Michael nodded.
“I hate good people, too,” he said, “if they advertise their goodness, but goodness is not hardness or sourness, it is just—goodness. For example,” he went on, “I am good.”
“And I am wicked,” she said and appealed with outstretched hands to a startled duck who had waddled to the railings, “choose between us!”
He laughed but was instantly serious again.
“Your confession puts me in a dilemma. As you are a lady I cannot believe you are lying, as you are a criminal I dare not take your word. I am sufficiently acquainted with your methods to know that your presence is not essential to the committal of a crime, so I can gain nothing by pulling you in.”
“Poor Mike,” she said mockingly.
“Poor Kate,” he said and the girl detected the note of sincerity in his voice.
“Kate, you can’t get away with it,” he said; “you have got to fall sooner or later. Think what it means. Think of that horrible drab life in Aylesbury, where every minute is an hour and every hour an eternity; think of the menial things they will set you to do, scrubbing floors, washing shirts and sewing sacks. Think, how you will be marshalled to church every Sunday and think how you will be stared at and jeered at by friends of the Home Secretary who come to visit the jail.”
“When that happens I shall be dead,” she said. “I believe you mean kindly, Michael Pretherston, and I will tell you this, that you nor any other human being can make me think or feel any different to what I think and feel. There is no power on earth that can tear out the foundations on which my life is built. I have read everything, all the philosophies, Christian and pagan, and all the arguments from the feeble evangelism of the tract writer, to the blatant nonsense of the professional atheist, and I am just where I began. You can’t touch me by reason or by devotion, by faith or by prayers. I am all stone—here,” she laid her white hand upon her bosom and he saw the mocking laughter in her eyes. “Poor Michael!” she said. “Why, if devotion could change me, think of the chances I have had! I could have taken Ralph Sapson and made of him a snake ring for my little finger. I nearly had Flanborough on the point of proposing to me. He is rather sentimental, did you know that?”
“All people with indigestion are sentimental between paroxysms,” said Michael sagely.
He gave his hand to the girl though it was unnecessary and helped her to her feet and they walked out of the park together. Her little Mercedes was unattended and he cranked it up for her.
“Goodbye, Michael,” she said.
“Au revoir,” said Michael, “we shall meet at the sessions.”
At two o’clock that afternoon a constable on duty in Moorgate Street heard the first of the two explosions which agitated police circles that day. Michael was on the spot half-an-hour later and his brief examination led to the view which he afterwards communicated to Ralph. It was then he discovered that what the girl had told him was true and that both Lord Flanborough and Sir Ralph Sapson were out of town. Curiously enough, though he had been impressed at the time, he had dismissed the girl’s statement as a piece of bravado on a par with the badinage in which she usually indulged. He had cursed his folly in ignoring the warning, all the way from Baker Street to the city and it was a great relief to discover what was evident, that no attempt had been made to rifle either the safe in Bartholomew Close or the strong room in Moorgate Street. The outrages were similar in character; in both cases the steel doors had been burst open by the application of an infernal machine. In neither case had the thieves benefited by their crime. The constable who heard the first explosion said he had been admitted by the caretaker of the building within three minutes but in that time had managed to send another policeman, who came up, to guard the back of the premises. Nobody had either entered or left in that period.
The explosion in Bartholomew Close had blown a skylight into the street. The safe was in a concrete cellar in which a light had been burning day and night and although this had been extinguished by the force of the explosion, it was possible for the constable who was outside to see the safe and obtain a fairly comprehensive view of the chamber. He, too, had asserted that nobody had entered the room or left the building after the explosion.
“It is very curious,” said Michael.
T. B. Smith had come at his urgent request and the chief was as puzzled as his subordinate.
“Did Flanborough say he would come up?”
“He is on his way now,” replied Michael.
“Do you know what I think?” said T. B. after a moment’s thought. “I think that this is a blind. That there was never any intention of rifling either the strong room or the safe. There is a big move on somewhere, Mike, call in all the reserves.”
This was an order which Michael heard with pleasure, for he had already anticipated these instructions, and detectives were at that moment flocking to Scotland Yard from every point of the compass.
XII
A Motor Car Was Met by a Special Train
Whatever distress animated the bosoms of
