“I thought you had been to the station,” said Callidino in surprise.
“I have,” said Wallis, “I went there the first thing—in fact, the moment I had an excuse—to identify Persh. There is no sense in pretending we did not know him. The only thing to do is to prove the necessary alibis. As for me, I was in bed and asleep.”
“Did anybody see you get back?” asked Callidino.
Wallis shook his head.
“No,” he said, “they left one man to look after me, and he did a very natural thing, he walked up and down the street. There was nothing easier than to walk the way he was going behind his back and slip in just when I wanted to.”
Shadowing is a most tiring business, and what very few realise is the physical strain of remaining in one position, having one object in view. Even the trained police may be caught napping in the most simple manner, and as Wallis said, he had found no difficulty in making his way back to the house without observation. The only danger had been that during his absence somebody had called.
“What about you?”
Callidino smiled.
“My alibi is more complex,” he said, “and yet more simple. My excellent compatriots will swear for me. They lie very readily these Neapolitans.”
“Aren’t you a Neapolitan?”
“Sicilian,” smiled the other. “Neapolitan!”
The contempt in his tone amused Wallis.
“Who is the fourth man?” Callidino asked suddenly.
“Our mysterious stranger, I am certain of that,” said George Wallis moodily. “But who the devil is he? I have never killed a man in my life so far, but I shall have to take unusual measures to settle my curiosity in this respect.
“There will have to be a division of the loot,” he said after a while, “I will go into it today. Persh has relations somewhere in the world, a daughter or a sister, she must have her share. There is a fake solicitor in Southwark who will do the work for us. We shall have to invent an uncle who died.”
Callidino nodded.
“As for me,” he said, rising and stretching himself, “already the vineyards of the South are appealing to me. I shall build me a villa in Montecatini and drink the wines, and another on Lake Maggiore and bathe in the waters. I shall do nothing for the rest of my life save eat and drink and bathe.”
“A perfectly ghastly idea!” said Wallis.
The question of the fourth man troubled him more than he confessed. It was shaking his nerves. The police he understood, and was prepared for, could even combat, but here was the fourth man as cunning as they, who knew their plans, who followed them, who kept them under observation. Why? What object had he? He did not doubt that the fourth man was he who had watched them in Hatton Garden.
If it was a hobby it was a most extraordinary hobby, and the man must be mad. If he had an object in view, why did he not come out into the daylight and admit it?
“I wonder how I can get hold of him?” he said half aloud.
“Advertise for him,” said Callidino.
A sharp retort rose to the other’s lips, but he checked it. After all, there was something in that. One could do many things through the columns of the daily press.
XII
The Place Where the Loot Was Stored
“Will the Hatton Garden intruder communicate with the man who lay on the floor, and arrange a meeting. The man on the floor has a proposition to make, and promises no harm to intruder.”
Gilbert Standerton read the advertisement when he was taking his breakfast, and a little smile gathered at the corners of his lips.
Edith saw the smile.
“What is amusing you, Gilbert?” she asked.
“A thought,” he said. “I think these advertisements are so funny.”
She had seen the direction of his eyes, carefully noted the page of the paper, and waited for an opportunity to examine for herself the cause of his amusement.
“By the way,” he said carelessly, “I am putting some money to your credit at the bank today.”
“Mine?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Yes, I have been rather fortunate on the Stock Exchange lately—I made twelve thousand pounds out of American rails.”
She looked at him steadily.
“Do you mean that?” she asked.
“What else could I mean?” he demanded. “You see, American rails have been rather jumpy of late, and so have I.” He smiled again. “I jumped in when they were low and jumped out when they were high. Here is the broker’s statement.” He drew it from his pocket and passed it across the table to her.
“I feel,” he said, with a pretence of humour, “that you should know I do not secure my entire income from my nefarious profession.”
She made no response to this. She knew who the fourth man had been. Why had he gone there? What had been his object?
If he had been a detective, or if he had been in the employ of the Government, he would have confessed it. Her heart had sunk when she had read the interesting theory which had been put forward by the journal.
He was the second burglar.
She thought all this with the paper he had passed to her on the table before her.
The broker’s statement was clear enough. Here were the amounts, all columns ruled and carried forward.
“You will observe that I have not put it all to your credit,” he bantered, “some of it has gone to mine.”
“Gilbert,” she asked, “why do you keep things from me?”
“What do I keep from you?” he asked.
“Why do you keep from me the fact that you were in the bank the night before last when this horrible tragedy occurred?”
He did not answer immediately.
“I have not kept it from you,” he said. “I have practically admitted it—in an unguarded moment, I confess, but I did admit it.”
“What were you doing there?” she demanded.
“Making my fortune,” he said solemnly.
But she was not to be put off by his flippancy.
“What were you doing
