Serial Story The Jade Token

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 440, 4 December 1930, Page 12

Serial Story The Jade Token

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Ralph Trevor)

(Author of “Under Suspicion,” etc.) (All Rights Reserved)

SYNOPSIS. A murder Is committed tn the surgery of Dr. .Wallace Langley, he being decoyed from the place at the time. The police find the murdered man, named Conrad Ricks, has come from South America, and had recently asked Jules Conn, an antique dealer, to value a piece of jade set with a valuable ruby and inscribed with hieroglyphics. This jade token is now missing.

Scotland Yard have been perplexed by a series of daring jewel robberies. Curtis Burke, a brilliant young detective who is given control of the case, connects these robberies with the murder of Conrad Ricks. Inspector Ames, an elderly detective, assists Burke. Ames is hostile to Dr. Langley, and feeling that he is under suspicion, Langley consults Sir Garvice Watkin, a great criminal lawyer. Langley is engaged to Sonia Cranston, a niece of Sir Garvice.

Sir Garvice tells the young doctor that there is something suspicious about Inspector Ames.

Sir Garvice Watkin invites Burke to his country house for the week-end, and there he meets Ann Marvin, a friend of Sonia Cranston.

There is an atmosphere of mystery about Ann Marvin and Burke, although attracted to her, suspects her of being a criminal. A gold crucifix belonging to Sir Garvice is stolen during the night. Looking for clues Burke finds a black bone button of an unusual type. There was only one man he knew who wore buttons like that, and that was Detective Inspector Ame§, of Scotland Yard.

Burke visits Professor Browning to try and learn something of the history of the ancient jade token which was stolen from the murdered man. Another murder is committed, and jewels stolen. Finger-prints lead to the arrest of one Joe Denver. Sir Garvice Watkin offers his services in the defence of the accused. At the trial it transpires that Denver has been a member of “The Long Arm,” a criminal association with an unknown head who directs all its operations. CHAPTER XXII.— (Continued.) By that 1 mean that she is a member of a gang—a member of the famous gang which you and I have been endeavouring io track down for so long. She has committed a number of thefts. It was she who stole the Fanshawe ruby, and though she was not—l suppose by reason of her inexperience—permitted to hand over the jewel personally, i managed to frail the agent who did so. That was last night, and that was why it was necessary for you to be removed for a few hours. But I will return to that matter later. I am now merely trying to convince you, Mr Burke, that if you were to do anything precipitate at this juncture you would most certainly live to regret it." Inspector Ames paused .to light his pipe, and Burke watched him with

eyes of sheer amazement. He had expected some sort of clever story, but he had never expected anything at all like this. It was incredible —almost impossible. Ames leaned back in his copious chair and stretched out his legs in front of him. Ann still sat up to the tabic, cupping her chin in her hands, her magnetic eyes seldom leaving Burke’s face for a moment. A

“You may possibly be thinking," continued Ames, “that Ann, being actually a member of the gang that has been operating against us, it would have been comparatively easy for her to discover the chief of the organisation. That was precisely what I thought at the lime, but since then I have become a wiser man. Not a day has passed but what 1 have learned to admire the craft and the skill with which this enormous organisation has been founded, and the machinelike manner in which it invariably works. Even now, with the considerable knowledge concerning it which 1 possess, 1 am little more than an observer on lhe fringe of it. Ann here, will tell you that the person assigned to do a particular job is never allowed to deliver the loot to lhe 'Long Arm' in person. There is always another intermediary, and Sir Garvice Watkin was perfectly correct when he mentioned the other day that the jewels are always handed over in some part of the country other than that in which the robbery has been commit led.

“Denver, of course, was. one of the gang. It is possible that the story given out during the trial that it was supposed to be his last job for the ■firm’ was correct. Again, Sir Garvice Watkin was extraordinarily well-in-formed. It was comparatively easy for me to arrest Denver, because I knew, through Ann, that he was a member of the gang. I did not know, however, that he had been actually assigned that particular job. That was just guess-work and luck. I doubt very much —and Ann will verify my statement —whether any two members of this international organisation are known to each other. The fact that she knew Denver was connected—arose out of an incident, in New York when a man from Pringle's obtained certain information which led him,to suppose that Joe Denver was intimately connected.

“To return once more to Ann, I may, say that as an employee of Pringle’s she has not been actively working on our end of the case at all. She has been engaged on Hie case of the Lowenstein jewels, which you may recall. were stolen from the mansion of Baron Lowenstein, the Chicago millionaire, and consisted of a large number of jewels and ornaments purchased by him in Mexico some months before and which were said to have been of Inca origin. I mention that, not necessarily because 1 fancy you are more than normally interested in my daughter’s career, but because they have provided the first definite clue as to the mighty brain behind this organisation, and because the quality of the loot tallied coincidentally with the’ description of the several thousands of pounds worth of stuff for which Scotland Yard, represented by noth of us, has been searching.” Arnes had allowed his pipe to extinguish itstflf from xmuU of attention,

and paused for a moment to rekind it with that fastidiousness so oharac teristic of the man.

Curtis Burke’s eyes had begun to sparkle as he had listened with rapt attentiveness to the older man's story. He realised now that, clever as this man was, he was not clever enough to concoct a story so convincing in every detail as this one was. lie knew that Inspector Robert Ames was speaking the truth, and regretted his own presumption and his impetuosity. How nearly he had been to making a first-rate fool of himself! He shuddered to think what such precipitancy as he had contemplated might have meant to them all. ]t might have meant that he would have lost Ann for ever, for there are some breaches that even love cannot wholly heal. Ames had got his black briar operating once again to his entire satisfaction.

“Last night.” the inspector continued, “that is after Ann had sent you off on your wild goose chase to Chessington. we left here together, Ann io a spot on the Great North Road near Three Crosses, with the ruby in her possession, I ahead of her in one of the fastest cars we have at lhe Yard. At Three Crosses I noticed another car waiting wilh dimmed headlights, but 1 did not pause. On we went for nearly an hour. Then, Mr Burke, would you believe it, but something went wrong with the magneto, and it took us until that car I had seen at Three Crosses had flashed past us like Mercury reared on petrol to get it right. Then we roared on again, and found two cars drawn up by the roadside a mile this side of Wolverhampton; but, once again we did not pause. I got to know all I wanted to know. The Fanshawe ruby had been handed over to the ‘Long Arm.'

“But, surely,” protested Burke, “you should have apprehended the fellow there and then if you knew so much. Don't you think ”

“I always do,” interrupted Ames wilh a smile. “You have not yet heard all my story. I was content to wail, because even now I have nothing more than a theory. The number plate of the car I had noticed at Three Crosses had been changed by the time it passed us heading for Wolverhampton. No, I am still content Io bide my time. Things will straighten out before many hours are past. But now, Mr Burke, perhaps you will take a hand in this matter with me. I don’t want you to judge me 100 harshly; I don’t want you to accuse me of not taking you into my confidence; but I would like you to ascertain whether Sir Garvice Watkin slept at Rio Court last night or whether he had a room at the Mitre Hotel, Birmingham. I think you will find that the latter is the more correct.”. “My God!” burst out Burke, his face white as chalk. “You don’t mean to suggest—you can’t—it’s ” “I don’t suggest anything,” supplied Ames. "I just ask you to inquire.” CHAPTER XXIII. Where Was Blr Garvice? Before leaving Inspector Ames and Ann, on his mission to discover where Sir Garvice Watkin spent the previous night, Curtis Burke was destined to learn a great deal more about the man he had erroneously suspected; so much that his respect for Ames leapt up to the hundred per cent, mark, while he also knew Ann could probably give him lessons in deduction and criminal investigation generally. This realisation, however, only made Burke admire the girl ah Lhe more. Now that he knew the truth he realised how utterly blind he had been in every particular except that he loved her very dearly. Burke learned that Inspector Robert Ames had one great ambition in life, and that ambition was the tracking down of this arch crook who had so successfully conducted this vast organisation of crime and who had been instrumental in eluding the watchful eyes of the police of five countries. He realised that Ames had, even before he had been sent to America, decided to make the detection of Ihis monster a sort of life, work and that Ann, knowing her father's ambition, had set herself the task of helping him in every means within her power. That she had succeeded, Burke well knew, for it was she who had first given Ames a definite clue to the criminal's identity.

Curiously enough this had been during the week-end he had spent with Sir Garvice Watkin at Rio Court and where he had first met the girl he knew as Ann Marvin. Ames recalled to Burke’s mind once again the theft of the jewelled crucifix which had reposed in the library, and the young man heard how Ann had procured an impression of the keys when they were left on the hall table for a few moments by the butler; how she had gone from her room that night, opened the library door, removed the crucifix and handed it to Ames out of the window. How Ames, in reaching upwards for it had burst a button from his coal; how Ami had been just Loo late the following morning in

coming to look for it in case the finding of it might lead Io rather awkward consequences.

“I really thought you had me there Burke,” smiled Ames genially, “because you see if the identity of the Ihief had been discovered it would have blasted all my work because my case was not nearly so complete as it is to-day.” “But what had the jewelled crucifix got to do with it?” asked the astonished Burke. Vl'o be continued.)