SCORPION’S REALM

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 494, 1 July 1932, Page 12

SCORPION’S REALM

By

L. C. DOUTHWAITE

CHAPTER VI. (continued). Colin and Parrot Discuss the Position. “To the congregation of the unrighteous he seems to have made his own special charge,” lie was saying. “Gage refuses to charge a ha'penny; to one an’ all he's father an’ mother, kind Aunty Liz, the Universal Free Stores, Mr. Switch the schoolmaster, and the fat policeman around the corner all rolled in one. He brings them into the world when they’re born, pats ’em on the head when the’re good little boys an’ girls, spanks ’em and sends ’em to bed when they're naughty, cures ’em when they’re sick, subsidises their wives an’ progginny when the cruel and licentious cops send the bread-pinclier, ‘over the Alps,’ and when they hand in their dinner-pail sees they have their own small-lioldin’. For which variety of reasons,” concluded Chief Constable Parrott, “there isn’t a ‘dip’ :n Deptford or a ‘hook’ in Hoxton who wouldn’t follow him from Dan to Delaware or from Beerslicba to a week on Tuesday.” Colin thought hard for a moment. Staggering as was this picture of a. modern Haroun-Al-Raschid who lived in this palace in the slums, the description fitted with curious accuracy into his own conception of the subject. ‘‘Wliat liave the police against him—officially ?” he asked at length, and in one of liis rare departures from immobility the gaunt detective spread eloquent hands. “He doesn’t have any use for cruelty,” he answered with an inconsequence that was rendered less surprising by what followed. “An’ although what that bird hands out to every type of crook who causes real suffering isn’t so much punishment as what he calls ‘a refund to society,’ you can take it from me that the only difference the man he goes out after can tell between him an’ tlie real police is that, compared with what he hands out, we’re dead easy.” Colin whistled below his breath a long drawn-out note of surprise. In spite of an experience of every type of man and city in comparison with which Sam Weller’s knowledge of London would have looked like the impressions of a half-day excursionist, he had to admit that a private Nemesis of the slums was as novel as, to him, it was intriguing. “It’s that amateur stuff that Scotland Yard’s up against,” Parrot went on, after a pause. “Maybe it’s jealousy, hut we don’t seem able to stand for Valentine Gage as judge and jury, prosecuting council, chief witness for the defence, clerk of the court and chief usher of a unique but strictly unauthorised system of criminal jurisprudence of his own invention and. maintenance, and with the first call of an unofficial police-force of professional malefactors who'll do anything an’ go anywhere just as long as he tells ’em too. . . He’s a long time in that cloakroom, isn’t he?” he broke off to ask, and for the life of him, looking into the detective’s lazy eyes, Colin could not determine whether or not Parrot had any knowledge tor what that deceptive department was cloak. “I’ll sec- what lie’s doing,” he said, rose from his chair and yiassed across the hall in time to meet Dr. Gage emerging from the cupboard door. From which circumstance lie suspected a call on the hidden telephone. When they returned to the hall it was to discover Parrot gazing reflectively at the tray of drinks. “Whisky,” that gaunt sleuth remarked, disapprovingly, “is a thing every mail has to be careful not to take too much of. But following prolonged strain or exposure there’s no better safeguard; hence the French motto: ‘ln Wino Sanitas.’ Not but what even that precaution can be overdone. Take myself, f’r instance. Never on any one night since I reached years of understandin’ an’ a full recognition of my alcoholic limitations have I been known to take more than three.” His guests settled comfortably. Dr. Gage, drew his own chair to the fire. “If it is not an impertinence,” lie inquired, “how many liave you—er—enjoyed before, coming on duty here?” Parrot selected a cigar from the box his host handed him. “One,” he said, simply. “Not too much soda; drownin’s an untidy an’ bloated death, anyway. ...”

CHAPTER VII. Cocky Is Introduced. The unpleasant word, with its immediate and terrible association, brought him up with a jerk; the lank face hardened. “Those hoys of mine—that I’d trained an’ worked with —to go like that! . . . Through the action of a crazy cripple,” he said with real feeling. “I’m glad Humpy’s dead, anyway. Under the direction of The Scorpion lie was the biggest dope distributor, not only in London, but in all England. Europe, too, I shouldn’t wonder ...” Colin, blowing out the match with which he had lit his cigarette, asked the question that hitherto the swiftness of evente had prevented him from putting. “Many disappearances from their homes—and unexpected returns lately?” he inquired, and though lie was looking directly at Parrot, saw froiji Lord Stoneliouse’s face how exact was that official’s appreciation of the fate from which liis niece had been saved. Parrot, Ills jaw out-thrust: “To come back, full of dope an’ the habit ingrained?” he demanded. “Men an’ girls, in what’s known as the ‘best society?' Bright young things, an’ that? So that on the principle of the fox that lost its tail they can spread the habit amo-._ the very folk this ‘proletariat’ there's all tlio talk about never drop in their eyes from watchin’? Or that the social malcontents cease writing about in the revolutionary papers they broadcast among the toilin’ dole-hounds? Is that what you’re askin’?” Colin nodded. Compressed as it was. the exposition contained the core and essence of the influence that over three years, in four cities and two continents, ho had laboured with every last fibre of heart and brain and strength to track—and break. “I mean just that,” he said quietly, and for a moment found his eyes held bv the deceptively lazy glance of the chief constable. “What do you think his lordship here’s brought you home for?” he demanded ungrammatically .at last. “To help stop the rot, I hope,” Colin 6aid promptly. “Tell me, have you found that these victims disappear voluntarily, or arc they taken by force?” With a gesture of frustration Parrot replaced his glass on the table.

“The best—those who never would have fallen in any other way—are abducted, and from the moment they’re bundled into the car until a month or three months later, when they’re tiirned loose on the world with no knowledge of where they’ve been or who’s responsible for havin’ kept ’em under the dope that’s now become their staple diet, are practically unconscious. The others, the weaker vessels as you might call ’em, are first induced to run into debt—or worse. Then, wlien their nerves an’ morals are all shot to pieces they’re given a ‘sedative’—‘just among friends,’ an’ as soon’s the habit’s got a stranglehold, those friends disappear from the home address.” He looked up, his jaw savage. “In the thirty-two raids we’ve made in the past year, how many arrests do you think we’ve made?” Colin shook his head. “Three,” said Parrot. “An’ all poor little boobs of underlings who’d no more idea of who’s employed ’em than I have of the Epstein Theory,” As the chief constable’s voice trailed off. Lord Stoneliouse took up the tale. His face was strained and his voice vibrant as he said: “And though, behind it all, always we’ve been aware of one vast organisation, and behind that, as instigator and inspiration, one supreme head, never until now have we obtained so much as a hint. . .” Buzz, buzz, buzz. A low intermittent humming; peremptory, insistent, again and again repeated. “What’s that noise?” said Colin. With a low-voiced exclamation Dr. Gage was out of his chair, and followed closely by Colin, was streaking for the door. “I think maybe I’d better stay here,” came Parrot’s voice from the fireplace, “to hold the fort, as you might say—just in case.” “Probably you’re right,” Gage called over his shoulder, turned in through the cloakroom door, and Colin was not altogether surprised when, with a quick gesture, his host motioned him into the cuyboard that was not a cupboard. Speedily the lift sank. “I’ll show you something,” the strange man promised as, having left the elevator, they crossed the cellar floor, “that in the event of anything happening to myself, may come in useful.” In the centre of that table in the outer room was a single inkwell of silver,, solid and circular. To this, his hand cupped over the top, Gage gave a slow round turn. The machinery worked in such complete silence tlmt for a moment Colin thought no result had followed. Then, following upon a draught of air from beneath the table, quite suddenly he was aware of movement; glanced down just in time to see, gliding smoothly open, the trap-door that took up the whole space below the table. And in a moment, with one of the legs as pivot, that same table swung back, thus leaving room for an unrestricted ascent of the amazing figure who, like a slow-motion jack-in-the-box, arose from below. “Moses’ Boots!” breathed Colin, as,

with a certain lithe ease, the strangelyarrived newcomer emerged clear, at which both trapdoor amTtable swung silently into place. Tiny featured and flattened, the nose outspread almost level with eyes incredibly small, the thin, black brows ascending at a sharp angle from the nose-bridge, the mouth a wide, thin cavity that appeared to terminate only at the lobe of the enormous bat ears, that saffron-coloured face was hideous to the point of grotesquerie; the meagre body clad in the short neck-high blouse of the authentic Chink, with wide-flap-ping trousers of linen, and tiny feltsoled shoes.

“Lumme, sir, but I could blow the froth off a pint!” announced that “Oriental” with fervent sincerity. “My mouth an’ tongue’s so choked with dust that if I was to blow sudden you’d think it was a smoke screen!”

Colin's surprised glance into the doctor’s face discovered that enigmatic man with twinkling eyes. “If you’ve brought information of value, you won’t have any occasion to complain of thirst —or anything else,” Gage assured him, and produced from a cupboard a pint bottle of beer and a tankard.

“Good ’ealth, sir!” the small apparition exclaimed, and transferred his own drought to the bottom of the tankard. Then, from some obscure recess in his blouse, he withdrew a cigarette, lighted it, and inhaled deeply. “That’s good, that is,” he remarked appreciatively, and threw himself rather wearily into a chair. With a glance at Colin: “Mr. Albert Flute, more generally known as ‘Cocky,’ formerly of the Droppin and Luke Comedy Duo, a humorous acrobatic turn that before the war was well known on the music hall stage,” the doctor introduced. The name recalled to Colin two protagonists of mock slaughter who, in the make-up of comic Chinamen, had been numbered amdng the favourites of East London vaudeville. As he had taken quite a fancy to the cheerful little man, he shook hands heartily. “Pleestermeecher,” Cocky responded in the same spirit, and turned to Gage. “Wu’s still goin’ strong,” he announced. “No sign of him shutting down” the doctor asked quietly, and the grotesque figure shook his head. “Everything as busy as market day in Wigan,” he replied, “with Wu himself like a —a shop-soiled spider keep in’ the dope fires burnin’. . . . Oh, it was all business as usual at the Red Dragon, believe me!” “No indication of any unusual activity?” the doctor inquired shortly, and for the firsts time Cock’s face showed a trace of indecision. “Do you ’appen to know Pineapple Court?” lie asked, uncertainty in his voice also. And it seemed to Colin that, following upon the question, an additional keenness flashed from the eyes of Valentine Gage. “The cul-de-sac that runs immediately in the rear of Wu’s?” he inquired. Then, in answer to the Cockney’s quick nod, “Yes, to be sure I know it. Why do For a moment, his tiny bright eyes looking unseeing!y into space, the exmusic hall artist did not reply. To Colin it was as though he was wondering exactly how to express what was in his mind. “As 1 was passing along to Number Four,” he said slowly, at last, “there was a coal cart drawn up to the kerb, an’ it seemed to me that quite a lot of what the two toughs in charge were dropping through the cole ’ole of Wu’s place wasn’t exactly ’ouse’old fuel.” Another momentary silence; one that, with obvious knowledge of the narrator, Gage did not interrupt.

“What I mean,” Cocky went on at last, “is that they don’t usually wrap up coal in sackcloth. Nor, when, because ’e can't walk straight, a Chink in a ‘snowstorm’—which, o’ course, was me —stubs ’is toe against it, it don’t either feel or sound like—metal. . . At this point Cocky switched his gaze from the far distance to his employer. “An’ there’s few lumps of coal ever I’ve seen that’re just the size and shape of machine-gun parts,” he supplemented“Or as ammunition cases, either.” The information, if information it Avas, did not seem to come as any great surprise. To Colin, indeed, it was almost as if Gage had been expecting it. “And the unloading squad?” the doctor inquired. “Did you know them?” “I did that—for all their make-up,” lie said quickly, the contempt of the professional for the amateur in his tone. “One was Dago Mike and the other Busker Bert.” \ That increased alertness Colin had noticed in the doctor’s face now was more evident still. “Trigger men for The Scorpion, both of them,” he said quickly, and thought for a moment. “No fear of them having recognised you?” he demanded at last. Emphatically the little Cockney shook his head. “Me?” he demanded. “Recognise me? When I’m wearing my ‘finger-man’ outfit or any other blinkin’ make-up!” Ilia gesture of repudiation was emphatic. “They wouldn’t know me, sir,” he stated positively, “if I drank out of the same clip with ’em.” In which, as later was to be demonstrated, Cockv Avas more mistaken than a little. (To be continued daily.)