“Only the man about the gas,” repeated George Wallis admiringly. “Wasn’t he awfully surprised to find that we didn’t have gas at all?”
The old lady looked at him in some amazement.
“He did say he had come to see about the gas,” she said, “and then when he found we had no gas he said ‘electricity’—a most absentminded young man.”
“They are that way, Mrs. Skard,” said her master tolerantly; “they fall in love, don’t you know, round about this season of the year, and when their minds become occupied with other and more pleasant thoughts than gas mantles and incandescent lights they become a little confused. I suppose he did not bother you—he told you you need not wait?” he suggested.
“Quite right, sir,” said Mrs. Skard. “He said he would do all he had to do without assistance.”
“And I will bet you he did it,” said George Wallis with boisterous good humour.
Undisturbed by the knowledge that his rooms had been searched by an industrious detective, he sat for an hour reading an American magazine. At six o’clock a taxicab drove into the street and pulled up before the entrance of his flat. The driver, a stoutish man with a beard, looked helplessly up and down seeking a number, and one of the two detectives who had been keeping observation on the house walked across the road casually towards him.
“Do you want to find a number, mate?” he asked.
“I want No. 43,” said the cabman.
“That’s it,” said the officer.
He saw the cabman ring, and having observed that he entered the door, which was closed behind him, he walked back to his co-worker.
“George is going to take a little taxi drive,” he said; “we will see where he goes.”
The man who had waited on the other side of the road nodded.
“I don’t suppose he will go anywhere worth following, but I have the car waiting round the corner.”
“I’ll car him,” said the second man bitterly. “Did you hear what he told Inspector Whitling of the City Police about me last night?”
The first detective was considerably interested.
“No, I should like to hear.”
“Well,” began the man, and then thought better of it. It was nothing to his credit that he should keep a man under observation three hours, and that the quarry should be aware all the time that he was being watched.
“Hullo!” he said as the door of No. 43 opened, “here is our man.”
He threw a swift glance along the street, and saw that the hired motorcar which had been provided for his use was waiting.
“Here he comes,” he said, but it was not the man he expected. The bearded chauffeur came out alone, waved a farewell to somebody in the hallway whom they could not see, and having started his engine with great deliberation, got upon his seat, and the taxicab moved slowly away.
“George is not going,” said the detective. “That means that we shall have to stay here for another two or three hours—there is his light.”
For four long hours they kept their vigil, and never once was a pair of eyes taken from the only door through which George Wallis could make his exit. There was no other way by which he could leave, of that they were assured.
Behind the house was a high wall, and unless the man was working in collusion with half the respectable householders, not only in that street but of Charing Cross Road, he could not by any possible chance leave his flat.
At half-past ten the taxicab they had seen drove back to the door of the flat, and the driver was admitted. He evidently did not expect to stay long, for he did not switch off his engine; as a matter of fact, he was not absent from his car longer than thirty seconds. He came back almost immediately, climbed up on to his seat and drove away.
“I wonder what the game is?” asked the detective, a little puzzled.
“He has been to take a message somewhere,” said the other. “I think we ought to have found out.”
Ten minutes later Inspector Goldberg, of Scotland Yard, drove into the street and sprang from his car opposite the men.
“Has Wallis returned?” he asked quickly.
“Returned!” repeated the puzzled detective, “he has not gone out yet.”
“Has not gone out?” repeated the inspector with a gasp. “A man answering to his description was seen leaving the City branch of the Goldsmiths’ Guild half an hour ago. The safe has been forced and twenty thousand pounds’ worth of jewelry has been taken.”
There was a little silence.
“Well, sir,” said the subordinate doggedly, “one thing I will swear, and it is that George Wallis has not left this house tonight.”
“That’s true, sir,” said the second man. “The sergeant and I have not left this place since Wallis went in.”
“But,” said the bewildered detective-inspector, “it must be Wallis, no other man could have done the job as he did it.”
“It could not have been, sir,” persisted the watcher.
“Then who in the name of Heaven did the job?” snapped the inspector.
His underlings wisely offered no solution.
VIII
The Wife Who Did Not Love
Mr. Warrell, of the firm of Warrell & Bird, prided himself upon being a man of the world, and was wont to admit, in a mild spirit of boastfulness, in which even middle-aged and respectable gentlemen occasionally indulge, that he had been in some very awkward situations. He had inferred that he had escaped from those situations with some credit to himself.
Every stockbroker doing a popular and extensive business is confronted sooner or later with the delicate task of explaining to a rash and hazardous speculator exactly how rashly and at what hazard he has invested his money.
Mr. Warrell had had occasion before to break, as gently as it was possible to break, unpleasant news of Mrs. Cathcart’s unsuccess. But never before had he been face to face with at situation so full of possibilities for disagreeable consequences as this which now awaited him.
The impassive Cole
