What a wonderful skin she had — flawless, unblemished! And the dark grey eyes, with their long lashes, how adorable! And he had known her all her life and been living under the same roof for a week, and had not observed her values before!
“Am I interrupting a confidential talk?” he asked.
She shook her head, but she did not wholly convince him. He wondered what these two had been speaking about, head to head. Had she told Alan Wembury that she was coming to Deptford? She would sooner or later, and it might be profitable to get in first with the information.
“You know, Miss Lenley is honouring me by becoming my secretary?”
“So I’ve heard,” said Alan, and met the lawyer’s eyes. “I have told Miss Lenley” — he spoke deliberately; every word had its significance— “that she will be living in my division…under my paternal eye, as it were.”
There was a warning and a threat there. Meister was too shrewd a man to overlook either. Alan Wembury had constituted himself the girl’s guardian. That would have been rather amusing in other circumstances. Even as recently as an hour ago he would have regarded Alan Wembury’s chaperonage as a great joke. But now…
He looked at Mary and his pulse was racing.
“How interesting!” his voice was a little harsh and he cleared his throat. “How terribly interesting! And is that duty part of the police code?”
There was the faintest sneer in his voice which Alan did not miss.
“The duty of a policeman,” he said quietly, “is pretty well covered by the inscription over the door of the Old Bailey.”
“And what is that?” asked Meister. “I have not troubled to read it.”
“‘Protect the children of the poor and punish the wrongdoer,’” said Alan Wembury sternly.
“A noble sentiment!” said Maurice. And then: “I think that is for me.”
He walked quickly towards a telegraph messenger who had appeared at the end of the garden.
“Is Maurice annoyed with you?” asked Mary.
Alan laughed.
“Everybody gets annoyed with me sooner or later. I’m afraid my society manners are deplorable.”
She patted the hand that lay beside hers on the stone bench.
“Alan,” she said, half whimsically, half seriously, “I don’t think I shall ever be annoyed with you. You are the nicest man I know.”
For a second their hands met in a long, warm clasp, and then she saw Maurice walking back with the unopened telegram in his hand.
“For you,” he said jovially. “What a thing it is to be so important that you can’t leave the office for five minutes before they wire for you — what terrible deed has been committed in London in your absence?”
Alan took the wire with a frown. “For me?” He was expecting no telegram. He had very few personal friends, and it was unlikely that his holiday would be curtailed from headquarters.
He tore open the envelope and took out the telegram. It was closely written on two pages. He read: “Very urgent stop return at once and report to Scotland Yard stop be prepared to take over your division tomorrow morning stop Australian police report Ringer left Sydney four months ago and is believed to be in London at this moment message ends.”
The wire was signed “Walford.”
Alan looked from the telegram to the smiling old garden, from the garden to the girl, her anxious face upturned to his.
“Is anything wrong?” she asked.
He shook his head slowly.
The Ringer was in England!
His nerves grew taut at the realisation. Henry Arthur Milton, ruthless slayer of his enemies — cunning, desperate, fearless.
Alan Wembury’s mind went back to Scotland Yard and the Commissioner’s office. Gwenda Milton — dead, drowned, a suicide!
Had Maurice Meister played a part in the creation of that despair which had sent her young soul unbidden to the judgment of God? Woe to Maurice Meister if this were true!
Chapter 6
The Ringer was in London!
Alan Wembury felt a cold thrill each time the thought recurred on his journey to London.
It was the thrill that comes to the hunter, at the first hint of the man-slaying tiger he will presently glimpse.
Well named was The Ringer, who rang the changes on himself so frequently that police headquarters had never been able to circulate a description of the man. A master of disguise, a ruthless enemy who had slain without mercy the men who had earned his hatred.
For himself, Wembury had neither fear nor hatred of the man he was to bring down; only a cold emotionless understanding of the danger of his task. One thing was certain — the Ringer would go to the place where a hundred bolts and hiding places were ready to receive him.
To Deptford…?
Alan Wembury gave a little gasp of dismay. Mary Lenley was also going to Deptford — to Meister’s house, and The Ringer could only have returned to England with one object, the destruction of Maurice Meister. Danger to Meister would inevitably mean danger to Mary Lenley. This knowledge took some of the sunlight of the spring sky and made the grim facade of Scotland Yard just a little more sinister.
Though all the murderers in the world were at large, Scotland Yard preserved its equanimity. He came to Colonel Walford’s room to find the Assistant Commissioner immersed in the particulars of a minor robbery.
“You got my wire?” said Walford, looking up as Alan came in. “I’m awfully sorry to interrupt your holiday. I want you to go down to Deptford to take charge immediately und get acquainted with your new division.”
“The Ringer is back, sir?”
Watford nodded. “Why he came back, where he is, I don’t know — in fact, there is no direct information about him and we are merely surmising that he has returned.”
“But I thought—”
Walford took a long cablegram from the basket on his table. “The Ringer has a wife. Few people know that,” he said. “He married her a year or two ago in Canada. After his disappearance, she left this country and was traced to Australia. That could only mean one thing. The Ringer was in Australia. She has now left Australia just as quickly as she left this country; she arrives in England tomorrow morning.”
Alan nodded slowly.
“I
