Bones in London Read online

  Copyright & Information

  Bones in London

  First published in 1921

  © David William Shorey as Executor of Mrs Margaret Penelope June Halcrow (otherwise Penelope Wallace); House of Stratus 1921-2010

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The right of Edgar Wallace to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  This edition published in 2010 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

  Stratus Books Ltd., 21 Beeching Park, Kelly Bray,

  Cornwall, PL17 8QS, UK.

  Typeset by House of Stratus.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

  EAN ISBN Edition

  1842326643 9781842326640 Print

  0755114736 9780755114733 Print (Alt)

  0755121279 9780755121274 Pdf

  0755121813 9780755121816 Mobi

  0755122283 9780755122288 Epub

  This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  We would like to thank the Edgar Wallace Society for all the support they have given House of Stratus. Enquiries on how to join the Edgar Wallace Society should be addressed to: Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.edgarwallace.org/

  www.houseofstratus.com

  About the Author

  Edgar (Richard Horatio) Wallace was born illegitimately in 1875 in Greenwich, London, to Polly Wallace, a minor actress who although married conceived Wallace through a liaison with a fellow player, Richard Horatio Edgar. He was initially fostered to George Freeman, a porter at Billingsgate fish market and later adopted by him.

  At eleven, Wallace sold newspapers at Ludgate Circus and upon leaving school aged twelve took a job with a printer. Many other jobs followed until at nineteen he enlisted in the Royal West Kent Regiment, later transferring to the Medical Staff Corps and was sent to South Africa. Whilst in the army he started writing, short poetry at first, but quickly graduated to journalism by contributing articles to the Cape Colony press and was able to supplement his army pay. The army disapproved and after the publication of a short book of poetry, The Mission That Failed, he left the service in 1899 to became a correspondent for Reuters followed by an appointment as South African war correspondent for The Daily Mail. This came to an end when the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Kitchener, revoked Wallace’s press credentials after he scooped the story of the final peace treaty, which brought the Boer War to an end, and the Daily Mail was able to publish twenty four hours ahead of the official announcement. His various articles were later published as ‘Unofficial Dispatches’.

  Whilst in South Africa, Wallace married Ivy Caldecott, the daughter of a Wesleyan minister. Their first child died from meningitis in 1903, but a son, Bryan, was born the following year.

  After a brief spell with the Rand Daily Mail, which ended after an argument with the proprietor, Wallace returned to London and resumed his association with the Daily Mail, as a day-today reporter. By this time Wallace was heavily in debt after gambling on the South African Stock Market and also starting to lead the extravagant lifestyle to which it was clear he wished to become accustomed. Money troubles led him to commence work on his first full novel; The Four Just Men.

  However, instead of proceeding conventionally, Wallace decided to embark upon a scheme which he believed would earn him a lot more. In 1905 he founded the Tallis Press, his own publishing company and decided upon a grandiose marketing and publicity campaign. Central to this was a competition he ran which invited readers to guess the solution to a conundrum – namely how the ‘Foreign Secretary’ had been murdered by ‘anarchists’ in the storyline. Extravagant prizes were offered by Wallace, to whom it never occurred that more than one person might win. He also underestimated production and publicity costs. Sinking even deeper into debt, he was bailed out by a large loan from Alfred Harmworth, the proprietor of the Daily Mail, who was concerned the bad publicity surrounding the events would harm the newspaper.

  There then followed two libel actions involving the Mail in which Wallace was concerned – one of his own making after he had made up part of a story, and one involving a campaign Harmsworth was running against the soap manufacturers, Lever Bros. In the event, he was dismissed from the paper in 1907 and his standing in Fleet Street was so low no paper would employ him.By this time Ivy had given birth to a second surviving child, a daughter, and Wallace was effectively bankrupt, albeit not declared as such.

  In 1909 he hit upon the idea of using some of his knowledge from reporting for the Mail in the Belgian Congo was as a basis for a series of short stories for a penny magazine. The initial batch, which were full of adventures of empire, a little patronising of native Africans, and contained strong characters, were a huge success and were eventually published in 1911 as Sanders of the River, the first of eleven such volumes.

  Journalistic employment once again followed and Wallace also indulged in one of his great passions; horse racing. He both gambled and wrote about the subject and became tipster for various papers prior to starting two of his own. Another child was born to Ivy in 1916, but their marriage was failing and they were divorced in 1919. Shortly afterwards, Wallace married the daughter of a financier, Violet King, who had previously been one of his secretaries. They had a child, Penelope, in 1923. During the first World War Wallace had also served as a Special Constable at Lincoln’s Inn and as a special interrogator for the War Office.

  Further writing success followed after Sanders and for the first time Wallace began to earn substantial advances for his work and royalties on a sliding scale. He wrote mostly thrillers, although there was a generous sprinkling of light comedy, romantic novels and science fiction, along with some non-fiction (such as ten volume history of the War) and it was once said that by 1928 one in four books read in England at the time were by him. His output was extraordinary and he would finish a standard length novel in less than a week. Many of his stories were filmed and he even became involved in directing.

  His flamboyant lifestyle continued, however, and he was to be seen arriving at race meetings in a yellow Rolls Royce and to be heavily involved in gambling. Nonetheless, and possible because of a knowledge of his own failings, as chairman of the Press Club he thought about others when inaugurating a fund for impoverished journalists. In 1931, he stood for the Liberal party at the general election, opposed to the National Government, but the electors of the Blackpool constituency were not convinced and he was heavily defeated. Undeterred, he turned his sights towards America and accepted a job as a screenwriter with RKO Studios in Hollywood.

  However, for some time his health had been causing him concern and the following year he was diagnosed with diabetes. Within days of this he died suddenly from double pneumonia brought about by the disease. At the time, he had been working on the film King Kong. His body was repatriated and he buried near to his home in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire.

  One further surprise awaited relatives as it transpired Wallace’s estate was in fact heavily in debt – in death as in life - but continuing royalty payments eventually enabled this to be cleared and his daughter Penelope thereafter ran a successful enterprise based upon the literary estate.

  Wallace completed 175 novels, over 20 plays and numerous short stories, in addition to some non-ficti
on and countless journalistic articles. Literally hundreds of films and TV shows have been made of his work (more than any other twentieth century writer) and he continues to be very popular with new generations of readers.

  BONES AND BIG BUSINESS

  There was a slump in the shipping market, and men who were otherwise decent citizens wailed for one hour of glorious war, when Kenyon Line Deferred had stood at 88½, and even so poor an organization as Siddons Steam Packets Line had been marketable at 3⅜.

  Two bareheaded men came down the busy street, their hands thrust into their trousers pockets, their sleek, well-oiled heads bent in dejection.

  No word they spoke, keeping step with the stern precision of soldiers. Together they wheeled through the open doors of the Commercial Trust Building, together they left-turned into the elevator, and simultaneously raised their heads to examine its roof, as though in its panelled ceiling was concealed some Delphic oracle who would answer the riddle which circumstances had set them.

  They dropped their heads together and stood with sad eyes, regarding the attendant’s leisurely unlatching of the gate. They slipped forth and walked in single file to a suite of offices inscribed “Pole Brothers, Brokers,” and, beneath, “The United Merchant Shippers’ Corporation,” and passed through a door which, in addition to this declaration, bore the footnote “Private.”

  Here the file divided, one going to one side of a vast pedestal desk and one to the other. Still with their hands pushed deep into their pockets, they sank, almost as at a word of command, each into his cushioned chair, and stared at one another across the table.

  They were stout young men of the middle thirties, clean-shaven and ruddy. They had served their country in the late War, and had made many sacrifices to the common cause. One had worn uniform and one had not. Joe had occupied some mysterious office which permitted and, indeed, enjoined upon him the wearing of the insignia of captain, but had forbidden him to leave his native land. The other had earned a little decoration with a very big title as a buyer of boots for Allied nations. Both had subscribed largely to War Stock, and a reminder of their devotion to the cause of liberty was placed to their credit every half-year.

  But for these, war, with its horrific incidents, its late hours, its midnight railway journeys by trains on which sleeping berths could not be had for love or money, its food cards and statements of excess profits, was past. The present held its tragedy so poignant as to overshadow that breathless terrifying moment when peace had come and found the firm with the sale of the Fairy Line of cargo steamers uncompleted, contracts unsigned, and shipping stock which had lived light-headedly in the airy spaces, falling deflated on the floor of the house.

  The Fairy Line was not a large line. It was, in truth, a small line. It might have been purchased for two hundred thousand pounds, and nearly was. Today it might be acquired for one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and yet it wasn’t.

  “Joe,” said the senior Mr Pole, in a voice that came from his varnished boots, “we’ve got to do something with Fairies.”

  “Curse this War!” said Joe in cold-blooded even tones. “Curse the Kaiser! A weak-kneed devil who might at least have stuck to it for another month! Curse him for making America build ships, curse him for–”

  “Joe,” said the stout young man on the other side of the table, shaking his head sadly, “it is no use cursing, Joe. We knew that they were building ships, but the business looked good to me. If Turkey hadn’t turned up her toes and released all that shipping–”

  “Curse Turkey!” said the other, with great calmness. “Curse the Sultan and Enver and Taalat, curse Bulgaria and Ferdinand–”

  “Put in one for the Bolsheviks, Joe,” said his brother urgently, “and I reckon that gets the lot in trouble. Don’t start on Austria, or we’ll find ourselves cursing the Jugo-Slavs.”

  He sighed deeply, pursed his lips, and looked at his writing-pad intently.

  Joe and Fred Pole had many faults, which they freely admitted, such as their generosity, their reckless kindness of heart, their willingness to do their worst enemies a good turn, and the like. They had others which they never admitted, but which were none the less patent to their prejudiced contemporaries.

  But they had virtues which were admirable. They were, for example, absolutely loyal to one another, and were constant in their mutual admiration and help. If Joe made a bad deal, Fred never rested until he had balanced things against the beneficiary. If Fred in a weak moment paid a higher price to the vendor of a property than he, as promoter, could afford, it was Joe who took the smug vendor out to dinner and, by persuasion, argument, and the frank expression of his liking for the unfortunate man, tore away a portion of his ill-gotten gains.

  “I suppose,” said Joe, concluding his minatory exercises, and reaching for a cigar from the silver box which stood on the table midway between the two, “I suppose we couldn’t hold Billing to his contract. Have you seen Cole about it, Fred?”

  The other nodded slowly.

  “Cole says that there is no contract. Billing offered to buy the ships, and meant to buy them, undoubtedly; but Cole says that if you took Billing into court, the judge would chuck his pen in your eye.”

  “Would he now?” said Joe, one of whose faults was that he took things literally. “But perhaps if you took Billing out to dinner, Fred–”

  “He’s a vegetarian, Joe” – he reached in his turn for a cigar, snipped the end and lit it – “and he’s deaf. No, we’ve got to find a sucker, Joe. I can sell the Fairy May and the Fairy Belle: they’re little boats, and are worth money in the open market. I can sell the wharfage and offices and the goodwill–”

  “What’s the goodwill worth, Fred?”

  “About fivepence net,” said the gloomy Fred. “I can sell all these, but it is the Fairy Mary and the Fairy Tilda that’s breaking my heart. And yet, Joe, there ain’t two ships of their tonnage to be bought on the market. If you wanted two ships of the same size and weight, you couldn’t buy ’em for a million – no, you couldn’t. I guess they must be bad ships, Joe.”

  Joe had already guessed that.

  “I offered ’em to Saddler, of the White Anchor,” Fred went on, “and he said that if he ever started collecting curios he’d remember me. Then I tried to sell ’em to the Coastal Cargo Line – the very ships for the Newcastle and Thames river trade – and he said he couldn’t think of it now that the submarine season was over. Then I offered ’em to young Topping, who thinks of running a line to the West Coast, but he said that he didn’t believe in Fairies or Santa Claus or any of that stuff.”

  There was silence.

  “Who named ’em Fairy Mary and Fairy Tilda?” asked Joe curiously.

  “Don’t let’s speak ill of the dead,” begged Fred; “the man who had ’em built is no longer with us, Joe. They say that joy doesn’t kill, but that’s a lie, Joe. He died two days after we took ’em over, and left all his money – all our money – to a nephew.”

  “I didn’t know that,” said Joe, sitting up.

  “I didn’t know it myself till the other day, when I took the deed of sale down to Cole to see if there wasn’t a flaw in it somewhere. I’ve wired him.”

  “Who – Cole?”

  “No, the young nephew. If we could only–”

  He did not complete his sentence, but there was a common emotion and understanding in the two pairs of eyes that met.

  “Who is he – anybody?” asked Joe vaguely.

  Fred broke off the ash of his cigar and nodded.

  “Anybody worth half a million is somebody, Joe,” he said seriously. “This young fellow was in the Army. He’s out of it now, running a business in the City – ‘Schemes, Ltd,’ he calls it. Lots of people know him – shipping people on the Coast. He’s got a horrible nickname.”

  “What’s that, Fred?”

  “Bones,” said Fred, in tones sufficiently sepulchral to be appropriate, “and, Joe, he’s one of those bones I want to pick.”

  Th
ere was another office in that great and sorrowful City. It was perhaps less of an office than a boudoir, for it had been furnished on the higher plan by a celebrated firm of furnishers and decorators, whose advertisements in the more exclusive publications consisted of a set of royal arms, a photograph of a Queen Anne chair, and the bold surname of the firm. It was furnished with such exquisite taste that you could neither blame nor praise the disposition of a couch or the set of a purple curtain.

  The oxydized silver grate, the Persian carpets, the rosewood desk, with its Venetian glass flower vase, were all in harmony with the panelled walls, the gentlemanly clock which ticked sedately on the Adam mantelpiece, the Sheraton chairs, the silver – or apparently so – wall sconces, the delicate electrolier with its ballet skirts of purple silk.

  All these things were evidence of the careful upbringing and artistic yearnings of the young man who “blended” for the eminent firm of Messrs Worrows, By Appointment to the King of Smyrna, His Majesty the Emperor –– (the blank stands for an exalted name which had been painted out by the patriotic management of Worrows), and divers other royalties.

  The young man who sat in the exquisite chair, with his boots elevated to and resting upon the olive-green leather of the rosewood writing-table, had long since grown familiar with the magnificence in which he moved and had his being. He sat chewing an expensive paper-knife of ivory, not because he was hungry, but because he was bored. He had entered into his kingdom brimful of confidence and with unimagined thousands of pounds to his credit in the coffers of the Midland and Somerset Bank.

  He had brought with him a bright blue book, stoutly covered and brassily locked, on which was inscribed the word “Schemes.”