In the other corner of the carriage Larry Hughes opened his eyes.
“A fool for luck, Labar,” he said sardonically. “Things have come your way with a vengeance.”
XXX
Penelope impulsively gripped more tightly on Labar’s arm, but the detective could afford to take his antagonist’s sneer with a certain amount of equanimity.
“I told you that you couldn’t go on bucking against the machine forever, Larry,” he said. “And talking of fools, what made you mad enough to go to Rye?”
Hughes fidgeted a little to get his bound hands in a more comfortable position. “My dear Sherlock, if you had more brains and less luck, you wouldn’t ask me that question. Where is the last place that you expected to find me today? Where are your people still looking for me now? Not in Rye. Nor would they have looked very hard in London. They’re clustering round the ports interfering with innocent trippers. Where would a hunted man with only ten pounds in his pocket make for in the circumstances? I ask you. If he had any sense he’d go in the direction that would be least obvious. He’d make for a place where he could get funds and lay quiet till he could get snugly out of the country.”
“Sorry to have had to truss you up so tight,” said Labar, as the other writhed a little impatiently. “I wouldn’t trouble to attempt to loosen your hands.” He left his seat and came over by Larry in obvious readiness to deal with any contingency. “This is the finish, Larry. You may as well take it easily.”
Hughes sat quiet for a while. Then a bitter smile flickered about his lips. “Machine or no machine, do you know what’s thrown me down, Labar? You and some of the dolts from Scotland Yard may preen yourselves, but there’s only one thing in it. Do you know Latin? Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat. In other words I made a fool of myself over a woman.” His glance rested for a moment on Penelope’s face. “I mixed love with my business. If I had left Miss Noelson alone would you have known anything about Mope’s Bottom? You’d have had the devil’s own job to bring anything home to me. Even now I’d have been travelling up to town, and left you and your gang running round in circles, if I hadn’t taken a desperate chance of snatching her at the last moment. Yes, Miss Noelson, if it’s any satisfaction to you it’s you who have finished me and not Scotland Yard.”
“Go as far as you like,” observed Labar. “The big fact is that here you are and here I am. As a matter of curiosity how did you know where Miss Noelson was today?”
“Easy,” said Larry, contemptuously. “By the time I got to the town every soul in it knew that there were happenings on the marsh. The police knew, and the tradesmen knew, that a detective down from London had started the affair. Rye isn’t a big place and I know one or two of the tradesfolk, although, of course, they didn’t know I was the man all the bother was about. I used my wits, Labar. Now let me ask how things went at Mope’s Bottom after I left.”
“We made a cleanup,” explained the detective. “Nobody hurt very seriously, but we’ve got the whole of the gang, and we’ve raided your cache. You’ll have to explain a lot of things.”
Larry lifted his shoulders indifferently. “Oh, I’ll take what’s coming to me. Let the boys down as light as you can. There’s some white men amongst them.”
The detective made no reply and Larry subsided into a moody silence.
At the first stop Labar confided to Penelope a couple of wires to hand from the window. He had no intention of taking his eyes from Larry. One could never tell.
Thus it was that at Charing Cross a couple of men from Grape Street were available as an escort for Larry, leaving Labar free to see the girl safely settled at an hotel till some more permanent arrangement could be made for her. Thence he made his way to Scotland Yard where the omnipotent Commissioner of Police himself, was waiting to receive some account of the affair and to offer his congratulations. By the time Labar reached Grape Street the remainder of the prisoners had been brought up from Lydd and Moreland was there to wring his hand and perform a little war dance.
“So you’ve hooked Larry after all. Good for you, old bean. Let’s go and have a drink, and you can tell me all about it. Gad, I wouldn’t wonder if they made you an Assistant Commissioner after this.”
Labar hooked his fingers in the lapels of his friend’s waistcoat and held him at arm’s length. “Don’t you be so mighty familiar with me, Inspector Moreland. Remember that you are talking to your superior officer.”
“Gosh, they haven’t?” Moreland opened his eyes in a wide stare. “Boy, there’s some live people at the Yard still whatever the papers say. Chief Inspector Labar, if you’ll leave off throttling me for a second, I’ll take off my hat to you. How an idle blighter like you got away with it is beyond me. Now a real industrious, hardworking fellow like myself never gets a chance.”
Arm in arm the two departed for the threatened libation to Labar’s promotion. As they stood in the little snuggery of a bar, known to a select few in one of the alleys off Piccadilly, Moreland paused with his glass in his hand.
“There’s something about you that I can’t account for at the minute, Harry,” he said. “There’s a smug complacency which makes me feel that success isn’t going to agree with you if—if it isn’t due to something else. Tell me has the wedding day been fixed?”
Labar came as near a blush as his tanned countenance would allow. He grinned a little shamefacedly. “One
