Cleek of Scotland Yard: Detective Stories. Hanshew Thomas W.

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      “Come on, guv’ner, come on, all of you!” he broke out as he came abreast of them. “She’s there – they’re all there – kickin’ up Meg’s diversions, sir, and singin’ and dancin’ like mad. And, sir, he’s there, too – the pedler chap! I see him come up and sneak in with the rest. Come on! This way, all of you.”

      If they had merely run before, they all but flew now; for this second assurance that Margot, the great and long-sought-for Margot, was actually within their reach served to spur every man to outdo himself; so that it was but a minute or two later when they came in sight of the inn and bore down upon it in a solid phalanx. And then – just then – when another minute would have settled everything – the demon of mischance chose to play them a scurvy trick.

      All they knew of it was that an Apache coming out of the building for some purpose of his own looked up and saw them, then faced round and bent back in the doorway; that of a sudden a very tornado of music and laughter and singing and dancing rolled out into the night, and that when they came pounding up to the doorway, the fellow was lounging there serenely smoking; and, inside, his colleagues were holding a revel wild enough to wake the dead.

      In the winking of an eye he was carried off his feet and swept on by this sudden inrush of the law; the door clashed open, the little slatted barrier beyond was knocked aside, and the police were pouring into the room and running headlong into a spinning mass of wild dancers.

      The band ceased suddenly as they appeared, the dancers cried out as if in a panic of alarm, and at Ducroix’s commanding “Surrender in the name of the Law!” a fat woman behind the bar flung up her arms and voiced a despairing shriek.

      “Soul of misfortune! for what, m’sieur – for what?” she cried. “It is no sin to laugh and dance. We break no law, my customers and I. What is it you want that you come in upon us like this?”

      Ah, what indeed? Not anything that could be seen. A glance round the room showed nothing and no one but these suddenly disturbed dancers, and of Margot and the Mauravanian never a sign.

      “M’sieur!” began Ducroix, turning to Narkom, whose despair was only too evident, and who, in company with Dollops, was rushing about the place pushing people here and there, looking behind them, looking in all the corners, and generally deporting themselves after the manner of a couple of hounds endeavouring to pick up a lost scent. “M’sieur, shall it be an error, then?”

      Narkom did not answer. Of a sudden, however, he remembered what had been said of the trap and, pushing aside a group of girls standing over it, found it in the middle of the floor.

      “Here it is – this is the way she got out!” he shouted. “Bolted, by James! bolted on the under side! Up with it, up with it – the Jezebel got out this way.” But though Ducroix and Dollops aided him, and they pulled and tugged and tugged and pulled, they could not budge it one inch.

      “M’sieur, no – what madness! He is not a trap – ? no, he is not a trap at all!” protested old Marise. “It is but a square where the floor broke and was mended! Mother of misfortune, it is nothing but that.”

      What response Narkom might have made was checked by a sudden discovery. Huddling in a corner, feigning a drunken sleep, he saw a man lying with his face hidden in his folded arms. It was the pedler. He pounced on the man and jerked up his head before the fellow could prevent it or could dream of what was about to happen.

      “Here’s one of them at least!” he cried, and fell to shaking him with all his force. “Here’s one of Margot’s pals, Ducroix. You shan’t go empty-handed after all.”

      A cry of consternation fluttered through the gathering as he brought the man’s face into view. Evidently they were past masters of the art of acting, these Apaches, for one might have sworn that every man and every woman of them was taken aback by the fellow’s presence.

      “Mother of Miracles! who shall the man be?” exclaimed Marise. “Messieurs, I know him not. I have not seen him in all my life before. Cochon, speak up! Who are you, that you come in like this and get a respectable widow in trouble, dog? Eh?”

      The man made a motion first to his ears, then to his mouth, then fell to making movements in the sign language, but spoke never a word.

      “La, la! he is a deaf mute, m’sieur,” said Ducroix. “He hears not and speaks not, poor unfortunate.”

      “Oh, doesn’t he?” said Narkom with an ugly laugh. “He spoke well enough a couple of hours back, I promise you. My young friend here and I heard him when he paid off the fisherman who had carried him over to Dover just before he sneaked aboard the packet to come back with Margot and the Mauravanian.”

      The eyes of the Apaches flew to the man’s face with a sudden keen interest which only they might understand; but he still stood, wagging his great head either drunkenly or idiotically, and pointing to ears and mouth.

      “Lay hold of him – run him in!” said Narkom, whirling him across into the arms of a couple of stalwart Sergeants de Ville. “I’ll go before the magistrate and lay a charge against him in the morning that will open your eyes when you hear it. One of a bloodthirsty, dynamiting crew, the dog! Lay fast hold of him! don’t let him get away on your lives! God! to have lost that woman! to have lost her after all!”

      It was a sore blow, certainly, but there was nothing to do but to grin and bear it; for to seek Margot at any of the inns which might communicate with the sewer trap, or to hunt for her and a motor boat on the dark water’s surface, was in very truth like looking for a needle in a haystack, and quite as hopeless. He therefore, decided to go, for the rest of the night, to the nearest hotel; and waiting only to see the pedler carried away in safe custody, and promising to be on hand when he was brought up before the local magistrate in the morning, took Dollops by the arm and dejectedly went his way.

      The morning saw him living up to his promise; and long before the arrival of the magistrate or, indeed, before the night’s harvest of prisoners was brought over from the lockup and thrust into the three little “detention rooms” below the court, he was there with Dollops and Ducroix, observing with wonder that groups of evil-looking fellows of the Apache breed were hanging round the building as he approached, and that later on others of the same kidney slipped in and took seats in the little courtroom and kept constantly whispering one to the other while they waited for the morning session to begin.

      “Gawd’s truth, guv’ner, look at ’em – the ’ole blessed place is alive with the bounders,” whispered Dollops. “Wot do you think they are up to, sir? Makin’ a rush and settin’ the pedler free when he comes up before the Beak? There’s twenty of ’em waitin’ round the door if there’s one.”

      Narkom made no reply. The arrival of the magistrate focussed all eyes on the bench and riveted his attention with the rest.

      The proceedings opened with all the trivial cases first – the night’s sweep of the dragnet: drunks and disorderlies, vagrants and pariahs. One by one these were brought in and paid their fines and went their way, unheeded; for this part of the morning’s proceedings interested nobody, not even the Apaches. The list was dragged through monotonously; the last blear-eyed sot – a hideous, cadaverous, monkey-faced wretch whose brutal countenance sickened Narkom when he shambled up in his filthy rags – had paid his fine, and gone his way, and there remained now but a case of attempted suicide to be disposed of before the serious cases began. This latter occupied the magistrate’s time and attention for perhaps twenty minutes or so, then that, too, was disposed of; and then a voice was heard calling out for the unknown man arrested last night at the Inn of the Seven Sinners to be brought forward.

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