CHAPTER XXIV
"I'm bothered if I know," returned Narkom helplessly. "Gad! I'mat my wits' end. We seem to be as far as ever from any clue tothat devilish pair and unless you can suggest something----" Hefinished the sentence by taking off his hat, and looking up at Cleekhopefully, and patting his bald spot with a handkerchief whichdiffused a more or less agreeable odour of the latest Parisianperfume.
"H'm!" said Cleek, reflectively. "We might cross the Heath and havea look round Gospel Oak, if you like. It's a goodish bit of a walkand I've no idea that it will result in anything, I frankly admit,but it is one of the few places we have _not_ tried, so we mighthave a go at that if you approve."
"By James! yes. The very thing. There's always a chance, you know, solong as it's a district we've never done. Gospel Oak it is, then.And look here--I'll tell you what. You just stop here a bit andwait for me, old chap, while I nip back to the house and ask SirMawson's permission to use his telephone--to ring up the Yard asusual, you know, and tell them in what quarter we're operating, incase there should be reason to send anybody out to find me in ahurry. Back with you in no time and then we'll be off to Gospel Oaklike a shot."
"Right you are. I'll stop here under the trees and indulge in a fewcomforting whiffs while you are about it. Get along!"
Narkom paused a moment to grip his cuff between finger tips and palm,and run his coat sleeve round the shiny surface of his "topper,"then shook out his handkerchief and returned it to his pocket,jerked down his waistcoat and gave it one or two sharp flicks withthe backs of his nails, and before a second diffusion of scent hadevaporated, or the whimsical twist it called to Cleek's lips hadentirely vanished, the scene presented nothing more striking than anordinary man leaning back against a tree and engaged in scratchinga match on the side of an ordinary wooden matchbox. The Yard'sGentleman had gone.
It was full ten minutes later when he lurched into view again, comingdown the garden path at top speed, with one hand on his hat's crownand the other holding the flapping skirts of his frock coat together,and Cleek could tell from the expression of his round, pink facethat something of importance had occurred.
It had--and he blurted it out in an outburst of joyous excitementthe moment they again stood together. The search for Dutch Ellaand Diamond Nick was at an end. The police of Paris had cablednews of their location and arrest that very morning in theFrench capital, and would hold them under lock and key until thenecessary preliminaries were over, relative to their deportation asundesirables, and their return to Canada.
"The news arrived less than an hour ago," he finished, "and thatwideawake young beggar, Lennard, thought it was so important thatI ought to know it as soon as possible, so he hopped on to thelimousine and put off as fast as he could streak it. He's up here inthis district now--this minute--hunting for us. Come on! let's goand find him. By James! it's a ripping end to the business--what?"
"That depends," replied Cleek without much enthusiasm. "Whichlimousine is Lennard using to-day? The new blue one?"
"Cinnamon, no! That won't be delivered until the day after to-morrow.So it will be the good old red one, of course. Will it matter?"
"Come and see!" said Cleek, swinging out of the grounds into thepublic highway again, and walking fast. "At all events, an ounceof certainty is worth a pound of suspicion, and this little _fauxpas_ will decide the question. They are no fools, those Apaches;and Waldemar knows how to wait patiently for what he wants."
"Waldemar? The Apaches? Good lud, man, what are you talking about?You are not worrying over that business again, I hope. Haven't Itold you over and over again that we couldn't find one trace of themanywhere in London--that they cleared out bag and baggage after thatfruitless trip to Yorkshire? The whole truth of the matter, to myway of thinking, is that they awoke then to the fact that you had'dropped' to their being after you, and knowing you weren't to becaught napping, gave it up as a bad job."
"Or altered their tactics and set out to follow some one else."
"Some one else? Good lud, don't talk rubbish. What good wouldfollowing some one else do if they were after you?"
"Come and see," said Cleek again, and would say no more, butmerely walked on faster than ever--up one thoroughfare and downanother--flicking eager glances to right and to left in search ofthe red limousine.
In the thick of the High Street they caught sight of it at last,tooling about aimlessly, while Lennard kept constant watch on thecrowd of shoppers that moved up and down the pavement.
"Cut ahead and stop it and we shall see what we _shall_ see, Mr.Narkom. I'll join you presently," said Cleek, and he stood watchingwhile the superintendent forged ahead in the direction of thelimousine; and continued watching even after he saw him reach it andbring it to a halt, and stand at the kerb talking earnestly withLennard.
But of a sudden the old crooked smile looped up the corner of hismouth; he stood at attention for a moment or two, breathing hardthrough his nostrils, and moving not at all until, abruptly startinginto activity, he walked rapidly down the pavement and joined Narkom.
"Well?" queried the superintendent, looking up at him quizzically."Come to any decision, old chap?"
"Yes--and so will you in a second. Don't turn--don't do anythinghastily. Just look across the street, at the jeweller's window,opposite, and tell me what you think of it."
Narkom's swift, sidelong glance travelled over the distance like agunshot, arrowed through the small collection of persons gatheredabout the shop window inspecting the display of trinkets, and everynerve in his body jumped.
"Good God! Waldemar!" he said, under his breath.
"Exactly. I told you he knew how to wait. Now look farther along thekerb on this side. The closed carriage waiting there. It was dawdlingalong and keeping pace with him when I saw it first. The man on thebox is a fellow named Serpice--an Apache. _Chut!_ Be still, willyou?--and look the other way. They will do me no harm--_here_. Itisn't their game, and, besides, they daren't. It is too public,too dangerous. It will be done, when it is done, in the dark--whenI'm alone, and none can see. And Waldemar will not be there. He willdirect, but not participate. But it won't be to-day nor yet to-night,I promise you. I shall slip them this time if never again."
The superintendent spoke, but the hard hammering of his heart madehis voice scarcely audible.
"How?" he asked. "How?"
"Come and see!" said Cleek for yet a third time. Then with anabruptness and a swiftness that carried everything before it, hecaught Narkom by the arm, swept him across the street, and withouthint or warning tapped Waldemar upon the shoulder.
"Ah, bon jour, Monsieur le Comte," he said airily, as the Mauravanianswung round and looked at him, blanching a trifle in spite ofhimself. "So you are back in England, it seems? Ah, well, we likeyou so much--tell his Majesty when next you report--that this time weshall try to keep you here."
Taken thus by assault, the man had no words in which to answer,but merely wormed his way out of the gathering about him and, panicstricken, obliterated himself in the crowd of pedestrians teemingup and down the street.
"You reckless devil!" wheezed Narkom as he was swept back to thelimousine in the same cyclonic manner he had been swept away from it."You might have made the man savage enough to do something to you,even in spite of the publicity, by such a proceeding as that."
"That is precisely what I had hoped to do, my friend, but youperceive he is no fool to be trapped into that. We should have hadsome excuse for arresting him if he had done a thing of that sort,some charge to prefer against him, whereas, as matters stand,there's not one we can bring forward that holds good in law orthat we could _prove_ if our lives depended upon it. You see now,I hope, Mr. Narkom, why you have seen nothing of him lately?"
"No--why?"
"You have not used the red limousine, and he has been lying low readyto follow that, just as I suspected he would. If he couldn't tracewhere Cleek goes to meet the red limousine, clearly then the planto be adopted must be to follow the red limousine and se
e where itgoes to meet Cleek, and then to follow that much-wanted individualwhen he parts from you and makes his way home. That is the thing thefellow is after. To find out where I live and to 'get' me somenight out there. But, my friend, 'turn about is fair play' the worldover, and having had his inning at hunting me, I'm going in for mineat hunting him. I'll get him; I'll trap him into something for whichhe can be turned over to the law--make no mistake about that."
"My hat! What do you mean to do?"
"First and foremost, make my getaway out of the present littlecorner," he replied, "and then rely upon your assistance in findingout where the beggar is located. We're not done with him even forto-day. He will follow--either he or Serpice: perhaps both--theinstant Lennard starts off with us."
"You are going back with us in the limousine, then?"
"Yes--part of the way. Drive on, Lennard, until you can spot aplain-clothes man, then give him the signal to follow us. At thefirst station on the Tube or the Underground, pull up sharp and letme out. You, Mr. Narkom, alight with me and stand guard at thestation entrance while I go down to the train. If either Waldemaror an Apache makes an attempt to follow, arrest him on the spot,on any charge you care to trump up--it doesn't matter so that itholds him until my train goes--and as soon as it has gone, call upyour plain-clothes man, point out Serpice to him, and tell him tofollow and to stick to the fellow until he meets Waldemar, if ittakes a week to accomplish it, and then to shadow his preciouscountship and find out where he lives. Tell him for me that there's aten-pound note in it for him the moment he can tell me where Waldemaris located; and to stick to his man until he runs him down. Now,then, hop in, Mr. Narkom, and let's be off. The other chap willfollow, be assured. All right, Lennard. Let her go!"
Lennard 'let her go' forthwith, and a quarter of an hour later sawthe programme carried out in every particular, only that it was notWaldemar who made an attempt to follow when the limousine haltedat the Tube station and Cleek jumped out and ran in (the count wasfar too shrewd for that); it was a rough-looking Frenchman who hadjust previously hopped out of a closed carriage driven by a fellowcountryman, only to be nabbed at the station doorway by Narkom, andturned over to the nearest constable on the charge of pocket picking.
The charge, however, was so manifestly groundless that half a dozenpersons stepped forward and entered protest; but the superintendentwas so pig-headed that by the time he could be brought to reason,and the man was again at liberty to take his ticket and go down inthe lift to the train, the platform was empty, the train gone, andCleek already on his way.
A swift, short flight under the earth's surface carried him toanother station in quite another part of London; a swift, shortwalk thence landed him at his temporary lodgings in town, and fouro'clock found him exchanging his workaday clothes for the regulationcreased trousers and creaseless coat of masculine calling costume,and getting ready to spend the rest of the day with _her_.