“They are cheques,” interrupted Birn, “and a cheque is a cheque whether it’s for a gambling debt or a sack of potatoes.”
“Is that the law?” asked Leon, “and if it is, will you write me a letter to that effect, in which case you will be paid.”
“Certainly I will,” said Mr. Birn. “If that’s all you want, I’ll write it now.”
“Proceed,” said Leon, but Mr. Birn did not write the letter.
Instead he talked about his lawyers; grew virtuously indignant on the unsportsmanlike character of people who repudiated debts of honour (how he came to be satisfied that the cheques represented gambling losses, he did not explain) and ended the interview a little apoplectically. And all the time Leon was speculating upon the identity of the third man he had seen and who had evidently left the room through one of the three doors which opened from the office.
Leon went down the narrow stairs into the street, and as he stepped on to the pavement, a little car drove up and a girl descended. She did not look at him, but brushing past ran up the stairs. She was alone, and had driven her own luxurious coupe. Gonsalez, who was interested, waited till she came out, which was not for twenty minutes, and she was obviously distressed.
Leon was curious and interested. He went straight on to the hospital where they had taken Eden, and found the young man sufficiently recovered to be able to talk.
His first words betrayed his anxiety and his contrition.
“I say, what did you do with that letter? I was a fool to—”
“Destroyed it,” said Leon, which was true. “Now, my young friend, you’ve got to tell me something. Where was the gambling-house to which you went?”
It took a long time to persuade Mr. John Eden that he was not betraying a confidence and then he told him the whole story from beginning to end.
“So it was a lady who took you there, eh?” said Leon thoughtfully.
“She wasn’t in it,” said John Eden quickly. “She was just a visitor like myself. She told me she had lost five hundred pounds.”
“Naturally, naturally,” said Leon. “Is she a fair lady with very blue eyes, and has she a little car of her own?”
The man looked surprised.
“Yes, she drove me in her car,” he said, “and she is certainly fair and has blue eyes. In fact, she’s one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen. You needn’t worry about the lady, sir,” he said shaking his head. “Poor girl, she was victimised, if there was any victimisation.”
“196 Paul Street, Mayfair, I think you said.”
“I’m certain it was Paul Street, and almost as sure it was 196,” said Eden. “But I hope you’re not going to take any action against them, because it was my own fault. Aren’t you one of the two gentlemen who live in the flat under me?” he asked suddenly.
Leon nodded.
“I suppose the cheques have been presented and some of them have come back.”
“They have not been presented yet, or at any rate they have not been honoured,” said Leon. “And had you shot yourself, my young friend, they would not have been honoured at all, because your bank would have stopped payment automatically.”
Manfred dined alone that night. Leon had not returned, and there had been no news from him until eight o’clock, when there came a District Messenger with a note asking Manfred to give the bearer his dress clothes and one or two articles which he mentioned.
Manfred was too used to the ways of Leon Gonsalez to be greatly surprised. He packed a small suitcase, sent the messenger boy off with it and he himself spent the evening writing letters.
At half past two he heard a slight scuffle in the street outside, and Leon came in without haste, and in no wise perturbed, although he had just emerged from a rough-and-tumble encounter with a young man who had been watching the house all the evening for his return.
He was not in evening dress, Manfred noticed, but was wearing the clothes he had on when he went out in the morning.
“You got your suitcase all right?”
“Oh yes, quite,” replied Leon.
He took a short stick from his trousers pocket, a stick made of rhinoceros hide, and called in South Africa a “sjambok.” It was about a foot and a half in length, but it was a formidable weapon and was one of the articles which Leon had asked for. He examined it in the light.
“No, I didn’t cut his scalp,” he said. “I was afraid I had.”
“Who was this?”
Before he replied, Leon put out the light, pulled back the curtains from the open window and looked out. He came back, replaced the curtains, and put the light on again.
“He has gone away, but I do not think we have seen the last of that crowd,” he said.
He drank a glass of water, sat down by the table and laughed.
“Do you realise, my dear Manfred,” he said, “that we have a friend in Mr. Fare, the Police Commissioner, and that he occasionally visits us?”
“I realise that very well,” smiled Manfred. “Why, have you seen him?”
Leon shook his head.
“No, only other people have seen him and have associated me with the Metropolitan Constabulary. I had occasion to interview our friend Mr. Bingley, and he and those who are working with him are perfectly satisfied that I am what is known in London as a ‘split,’ in other words a detective, and it is generally believed that I am engaged in the business of suppressing gambling-houses. Hence the mild attention I have received and hence the fact, as I recognised when I was on my way back to Jermyn Street today—luckily I had forgotten to tell the cabman where to stop and he passed the watchers before I could stop him—that I am under observation.”
He described his visit to the hospital and his interview with Mr. Birn.
“Birn, who of course is Bingley, is the proprietor of three, and probably more, big
