“The first thing I did, sir, was to run him to ground. And I put it across him good and strong. He admitted everything: admitted he was down there, but over the rest of the show he swore by everything that he knew no more than I did. All he could say was that suddenly the room seemed full of men. And the men were all masked. Then he got a clip over the back of the head, and he remembers nothing more till the policeman on duty at Piccadilly Circus woke him with his boot just before dawn this morning.”
“Which fact, of course, you have verified,” said Sir Bryan.
“At once, sir,” answered the other. “For once in his life Flash Jim appears to be speaking the truth. Which puts a funny complexion on matters, sir, if he is speaking the truth.”
The Inspector leaned forward and stared at his chief.
“You’ve heard the rumours, sir,” he went on after a moment, “the same as I have.”
“Perhaps,” said Sir Bryan quietly. “But go on, McIver. I’d like to hear what’s on your mind.”
“It’s the Black Gang, sir,” said the Inspector, leaning forward impressively.
“There have been rumours going round, rumours which our men have heard here and there for the past two months. I’ve heard ’em myself; and once or twice I’ve wondered. Now I’m sure—especially after what Flash Jim said. That gang is no rumour, it’s solid fact.”
“Have you any information as to what their activities have been, assuming for a moment it is the truth?” asked Sir Bryan.
“None for certain, sir; until this moment I wasn’t certain of its existence. But now—looking back—there have been quite a number of sudden disappearances. We haven’t troubled officially, we haven’t been asked to. Hardly likely when one realizes who the people are who have disappeared.”
“All conjecture, McIver,” said Sir Bryan. “They may be lying doggo, or they’ll turn up elsewhere.”
“They may be, sir,” answered McIver doggedly. “But take the complete disappearance of Granger a fortnight ago. He’s one of the worst of the Red men, and we know he hasn’t left the country. Where is he? His wife, I happen to know, is crazy with anxiety, so it don’t look like a put-up job. Take that extraordinary case of the Pole who was found lashed to the railings in Whitehall with one half of his beard and hair shaved off and the motto ‘Portrait of a Bolshevist’ painted on his forehead. Well, I don’t need to tell you, sir, that that particular Pole, Strambowski, was undoubtedly a messenger between—well, we know who between and what the message was. And then take last night.”
“Well, what about last night?”
“For the first time this gang has come into direct contact with us.”
“Always assuming the fact of its existence.”
“Exactly, sir,” answered McIver. “Well, they’ve got Zaboleff and they’ve got Waldock, and they laid eight of us out to cool. I guess they’re not to be sneezed at.”
With a thoughtful look on his face Sir Bryan rose and strolled over to the window. Though not prepared to go quite as far as McIver, there were certainly some peculiar elements in the situation—elements which he, as head of a big public department, could not officially allow for an instant, however much it might amuse him as a private individual.
“We must find Zaboleff and Waldock,” he said curtly, without turning round. “Waldock, at any rate, has friends who will make a noise unless he’s forthcoming. And …”
But his further remarks were interrupted by the entrance of his secretary with a note.
“For the Inspector, Sir Bryan,” she said, and McIver after a glance at his chief, opened the envelope. For a while he studied the letter in silence, then with an enigmatic smile he rose and handed it to the man by the window.
“No answer, thank you, Miss Forbes,” he said, and when they were once more alone, he began rubbing his hands together softly—a sure sign of being excited. “Curtis and Samuel Bauer, both flogged nearly to death and found in a slum off Whitechapel. The note said two of ’em had been flogged.”
“So,” said Sir Bryan quietly. “These two were at Barking last night?”
“They were, sir,” answered the Inspector.
“And their line?” queried the Chief.
“White slave traffic of the worst type,” said McIver. “They generally drug the girls with cocaine or some dope first. What do you say to my theory now, sir?”
“It’s another point in its favour, McIver,” conceded Sir Bryan cautiously: “but it still wants a lot more proof. And, anyway, whether you’re right or not, we can’t allow it to continue. We shall be having questions asked in Parliament.”
McIver nodded portentously. “If I can’t lay my hands on a man who can lift me up like a baby and dope me, may I never have another case. Like a baby, sir. Me—”
He opened his hands out helplessly, and this time Sir Bryan laughed outright, only to turn with a quick frown as the door leading to the secretary’s office was flung open to admit a man. He caught a vague glimpse of the scandalized Miss Forbes hovering like a canary eating birdseed in the background: then he turned to the newcomer.
“Confound it, Hugh,” he cried. “I’m busy.”
Hugh Drummond grinned all over his face, and lifting a hand like a leg of mutton he smote Sir Bryan in the back, to the outraged amazement of Inspector McIver.
“You priceless old bean,” boomed Hugh affably. “I gathered from the female bird punching the whatnot outside that the great brain was heaving, but, my dear old lad, I have come to report a crime. A crime which I positively saw committed with my own eyes: an outrage: a blot upon this fair land of ours.”
He sank heavily into a chair and selected a cigarette. He was a vast individual with one of those phenomenally ugly faces which is rendered utterly pleasant by the extraordinary charm of its owner’s expression. No human being had ever been known to be angry with Hugh
