door opened noiselessly. He was in a dark little hallway. At the end was a door and a gleam of light shone under it. He closed the door behind him, stepped softly along the carpeted floor, and his hand was on the handle of the further door, when a sweet voice called him by name from the room.
“Adelante! Senor Smii,” it said; and, obeying the summons, T.B. entered.
The room was well, if floridly, furnished; but T.B. had no eyes save for the graceful figure lounging in a big wicker chair, a thin cigarette between her red lips, and her hands carelessly folded on her lap.
“Come in,” she repeated. “I have been expecting you.”
T.B. bowed slightly.
“Gregory told me that I should probably receive a visit from you.”
“First,” said T.B. gently, “let me relieve you of that ugly toy.”
Before she could realize what was happening, two strong hands seized her wrists and lifted them. Then one hand clasped her two, and a tiny pistol that lay in her lap was in the detective’s possession.
“Let us talk,” said T.B. He laid her tiny pistol on the table, and with his thumb raised the safety catch.
“You are not afraid of a toy pistol!” she scoffed.
“I am afraid of anything that carries a nickel bullet,” he confessed, without shame. “I know by experience that your ‘toy’ throws a shot that penetrates an inch of pinewood and comes out on the other side. I cannot offer the same resistance as pinewood,” he added modestly.
“I have been warned about you,” she said, with a faint smile.
“So you were warned.” T.B. was mildly amused and just a trifle annoyed. It piqued him to know that whilst, as he thought, he had been working in the shadow, he had been under a searchlight.
“Your excellent brother, I do not doubt,” he said.
“You are — what do you call it in England? — smug,” she said, “but what are you going to do with me!”
She had let fall her cloak and was again leaning back lazily in the big armchair. The question was put in the most matter-of-fact tones.
“That, you shall see,” said T.B. cheerfully. “I am mainly concerned now in preventing you from communicating with brother Gregory.”
“It will be rather difficult?” she challenged with a smile. “I am not proscribed; my character does not admit—”
“As to your character,” said T.B. magnanimously, “we will not go into the question. So far as you are concerned, I shall take you into custody on a charge of obtaining property by false pretences,” said T.B. calmly.
“What!”
“Your name is Mary Brown, and I shall charge you with having obtained the sum of £350 by a trick from a West Indian gentleman at Barbadoes last March.”
She sprang to her feet, her eyes blazing.
“You know that is false and ridiculous,” she said steadily. “What is the meaning of it?”
T.B. shrugged his shoulders.
“Would you prefer that I should charge La Belle Espagna with being an accessory to murder?” he asked, with a lift of his eyebrows.
“You could not prove it!” she challenged.
“Of that I am aware,” he said. “I have taken the trouble to trace your movements. When these murders were committed you were fulfilling an engagement at the “Philharmonic,” but you knew of the murder, I’ll swear — you are an agent of N.H.C.”
“So it was you who found my handkerchief?”
“No; a discerning friend of mine is entitled to the discovery — are you ready, Mary Brown?”
“Wait.”
She stood plucking at her dress nervously. “What good can my arrest do to you — tomorrow it will be known all over the world.”
“There,” said T.B., “you are mistaken.”
“To arrest me is to sign your death-warrant — you must know that — the Nine Men will strike—”
“Ah!”
T.B.’s eyes were dancing with excitement.
“Nine men!” he repeated slowly, “Neuf hommes—’N.H.’ What does the ‘C’ stand for?”
“That much you will doubtless discover,” she said coldly, “but they will strike surely and effectively.”
The detective had regained his composure.
“I’m a bit of a striker myself,” he said in English.
XIII. Deportation
T.B. found the Chief Commissioner of Police at his club, and unfolded his plan.
The Chief looked grave.
“It might very easily lead to a horrible catastrophe if you carry that scheme into execution.”
“It might very easily lead to a worse if I don’t,” said T.B. brutally, “I am too young to die. At the worst it can only be a ‘police blunder,’ such as you read about in every evening newspaper that’s published,” he urged, “and I look at the other side of the picture. If this woman communicates with her principals, nothing is more certain than that Thursday will see the blowing up of the Wady Semlik Barrage. These ‘Nine Bears’ are operating on the sure knowledge that Bronte’s Bank is going to break. The stocks they are attacking are companies banking with Bronte, and it’s ten chances to one they will kill Sir George Calliper in order to give an artistic finish to the failure.”
The Commissioner bit his lip thoughtfully. “And,” urged T.B. Smith, “the N. H. C. will be warned, and bang goes our only chance of bagging the lot!”
The Commissioner smiled.
“Your language, T.B.!” he deplored; then, “do as you wish — but what about the real Mary Brown?”
“Oh, she can be sent on next week with apologies. We can get a new warrant if necessary.”
“Where is she?”
“At Bow Street.”
“No; I mean the Spanish lady?”
T.B. grinned.
“She’s locked up in your office, sir,” he said cheerfully.
The
