Mr. Fare was not, apparently, anxious to commit himself. “I’ll tell you in the strictest confidence,” he said. “We believe, and have good cause to believe, that he has a hop joint which is frequented by wealthy people. Did you read last week about the man, John Bidworth, who shot a nursemaid in Kensington Gardens and then shot himself?”
Manfred nodded.
“He was quite a well-connected person, wasn’t he?” he asked.
“He was very well connected,” replied Fare emphatically. “So well connected that we did not want to bring his people into the case at all. He died the next day in hospital and the surgeons tell us that he was undoubtedly under the influence of some Indian drug and that in his few moments of consciousness he as much as told the surgeon in charge of the case that he had been on a jag the night before and had finished up in what he called an opium house, and remembered nothing further till he woke up in the hospital. He died without knowing that he had committed this atrocious crime. There is no doubt that under the maddening influence of the drug he shot the first person he saw.”
“Was it Mr. Ballam’s opium house?” asked Gonsalez, interested.
The curtain rose at that moment and conversation went on in a whisper.
“We don’t know—in his delirium he mentioned Ballam’s name. We have tried our best to find out. He has been watched. Places at which he has stayed any length of time have been visited, but we have found nothing to incriminate him.”
Leon Gonsalez had a favourite hour and a favourite meal at which he was at his brightest. That hour was at nine o’clock in the morning and the meal was breakfast. He put down his paper the next morning and asked:
“What is crime?”
“Professor,” said Manfred solemnly, “I will tell you. It is the departure from the set rules which govern human society.”
“You are conventional,” said Gonsalez. “My dear George, you are always conventional at nine o’clock in the morning! Now, had I asked you at midnight you would have told me that it is any act which wilfully offends and discomforts your neighbour. If I desired to give it a narrow and what they call in this country a legal interpretation I would add, ‘contrary to the law.’ There must be ten thousand crimes committed for every one detected. People associated crime only with those offences which are committed by a certain type of illiterate or semi-illiterate lunatic or half-lunatic, glibly dubbed a ‘criminal.’ Now, here is a villainous crime, a monumental crime. He is a man who is destroying the souls of youth and breaking hearts ruthlessly! Here is one who is dragging down men and women from the upward road and debasing them in their own eyes, slaying ambition and all beauty of soul and mind in order that he should live in a certain comfort, wearing a clean dress shirt every evening of his life and drinking expensive and unnecessary wines with his expensive and indigestible dinner.”
“Where is this man?” asked Manfred.
“He lives at 993 Jermyn Street, in fact he is a neighbour,” said Leon.
“You’re speaking of Mr. Ballam?”
“I’m speaking of Mr. Ballam,” said Gonsalez gravely. “Tonight I am going to be a foreign artist with large rolls of money in my pockets and an irresistible desire to be amused. I do not doubt that sooner or later Mr. Ballam and I will gravitate together. Do I look like a detective, George?” he asked abruptly.
“You look more like a successful pianist,” said George and Gonsalez sniffed.
“You can even be offensive at nine o’clock in the morning,” he said.
There are two risks which criminals face (with due respect to the opinions of Leon Gonsalez, this word criminal is employed by the narrator) in the pursuit of easy wealth. There is the risk of detection and punishment which applies to the big as well as to the little delinquent. There is the risk of losing large sums of money invested for the purpose of securing even larger sums. The criminal who puts money in his business runs the least risk of detection. That is why only the poor and foolish come stumbling up the stairs which lead to the dock at the Old Bailey, and that is why the big men, who would be indignant at the very suggestion that they were in the category of lawbreakers, seldom or never make their little bow to the Judge.
Mr. Gregory Ballam stood for and represented certain moneyed interests which had purchased at auction three houses in Montague Street, Portland Place. They were three houses which occupied an island site. The first of these was let out in offices, the ground floor being occupied by a lawyer, the first floor by a wine and spirit merchant, the second being a very plain suite, dedicated to the business hours of Mr. Gregory Ballam. This gentleman also rented the cellar, which by the aid of lime-wash and distemper had been converted into, if not a pleasant, at any rate a neat and cleanly storage place. Through this cellar you could reach (amongst other places) a brand-new garage, which had been built for one of Mr. Ballam’s partners, but in which Mr. Ballam was not interested at all.
None but the workmen who had been employed in renovation knew that it was possible also to walk from one house to the other, either through the door in the cellar which had existed when the houses were purchased, or through a new door in Mr. Ballam’s office.
The third house, that at the end of the island site, was occupied by the International Artists’ Club, and the police had never followed Mr. Ballam there because Mr. Ballam had never gone there, at least not by the front door. The Artists’ Club had a “rest room” and there were times when Mr. Ballam had appeared, as if by magic, in that room, had met a select little party and conducted
