That’s the strangest part of it,” I responded. “Nothing was seen of any cab or conveyance, although, of course, there must have been one.”
“And that inquiry by telephone was a remarkable incident,” Dick went on. “You say that the inquirer was popping about to various call-rooms ringing up his confederates. That shows that there were two or three in the secret. It hardly seems feasible that the man who rang up from the Minories was the same as the one with whom you spoke at Putney.”
“No; but the arrangement to meet in St. James’s Park to-morrow is extraordinary, to say the least.”
“Ah, my dear fellow,” observed my friend, with a smile, “I very much fear that that appointment won’t be kept. Men such as they evidently are will hardly risk a meeting. On reflection, the individual, whoever he is, will see that he has given himself away, and his natural caution will prevent him from going near St. James’s Park.”
“Well, I only hope he does meet me,” I observed.
“So do I. But to my mind such a circumstance is entirely out of the question. You see he went to call-boxes in order to avoid detection.”
“The curious thing is, that if it were the same man who rang up each time he must have travelled from one place to another in an amazingly rapid manner.”
“There might be two persons,” he suggested.
“Of course there might,” I answered. “But I think not. The girl at the exchange evidently recognised the voice of the persistent inquirer.”
“I’m glad I came down – very glad,” he said. “I went over to see Lily, but she’s gone to Ipswich with her aunt, an old lady who feared to travel alone. It appears she wrote to me this morning, but the letter has missed the post, I suppose. It will come to-morrow morning.”
“You had your journey to Peckham for nothing, then?”
“Yes,” he answered. “She ought to have sent me a wire. Just like a woman.”
I knew Lily Lowry, the pretty friend of Dick Cleugh, very well indeed. I did not know that he actually loved her. There was undoubtedly a mutual friendship between them, but nevertheless he often would go for a month and see nothing of her. The daughter of a struggling shopkeeper near the Elephant and Castle, she had been compelled to seek her own living, and was at present assistant at a large cheap draper’s in Rye Lane, Peckham. Setting the convenances at naught, as became a London girl of the present decade, she had many times visited our dingy abode. I had always suspected that the love was on her side, for she was always giving him various little things – embroidered pouches, handkerchiefs and those semi-useful articles with which girls delight the men they love.
But Dick did not seem in the least concerned at not having seen her. He was annoyed that he had had a journey on the Chatham and Dover for nothing, and thought a great deed more of the mystery of Phillimore Place than of Lily’s well-being. He was a pessimist in every sense of the word. Once he had told me the story of his first love, a strange tragedy of his life that had occurred in his days at Jesus. It was this, I always suspected, that had evoked from him the real ardent affection which a man should have for a woman who is to be his companion through life. Man loves but once, it is true, but the love of youth is in the generality of cases a mere heart-beating caused by a fantasy begotten of inexperience. The woman we love at sixteen – too often some kind-hearted housewife, whose soft speech we mistake for affection – we flout when we are twenty. The woman who was angelic in our eyes when in our teens, is old, fat and ugly when, four years later, the glamour has fallen from our eyes and we begin to find a foothold in the world. Wisdom comes with the moustache.
So it was with Dick. He had lost the woman he had loved in his college days, yet, as far as I could judge, none other had ever taken her place in his heart.
Two o’clock had struck ere we turned in, and both of us were up at seven, our usual hour, for evening papers, issued as they are at noon, are prepared early in the morning. We were always at our respective offices at half-past seven.
My first thought was of the meeting I had arranged in St. James’s Park, and of my friend’s misgivings regarding it. Full of anxiety, I worked on till eleven o’clock, when Boyd was shown into my room, greeting me merrily. His appearance was in no way that of a police-officer, for he wore a shabby suit of tweed, a soiled collar, and an old silk hat much frayed at the brim, presenting the appearance of the typical beery Fleet Street lounger.
“I’ve come to see you, Mr Urwin, regarding this meeting in the park,” he said. “Do you intend going?”
“Of course,” I answered, surprised that he should ask such a question. “Why?”
“Well, because I think it would be best to leave it entirely to us. You might be indiscreet and queer the whole thing.”
“I don’t think you’ll find me guilty of any indiscretion,” I said, somewhat piqued.
“I don’t apprehend that,” he said. “But on seeing you at the spot appointed, the mysterious person who made the inquiry last night will at once get away, for he will know that the secret is out. We must, as you know, act with greatest caution in this affair, so as not to arouse the slightest suspicion that the keeping of this appointment is in the hands of the police.”
“Then what, in your opinion, is the best course to pursue?” I inquired.
“First, your friend Mr Cleugh must not go near the park. I’ve already written him a note to that effect. Secondly, you must act exactly as I direct. A single slip will mean that the individual will escape, and in this we must not court failure by any indiscreet move.”
“And how do you intend that I should act?” I asked, sitting back in my writing-chair and looking at the shrewd detective who was known throughout London as one of the cleverest unravellers of crime, and who had been successful in so many cases wherein human life had been involved.
“Well,” he said, hesitating, “truth to tell, I would rather that you didn’t go to the park at all.”
“Why?”
“Because you could not wait about in the vicinity of the spot indicated without betraying a sign that you were in expectation of some one,” he answered. “Remember, you are not a detective.”
“No,” I answered, “I’m not a detective, but I’ve had a few years’ training in investigations. I think I could disguise my anxiety sufficiently.”
I was extremely anxious to keep the appointment, and his suggestion that I should not go caused me disappointment and annoyance.
“But if you were seen waiting about, the man we want would certainly not make his appearance. He’d scent danger at once. We’ve evidently got to deal with a very cunning scoundrel.”
“I could conceal myself,” I declared. “I promise you I will act with greatest discretion.”
“Well,” he said at length, after some further demur, “I suppose, then, you must have your own way. Personally, I don’t think the man will be such a fool as to run his neck into a noose. There’s been some clever work in connexion with this matter, and men capable of such ingenuity must be veritable artists in crime and not given to the committal of any indiscretion. The voice in the telephone was a squeaky one, I think you said?”
“Yes, weak and thin, like an old man’s.”
Boyd
