The Ringer, Book 1 Page 3

  “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 see. That means that The Ringer is either in England or is making for this country.”

  “You have not told anybody?” the Commissioner asked. “I’d forgotten to warn you about that. Meister was at Lenley Court, you say? You didn’t tell him?”

  “No, sir,” said Alan, his lips twitching. “I thought, coming up in the train, that it was rather a pity I couldn’t—I would like to have seen the effect upon him!”

  Alan could understand how the news of The Ringer’s return would flutter the Whitehall dovecotes, but he was unprepared for the extraordinarily serious view which Colonel Walford took of the position.

  “I’ll tell you frankly, Wembury, that I would much rather be occupying a place on the pension list than this chair at Scotland Yard when that news is published.”

  Alan looked at him in astonishment; the Commissioner was in deadly earnest.

  “The Ringer is London’s favourite bogy,” Colonel Walford said, “and the very suggestion that he has returned to England will be quite sufficient to send all the newspaper hounds of Fleet Street on my track. Never forget, Wembury, he is a killer, and he has neither fear nor appreciation of danger. He has caused more bolts to be shot than any other criminal on our list! The news that this man is at large and in London will arouse such a breeze that even I would not weather it!”

  “You think he’ll be beyond me?” smiled Alan.

  “No,” said Walford surprisingly, “I have great hopes of you—and great hopes of Dr. Lomond. By the way, have you met Dr. Lomond?”

  Alan looked at him in surprise. “No, sir, who is he?”

  Colonel Walford reached for a book that lay on his table, “He is one of the few amateur detectives who have impressed me,” he said. “Fourteen years ago he wrote the only book on the subject of the criminal that is worth studying. He has been in India and Tibet for years and I think the Under-Secretary was fortunate to persuade him to fill the appointment.”

  “What appointment, sir?”

  “Police surgeon of ‘R’ Division—in fact, your new division,” said Walford. “You are both making acquaintance with Deptford at the same time.”

&nb
sp; Alan Wembury turned the closely-set pages of the book. “He is a pretty big man to take a fiddling job like this,” he said and Walford laughed.

  “He has spent his life doing fiddling jobs—would you like to meet him? He is with the Chief Constable at the moment.”

  He pressed a bell and gave instructions to the messenger who came. “Lomond is rather a character—terribly Scottish, a little cynical and more than a little pawky.”

  “Will he help us to catch The Ringer?” smiled Alan and he was astonished to see the Commissioner nod.

  “I have that feeling,” he said.

  The door opened at that moment and a tall bent figure shuffled in. Alan put his age at something over fifty. His hair was grey, a little moustache drooped over his mouth and the pair of twinkling blue eyes that met Alan’s were dancing with good-humour. His homespun suit was badly cut, his high-crowned felt hat belonged to the seventies.

  “I want you to meet Inspector Wembury who will be in charge of your division,” said Walford and Wembury’s hand was crushed in a powerful grip.

  “Have ye any interesting specimens in Deptford, inspector? I’d like fine to measure a few heids.”

  Alan’s smile broadened.

  “I’m as ignorant of Deptford as you—I haven’t been there since before the war,” he said.

  The doctor scratched his chin, his keen eyes fixed on the younger man, “I’m thinkin’ they’ll no’ be as interesting as the Lolos. Man, there’s a wonderful race, wi’ braci-cephalic heads, an’ a queer development of the right parietal …”

  He spoke quickly, enthusiastically when he was on his favourite subject.

  Alan seized an opportunity when the doctor was expounding a view on the origin of some mysterious Tibetan tribe to steal quietly from the room. He was not in the mood for anthropology.

  An hour later as he was leaving Scotland Yard he met Walford as he was coming out of his room and walked with him to the Embankment, “Yes—I got rid of the doctor,” chuckled the colonel, “he’s too clever to be a bore, but he made my head ache!” Then suddenly: “You’re handing over that pearl case to Burton—the Darnleigh pearls I mean. You have no further clue?”

  “No, sir,” said Alan. He had almost forgotten that there was such a case in his hands.

  The Commissioner was frowning. “I was thinking, after you left, what a queer coincidence it was that you were going to Lenley Court. Young Lenley was apparently at Lady Darnleigh’s house on the night of the robbery,” and then, seeing the look that came to his subordinate’s face, he went on quickly: “I’m not suggesting that he knew anything about it, of course, but it was a coincidence. I wish we could clear up that little mystery. Lady Darnleigh has too many friends in Whitehall for my liking and I get a letter from the Home Secretary every other day asking for the latest news.”

  Alan Wembury went on his way with an uneasy mind. He had known that Johnny was at the house on the night of the robbery but he had never associated “the Squire’s son” with the mysterious disappearance of Lady Darnleigh’s pearls. There was no reason why he should, he told himself stoutly. As he walked across Westminster Bridge he went over again and again that all too brief interview he had had with Mary.

  How beautiful she was! And how unapproachable! He tried to think of her only, but against his will a dark shadow crept across the rosy splendour of dreams: Johnny Lenley.

  Why on earth should he, and yet—the Lenleys were ruined … Mary was worried about the kind of company that Johnny was keeping. There was something else she had said which belonged to the category of unpleasant things. Oh, yes, Johnny had been “making money” Mary told him a little proudly. How?

  “Rot!” said Alan to himself as an ugly thought obtruded upon his mind. “Rubbish!”

  The idea was too absurd for a sane man to entertain. The next morning he handed over all the documents in the case to Inspector Burton and walked out of Scotland Yard with almost a feeling of relief. It was as though he had shaken himself clear of the grisly shadow which was obscuring the brightness of the day.

  The week which followed was a very busy one for Alan Wembury. He had only a slight acquaintance with Deptford and its notables. The grey-haired Scots surgeon he saw for a minute or two, a shrewd old man with laughing eyes and a fund of dry Scottish humour, but both men were too busy in their new jobs to discuss The Ringer.

  Mary did not write, as he had expected she would, and he was not aware that she was in his district until one day, walking down the Lewisham High Road, somebody waved to him from an open taxicab and turning, he saw it was the girl. He asked one of his subordinates to find out where she and Johnny were staying and with no difficulty located them at a modern block of flats near Malpas Road, a building occupied by the superior artisan class. What a tragic contrast to the spacious glories of Lenley Court! Only his innate sense of delicacy prevented his calling upon her, and for this abstention at least one person was glad.

  CHAPTER 7

  “I saw your copper this morning,” said Johnny flippantly. He had gone back to lunch and was in a more amiable mood than Mary remembered having seen him recently.

  She looked at him open-eyed.

  “My ‘copper’?” she repeated.

  “Wembury,” translated Johnny. “We call these fellows ‘busies’ and I’ve never seen a busier man,” he chuckled. “I see you’re going to ask what’ busy’ means. It is a thieves’ word for detective.”

  He saw a change come to her face.

  “‘We’ call them?” she repeated. “You mean ‘they’ call them, Johnny.”

  He was amused as he sat down at the table.

  “What a little purist you’re becoming, Mary,” he said. “We, or they, does it matter? We’re all thieves at heart, the merchant in his Rolls and the workman on the tram, thieves every one of them!”

  Very wisely she did not contest the extravagant generalisation.

  “Where did you see Alan?”

  “Why the devil do you call him by his Christian name?” snapped Johnny. “The man is a policeman, you go on as though he were a social equal.”

  Mary smiled at this as she cut a round of bread into four parts and put them on the bread plate.

  “The man who lives on the other side of the landing is a plumber, and the people above us live on the earnings of a railway guard. Six of them, Johnny—four of them girls.”

  He twisted irritably in his chair. “That’s begging the question. We’re only here as a temporary expedient. You don’t suppose I’m going to be content to live in this poky hole all my life? One of these days I’ll buy back Lenley Court.”

  “On what, Johnny?” she asked quietly.

  “On the money I make,” he said and went back to his bete noire. “Anyway, Wembury isn’t the sort of fellow I want you to know,” he said. “I was talking to Maurice about him this morning, and Maurice agrees that it is an acquaintance we ought to drop.”

  “Really?” Mary’s voice was cold. “And Maurice thinks so too—how funny!”

  He glanced at her suspiciously.

  “I don’t see anything amusing about it,” he grumbled. “Obviously, we can’t know—”

  She was standing facing him on the other side of the table, her hands resting on its polished surface.

  “I have decided to go on knowing Alan Wembury,” she said steadily. “I’m sorry if Maurice doesn’t approve, or if you think I’m being very common. But I like Alan—”

  “I used to like my valet, but I got rid of him,” broke in Johnny irritably.

  She shook her head.

  “Alan Wembury isn’t your valet. You may think my taste is degraded, but Alan is my idea of a gentleman,” she said quietly, “and one cannot know too many gentlemen.”

  He was about to say something sharp, but checked himself, and the matter had dropped for the moment.

  The next d
ay Mary Lenley was to start her new life. The thought left her a little breathless. When Maurice had first made the suggestion that she should act as his secretary the idea had thrilled her, but as the time approached she had grown more and more apprehensive. The project was one filled with vague unpleasant possibilities and she could not understand why this once pleasing prospect should now have such an effect upon her.

  Johnny was not up when she was ready to depart in the morning, and only came yawning out of his bedroom when she called him.

  “So you’re going to be one of the working classes,” he said almost jovially. “It will be rather amusing. I wouldn’t let you go at all, only—”

  “Only?” she waited.

  Johnny’s willingness that she should accept employment in Maurice’s office had been a source of wonder to her, knowing his curious nature.

  “I shall be about, keeping an eye on you,” he said good-humouredly.

  A few minutes later she was hurrying down crooked Tanners Hill toward a neighbourhood the squalor of which appalled her. Flanders Lane has few exact parallels in point of grime and ugliness, but Mr. Meister’s house was most unexpectedly different from all the rest.

  It stood back from the street, surrounded by a high wall which was pierced with one black door which gave access to a small courtyard, behind which was the miniature Georgian mansion where the lawyer not only lived but had his office.

  An old woman led her up the worn stairs, opened a heavy ornamental door and ushered her into an apartment which she was to know very well indeed. A big panelled room with Adam decorations, it had been once the drawing-room of a prosperous City merchant in those days when great gentlemen lived in the houses where now the poor and the criminal herded like rats.

  There was an air of shabbiness about the place and yet it was cheerful enough. The walls were hung about with pictures which she had no difficulty in recognising as the work of great masters. But the article of furniture which interested her most was a big grand piano which stood in an alcove. She looked in wonder at this and then turned to the old woman.