The Gay Adventurers

Taranaki Daily News, 17 October 1935, Page 15

The Gay Adventurers

By

Capt E. C. Cox

(Author of “Achievements of John Carruthers,” etc., etc.)

CHAPTER EIGHT. Nerves were on edge and tempers ragged at Scotland Yard. From highest to lowest the staff felt it a personal affront that Detective Inspector Dickenson, a man with such a brilliant record and so universally popular, should be hoofed out with ignominy for one failure. But what rankled even more than this was that action had been taken not by their own chief but by the Home Secretary who had no business to interfere in departmental matters. If a man was to lose his job for a single failure — well the Home Secretary himself had more than one to his credit or discredit. Scotland Yard had a way of regarding itself as a preserve, with a peculiar prejudice against poachers. It re-acted badly against outside interference. And over and above all this was Joseph Pickering! Colonel Alfred Chester, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, was having tea in his private sanctum, and with him was Mr. Julian Stopford, the Assistant Commissioner. They were engaged in a heart to heart talk. “This fellow Joseph Pickering is a damned nuisance, Stopford. What is to be done? Here’s the man Hamlyn, not unnaturally clamouring for his radium or its equivalent in hard cash, and I don’t know what to say to him. Deronda paid full value for. the stuff, though unfortunately to the wrong person; and we can’t get anything out of him. Pickering goes off with the swag, and where he is the Lord only knows. He seems to have unlimited ingenuity, and assurance, and funds at his disposal from the first. Jmagine his twice posing as Somerville! He did jolly well too in the Portmoor outbreak. And Repton’s way of going on has been preposterous. He takes' the whole business into his own hands without so much as by your leave to Scotland Yard, and makes an unholy mess of everything. Couldn't even find out who was playing the giddy goat in his own office. He lets himself be wheedled by that infernal . woman, and makes a present to her of his signature, which between the pair of them they proceed to copy. He made a clean breast of it to me. I only tell you this in the strictest confidence. And getting rid of Dickenson like that! It’s fairly got my blood up. Certainly Dickenson failed; there’s no use making any bones about it. The fact is he’s not at home on the Continent. I should never have selected him for that job. But with his record to shoot him out of the Yard well, words fail me.” ' “Well, sir, you know my motto: ‘Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, and smile, smile, smile.’ I’m a born optimist. We’ll get our friend Joseph Pickering before long, you’ll see. That diamond necklace from the Antwerp jeweller will be his undoing. Think what a lot of things we have found out .since you sent Paul Brydon to those places. It’s quite intriguing. It’d make a sensational film for the movies. Pickering gets to Berengaria in less than no time, and has an interview with Rudolf Kareno, though Rudolf, whose surname ought to be Ananias for reasons best known to himself, swears that no Englishman had entered the country for months. But Brydon ferreted out the man whose pony-cart they had hired and left derelict, and learned that an Englishman and a lady had been to the castle. Then Pickering is traced to Warsaw, where he visited Deronda. We know the date. It was a Sunday; and Pickering had been at the Lobieski hotel since the Friday evening. Now comes in Brydon’s smartness. Pickering could not have reached Warsaw by rail in the time at his disposal. Brydon feels a brainwave. What about flying? It was easy, to travel by air-mail, to Berlin and on to Breslau. But to Berengaria and Warsaw? Brydon’s worth a dozen of Dickenson. He goes sniffing about at Breslau and finds that a special aeroplane was engaged by an English milord and a lady, and that they had made several voyages with one Felix Fleming for their pilot. This man had finally brought the ’plane back, and had then disappeared. Now comes the Antwerp business, the diamond necklace and the make-believe Rajah of what-d’you call it. The man and the woman again. And they left Antwerp by aeroplane, that’s certain. It all fits in' like a jig-saw puzzle. Just wait till they try to do a deal with that necklace! Every jeweller in London and the country is on the look-out for either the necklace or the separate stones. Of course, where this elusive jack-in-the-box is at the present moment we don’t know, but just wait and see, sir. We’ll have him.” “Good old Stopford. I like your hopeful attitude. May your weather forecast prove correct. No more muffin or tea? A cigarette then? What gets me is how this precious ruffian thinks of everything beforehand. That was a brainy move of his to send that telegram to Deronda as from Hamlyn, telling him to expect his agent Fortescue with the radium. That did the trick. Fortescue and the radium arrive as per telegram, and all goes like clock-work. ’Pon my word, I could take off my hat to the swine.”

Stopford laughed. “I should like to see you, sir. May I be present when it comes off?” There was a knock at the door. “Devil take it,” exclaimed the Commissioner angrily, “can’t even be allowed to have one’s tea in peace. Come in!” "Sir John Somerville wishes to see you, sir,” said the constable on duty, and before Colonel Chester had time to utter a word in stalked Sir John, his red face redder than ever.

“Still no news of this arch-criminal?” he snorted. “I suppose you will tell me you have got a clue. That’s about all one can expect from Scotland Yard! You don’t seem to realise the enormity of the outrage that has been put upon me. That I, Sir John Somerville, should be decoyed by this villain to Portmoor by forged letters telling ..ie that. I was appointed Governor there, to find that this scum of the earth was masquerading there as me, and for me to be handcuffed and locked up in a police station; my God, it’s too monstrous! And the days go' by and you sit there and enjoy your tea and cigarettes as if nothing had happened!” Sir John’s indignation almost overpowered him. His voice rose in a shrill crescendo. “Good heavens,” he snarled on, “the whole lot of you ought to be sacked. That’s my opinion of you. Where is your vaunted C.1.D.? If between you you cannot get hold of this escaped convict who seems to think that he can commit the grossest outrage with impunity, what the devil’s the use of you? You ought to be utterly ashamed of yourselves.” “That’s exactly what we are, Sir John,” said Chester with the utmost suavity. “Stopford and I have just been telling each other that we aren’t earning our pay. Won’t you sit down and have a cup of tea and a cigarette?” Stopford nearly rolled off his chair in agonies of suppressed laughter. “This’d catch on in the films,” he said inwardly. “How it would fetch ’em on the talkies!” Sir John was so taken aback by the unexpected mildness of Chester’s retort that he had not a word to say. He sat down and accepted the refreshment offered to him, while he mopped his face with a handkerchief.

“As I have admitted, Sir John,” said the Commissioner, “we deserve all that you have said, and more. But we have

really not been idlers. The public are naturally rathei’ sick of the blessed word ‘clue,’ and we don’t like using it. But the thing is this: Pickering and his lady accomplice stole an exceedingly valuable diamond necklace in Antwerp, a very old and probably historical one. They must try to dispose of it before long. The moment they do their game’s up. Every jeweller in the country is on the look-out for that necklace, or for its stones. We must wait with what patience we can, but I am confident it will be only a question of time for this miscreant to be caught and returned to Porchester, where he will be under your paternal care. I am not surprised at your agitation.” Sir John was to some extent mollified. “I am glad that you put it like that.” he conceded, “though I can’t say that I share your confidence. This damnable convict has more brains than—” he was going to say ‘than the whole lot of you,’ but for once in a way he managed to control his ferocity. After a while he took his leave, he had come in like the proverbial lion, and he went out like the proverbial lamb. “By Jove, sir, that was a fine show,” said Stopford when he had departed, “My sides are aching from it.” ‘But the worst of it is,” said his Chief, “that every word of it is true.”- —

“Bingo,” said Sally one evening in October, “there’s a thing that’s, rather on my mind. I don’t like keeping the Antwerp necklace in the at. I think it’s high time we disposed of it. Now I want you to let me get at it on my lonesome. There are always advertisements in the papers of people who offer good prices for gems. Look, here are two close together. Tip-top prices paid for jewellery, large or small quantities. Jones and Davison, Bond Street.’ And here’s a long one ‘Sell your grandmother’s old-fashioned jewellery. Really high prices paid.’ I might see how the land lies in these directions. I shall be terribly careful. When I find the right man the call-boy will warn you for your part.” “Your will is law, old thing. But it’ll be frightfully rough on me to be left alone.”

The next morning Sally set out on her voyage of discovery. She took with her several articles of jewellery which she did not much care for. She went straight to Jones and Davison. “I have seen your advertisement that you pay tip-top prices for jewellery,” she said, “and I am anxious to dispose of some of mine. Now what would you give for this diamond brooch?”

The jeweller scrutinised the brooch with a magnifying glass. “May I ask, madam, if you are requiring any article that we can show you? A brooch with more up-to-date setting, shall we say, or a bracelet, or earrings? IF so, we might allow you something on this.” Sally smiled sweetly. “That wasn’t the idea,” she said. “Don’t you pay cash down without any purchasing?” “We do, madam. We pay the highest price that the market justifies. But the market at present is extremely dull. The world crisis you know. No one seems able to buy anything.” “Will you make me an offer for the brooch?”

The jeweller considered for a minute or so. “I can offer you five pounds, madam, but it may take me years to find a purchaser for it.” Sally knew that the 'offer was perfectly absurd, but her object was to acquire information, so she accepted the ridiculous, sum, much to the jeweller’s gratification, and then had a longish conversation, .with him. The result was not encouraging. Never had there been such a slump in the, jewellery trade. Nothing of value had been sold for months, and he could hold out no prospect of being able to take any real article of vertu off her hands. She went to a number of other dealers with similar results, and it was rathei' a crestfallen Sally who returned to Bingo in the afternoon, and threw herself into an easy chair. “Be an angel, old dear,” she said, “and make me some tea. I’m a bit done. And it just occurs to me that I didn’t , have any lunch.” “Oh, you poor tiling, darling,” and he hastened to make the tea, and boil a couple of eggs. “Here you are, Sal,” he said in a few minutes as he brought in the tea and eggs, and slices of bread and butter on a tray. “Don’t, talk till you feel revived.” _ z '; ■ “That’s better,” she said, when she had finished her little meal. “A thousand thanks, laddie. I’ve had no luck. Nothing doing. But I’ll try again to-, morrow. I don’t give up so easily// Next day she again set out on her quest, and after some unsuccesful ventures she found herself looking into tli£ window of a comparatively unpretentious shop where there were displayed several historical pecklaces of enormous value. One had belonged to Catherine of Russia, one to Marie Antoinette' and another to Madame de Pompadour. Her heart gave a leap as she gazed on these wonderful things. “This is the place for me,” she said to herself, and she walked away and ate a light lunch in a restaurant while she deliberated how she might best approach the jeweller. “I have it,” she said at last, and went back to the shop, and after a few preliminary words of admiration for the art treasures in the window, she introduced her subject. The jeweller, Henry Derbyshire by name, was a tall and pleasant-looking man of about forty. His hair vzas slightly flecked with grey. He spoke very politely, and he was evidently what Sally called knowledgeable. But his restless eyes suggested suspicion and cunning. He listened attentively. “Would you care to add to. your historical works of art?” she ' asked smilingly. “There is a diamond necklace that I am commissioned to dispose of. When the Russian royal family were murdered in the revolution the Princess Sophia Elizabeth, daughter of the grand-duke Sergius Alexis, contrived to escape from Ekaterinburg. After many months’ wandering on the Continent, and countless adventures, she at length found her way to England. She is living under an assumed name in the depths of poverty in a London suburb. She possesses a valuable necklace which has been in her family for generations.' She is most reluctant to part with’ it, but her poverty compels her to do so. I am her only friend, and I undertook to See if I could negotiate its sale.” . “This is exceedingly interesting, madam. May I ask if you have the necklace with you?” “No,” smiled Sally, “but I could arrange to bring it to-morrow. Would that suit you?” “By all means. The afternoon would be the most convenient time for me. I can, of course, promise nothing, but I shall be happy to see it.” Sally thanked him profusely, and went home to give her news to Bingo. Bingo was quite excited. “And now I come on,” he said. “Enter Bingo left centre!” “I think you’d better not, boy. You see, I said I was the princess’ only friend, and if you put in an appearance it would rather take the edge off my story.” (To be continued).