The Crimson Circle apparently interested him, for he lingered, and skilfully plied his employer with questions without Mr. Froyant realising that he was being pumped.
“They are something new in criminals,” he said. “In Italy, where the Black Hand thrives, the demand for money, followed by a threat of death, is quite a common occurrence, but I should not have thought it possible in this country. The most amazing thing of all is that the Crimson Circle holds together. I should imagine,” he said thoughtfully, “that there is only one man in it, and that he employs a very considerable number of people unknown to one another and each having his particular job to perform. Otherwise he would have been betrayed a long time ago. It is only the fact that the people serving him do not know him that makes it possible for him to carry on.”
He took up his hat.
“By the way, did you know Felix Marl? A client of ours is under charge of burgling his house. Mr. Barnet. You may not have heard of him.”
Mr. Froyant had not heard of “Flush” Barnet, but he knew Marl, and Marl interested him almost as much as the Crimson Circle interested the lawyer.
“I knew Marl. Why do you ask?”
The lawyer smiled.
“A strange character,” he said. “A remarkable character in many ways. He was a member of the gang engaged in frauds on French banks. I suppose you didn’t know that? His lawyer came to see me today. Apparently a Mrs. Marl has turned up to claim his property, and she has told the whole story. He and a man named Lightman made a fortune in France until they were caught. Marl would have been sent to the guillotine, only he turned State’s evidence. Lightman, I believe, went to the knife.”
“What a charming man Mr. Marl must have been!” said Mr. Froyant ironically.
The little lawyer smiled.
“What charming people we all are when our lives are laid bare!” he said, and Mr. Froyant resented the implied censure, for it was his boast that his life was a book. He might have added in truth a bankbook.
So Brabazon was a dealer in stolen notes and Marl a convicted murderer! Mr. Froyant wondered how Marl managed to escape from his term of imprisonment, which must have been a severe one, and he inwardly rejoiced that his business relationships with the deceased had not ended even more disastrously than they had.
He dressed and went to his club to dine, and his car was running into Pall Mall when a hoarding poster showed under the light of a lamp and reminded him of the unpleasant fact that he was a fifty-thousand pounds poorer man that night than he had been in the morning.
“Ten thousand reward!” he muttered. “Bah! Who is going to turn King’s evidence? I don’t suppose even Brabazon would dare.”
But he did not know Brabazon.
XXV
The Tenant of River House
Mr. Brabazon sat in a chill upper room of River House, eating slowly a large portion of bread and cheese. He wore the dress suit he was wearing when the warning came to him, and he was a ludicrous figure in the smartly-fitting, but now soiled and dusty garb. His white shirt was grey with the grime of the house, he was collarless, and his general air of dissipation was heightened by the stubbly beard that decorated his face.
He finished his repast, opened the window carefully and threw out the remnants of bread, and passing through the trapdoor, he descended the ladder and made his way to the big kitchen at the back of the house. He had neither soap nor towel, but he made some attempt to wash himself without their aid, utilising one of the two handkerchiefs he had brought with him to the house in his flight. With the exception of the clothes he stood up in, an overcoat and the soft felt hat he had seized when he made his escape, he was quite unequipped for this undesirable adventure.
The provisions which the mystery man had brought the night after he had reached his hiding place were almost exhausted (he had spent twenty-four hours without any food whatever, but in his agitation had not realised the fact until the stranger arrived carrying a basket of foodstuffs). As to his nerves, they were almost gone. A week spent in that hovel without communion with man, with the knowledge that the police were searching for him, and that a long term of imprisonment would automatically follow his capture, had played havoc with his placid features, and to the solitude had been added the terror of a search.
He had shrunk in a corner behind a door which opened to the inner room leading to the garret whilst the detective had explored the room. The memory of Derrick Yale’s visit was a nightmare.
He settled himself down in the old chair that he had found in the house, to spend yet another night. The man whose warning had sent him flying to cover must come soon, and must bring more food. Brabazon was dozing when he heard the sound of a key put into the lock below and jumped up. He tiptoed carefully to the trapdoor and lifted it and then he heard the booming voice of the stranger.
“Come down,” it said, and he obeyed.
The previous interview had been in the passage where the darkness seemed thicker than anywhere else in the house. He had accustomed himself to the darkness and walked down the rickety stairs without mishap.
“Stay where you are,” said the voice. “I have brought you some food and clothing. You will find everything you need. You had better shave yourself and make yourself presentable.”
“Where am I going?” asked Brabazon.
“I have taken a berth for you on a steamer leaving Victoria Dock tomorrow for New Zealand. You will find your passport papers and ticket in the grip. Now listen. You are to leave your moustache, or what there
