don't look a day older.'

Jill put her hand in his, and studied his face with her odd, searching regard.

Nick smiled down at her. 'Well, what's happened to me?' he asked.

Jill twinkled. 'I believe you've grown bigger,' she said.

'Heaven forbid! It's an awful curse being such a size. Apart from the expense of clothing oneself, it makes one so conspicuous, which is a terrific drawback in my profession. I wish I were a little chap like Jack. For instance, I have to escape him in the guise of a Robert or a coal-heaver; but he can pursue me as anything, from a Chinaman to a smart young lady. It's much easier for him.'

'Less of that,' advised Jack, grinning. 'Will you have a drink?'

'An admirable suggestion. Thanks awfully. Jill, I look towards you.'

Jill smiled her thanks and gathering up her knitting, made her way to the door.

'Don't go,' protested Nick.

'Don't you want to talk to Jack?'

'Yes, but it isn't private to you. Come back.'

With a flush of pleasure Jill returned, and curled herself up in a chair by the fire. Nick, sitting on the wide club fender, smiled at her. Jack came to anchor on the other side of the fire and pulled at his pipe contentedly, watching Nick's face. The man looked older, he thought. There was something behind those eyes that was new.

'How's life, Nick?' he asked.

'Getting more interesting every day,' said Nick, striking a match for Jill's cigarette.

'I'm afraid I was hoping that you'd had enough excitement.'

'It's not exactly that,' said Nick slowly, 'but, as a matter of fact, I rather want to return from South America, where I have been since the war, and I thought I'd better hear what you've got to say about it.'

Jack grinned.

'Let's be a little more explicit,' he suggested. 'Are you proposing to come back as a dual personality, so to speak: burglar by night, and man-about-town by day? Or do you mean Vive le Sport to die, while you rise, phœnix-like, from the ashes?'

'Again, not exactly. Vive le Sport, the burglar, has been dead for more than a year. Hadn't you realised that?'

'I realised his inactivity, and was devoutly thankful for it, but I hadn't been optimistic enough to assume him dead.'

Nick chuckled.

'We mustn't be ungrateful. He has provided you with a great deal of beneficial exercise, both mental and physical, and has bequeathed me a very nice income. I owe the burglar a great deal, for besides that, he's shown me a game really worth playing. The only difficulty is that it definitely requires the coöperation of a man-about-town, as you put it.'

'What is this game?'

'I'll tell you in a minute. Am I right in thinking that you've been investigating a case on your own lately?'

Jack Strickland stared.

'You are,' he said at last. 'Do you know anything about it?'

'A little. I've been interested in that crowd for the last year. Do your superiors take it seriously?'

'No. I wish to God they did. I know there'll be big trouble sooner or later.'

'I think you're right, but it's a queer business. What have you made of it?'

'Enough to give one to think. It's a revolutionary movement that has got a firm foothold in every industrial centre in the country, and it's more confident and yet restrained than anything I've so far come up against. I know these secret societies come and go, but there's one point about this show that's new. As far as I can discover no foreigner is on their list of supporters.'

Nick nodded slowly.

'That's what makes me think, too,' he said. 'It's quite true. We don't like aliens, as a nation, you know, but a revolutionary movement that is exclusively British is a little unusual. Jack, do you know who's at the head of the show?'

'If I did, I could get something done, perhaps. Do you?'

'No. I've been trying to find out for months, and I've now come to the conclusion that I'm looking for him in the wrong place. Jack, the man's a genius. He's organising this show with cold brains, not fanaticism, and his methods compel one's respect, if not one's admiration. He isn't collecting fanatics to fight for him; he's getting sober, hard-headed business men, and winning them over by sheer brain and personality. The queer thing is that though they are unanimous in their admiration, no two men describe the fellow alike. I've had some startlingly varied descriptions of him, and the only conclusion is that he's of every class and every temperament. To one man he's a "real gent;" to the next he's "a son of the People." He's a passionate crusader, calling in words of fire for adherents to a sacred cause. He's a thundering good fellow, ready to share a pint of beer and a joke. He's going to alter the world; he isn't going to do much more than break up a Trust or two. I tell you, it's bewildering, and there's only one explanation. He's genuinely all things to all men. He has the power to make each individual man feel that he's his blood-brother--and a better man.'

'Hypnotism?'

'Perhaps. What's in a word? Anyway, that power he must have, and surely it's inevitable that he should want to use it. Only a saint could refrain from action under those circumstances. He must see himself as all-powerful--as Dictator--knowing what he can do. I tell you, Jack, the hold he's got over his men is amazing. As far as I can discover, none of them knows who he is in private life. They call him the Chief, and speak of him with a reverence that is most impressive. They don't even want to know who he is. They say we've had enough of Party Government. What we want is One Good Man at the Top--all in capital letters--and they add with absolute certainty, "and we've got him."'

'But they don't know who he is?'

'No. And they don't care. Now, I'm absolutely convinced that if I'm going to find him at all I've got to look for him in the top drawer, as it were, and that's why I want to return in glory from South America. Vive le Sport can still keep an eye on the rank and file. I don't mind telling you that he is looked upon as a very promising disciple to the Cause. Do you follow me?'

'Perfectly. It seems an admirable idea.'

'Good! Now, before I take the plunge, tell me this: just where do I stand with that great institution, the Police Force? This man we're up against is as clever as blazes, and I shall have my work cut out to swindle him, without having to keep one eye on Scotland Yard.'

'My dear Nick, if you run up against the law I'm helpless, of course, but as a man-about-town you're as safe as be-damned. To my knowledge, only Jill and I know your real name, and I see no reason why we shouldn't remain in proud possession of that secret.'

'Splendid! To tell you the truth, I've been wanting to come to life for some time, but it seemed a dirty trick, to put you two into a position like this. But when I realised that you were going away....'

Jack Strickland sat up abruptly.

'Would you be so good as to tell me how you came by that information?' he asked.

Nick blinked, with an air of startled surprise, but Jill saw the twinkle in his eye.

'I ask,' went on Jack, 'because the matter was only arranged last night and is generally supposed to be a secret.'

'It's true, then?'

'Yes, worse luck! I sail for Russia next week, on a job which my respected Chief thinks more urgent than this one.'

'Russia?' Nick looked grave. 'How long do you expect to be away?'

'About six months.'

'H'm. I don't like it. If things come to a head sooner than I expect I shall want you badly, and if Scotland Yard takes that sort of view we shan't get much help there. I tell you, Jack, when it comes to a kill we shall have to act damned quickly. If your colleagues stop to argue, the Chief will have done his stuff, and in all probability we shall be sitting on a damp cloud and singing hymns. I'm putting it as optimistically as possible.'

'I believe you, but what can I do? The thing's fixed up now. You must let me know if you want me. Jill stays here and can tell you where I'm to be found.'

'Well, we must hope for the best,' said Nick, rising to his feet. 'And now I must go home to bed. Good-night, Jill; it's been very nice to see you again.'

Jack Strickland heaved himself out of his chair, and followed his guest into the hall.

'Pretty sickening for you, being sent to Russia just now,' said Nick.

'Damnable, but I feel better now I know you're on the job. I couldn't pick a better man for it.'

Nick nodded his thanks, a friendly smile in his eyes.

'I'll do my best,' he said, 'but if you _can_ get back any sooner, I shall be glad.'

'I shall try. Keep your eyes skinned, old chap.'

'Trust me,' said Nick cheerfully. 'Where's my hat?'

'That's all very well, but these people have a summary method of dealing with suspects.'

'I know,' said Nick, and for a moment he, too, looked grave. 'Poor little Moseley.'

Jack Strickland leant back against the wall and stared at his guest with an expression of mingled exasperation and amazement.

'I have heard about it,' explained Nick. 'He was doped, wasn't he?'

'He was,' said Jack, with restraint.

'Any trace of the doper?'

'None. He got it in his drink at a pub. There were a great number of men there, most of them unknown to the bar-tender. Did you know that Moseley came to see me?'

'As a matter of fact, I did,' said Nick confidentially. 'I wanted to know the Chief's name, too, you see, so I thought that he might as well tell both of us at the same time. Save trouble, you know. It was rather agonising, wasn't it? The way he tried to get the word out and couldn't.'

'For the love of Mike----' began Jack.

'Do you mean to say you never guessed? Not even when I whistled? I thought you'd see the point of that. I wanted you to know that I'd given up my profession. Not even when I told you I was out of work?'

There was a silence. Jack stared at Nick, who shuffled his feet with a guilty air and tried to suppress a grin.

'Blast you, you owe me half a crown,' said Jack at last.

Nick laughed outright.

'Got it!' he said. 'Good-bye, old chap.'

The door shut behind him, and Jack heard him whistle soft and clear, as he ran down the stairs, 'When the enterprising burglar's not a-burgling....'