DETECTIVE HAMILTON CLEEK TRILOGY. Thomas W. Hanshew

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      Maverick Narkom.

      Cleek did not even glance at the afternoon paper which Mrs. Culpin had so considerately left him. Instead, he walked to the open window, through which the summer sunshine was streaming, and, with his hands loosely clasped behind his back, stood looking out thoughtfully at the groups of merry children who were romping on the not far distant common and making the air melodious with their happy laughter. And so he was still standing when, some ten or a dozen minutes later, the door behind him opened and Narkom walked into the room.

      "Well, here I am at last, you see, my dear fellow," said the superintendent, crossing the floor and shaking hands with him. "Ripping day, isn't it? What are you doing, admiring the view or taking stock of Mrs. Culpin's roses?"

      "Neither. I was speculating in futures," replied Cleek, glancing back at the sunlit common, and then glancing away again with a faintly audible sigh. "How happy, how care-free they are, those merry little beggars, Mr. Narkom. What you said in your letter set my thoughts harking backward, and ... I was wondering what things the coming years might hold for them and for their parents. At one time, you know, that fellow Philip Bawdrey was as innocent and as guileless as any of those little shavers; and yet in the after years he proved a monster of iniquity, a beast of ingratitude, and—— Oh, well, let it pass. He paid, as thankless children always do pay under God's good rule. I wonder what his thoughts were when his last hour came."

      "It did come, then?"

      "Yes. I had a letter from Mrs. Bawdrey the other day. News had just come of his death—from Bright's disease, of course—in Buenos Ayres. His father never knew of his guilt; never will know now, thank God! He mourned bitterly, of course, poor, dear old chap; but—well, Heaven tempers all things with its mercy. The rascal did not die an only son. There's another now, born three months ago. The longer I live the more sure I become that straight living always pays, and that Heaven never forgets to punish and to reward."

      "Ten years of Scotland Yard have enabled me to endorse that statement emphatically," replied Narkom. "'The riddle of the ninth finger' was no different in that respect from nine hundred other riddles that have come my way since I took office. Now sit down, old chap, and let us take up the present case. But I say, Cleek, speaking of rewards reminds me of what I wrote you. There's very little chance of one in this affair. All the parties connected with it are in very moderate circumstances. The sculptor fellow, Van Nant, who figures in it, was quite well to do at one time, I believe, but he ran through the greater part of his money, and a dishonest solicitor did him out of the rest. Miss Morrison herself never did have any, and, as I have told you, the captain hasn't anything in the world but his pension; and it takes every shilling of that to keep them. In the circumstances, I'd have made it a simple 'Yard' affair, chargeable to the Government, and put one of the regular staff upon it. But it's such an astounding, such an unheard-of thing, I knew you'd fairly revel in it. And besides, after all the rewards you have won you must be quite a well-to-do man by this time, and able to indulge in a little philanthropy."

      Cleek smiled.

      "I will indulge in it, of course," he said, "but not for that reason, Mr. Narkom. I wonder how much it will surprise you to learn that, at the present moment, I have just one hundred pounds in all the world?"

      "My dear fellow!" Narkom exclaimed with a sort of gasp, staring at him in round-eyed amazement. "You fairly take away my breath. Why, you must have received a fortune since you took up these special cases. Fifty or sixty thousand pounds at the smallest calculation."

      "More! To be precise, I have received exactly seventy-two thousand pounds, Mr. Narkom. But, as I tell you, I have to-day but one hundred pounds of that sum left. Lost in speculation? Oh, dear no! I've not invested one farthing in any scheme, company, or purchase since the night you gave me my chance and helped me to live an honest life."

      "Then in the name of Heaven, Cleek, what has become of the money?"

      "It has gone in the cause of my redemption, Mr. Narkom," he answered in a hushed voice. "My good friend—for you really have been a good friend to me, the best I ever had in all the world—my good friend, let us for only just this one minute speak of the times that lie behind. You know what redeemed me, a woman's eyes, a woman's rose-white soul. I said, did I not, that I wanted to win her, wanted to be worthy of her, wanted to climb up and stand with her in the light? You remember that, do you not, Mr. Narkom?"

      "Yes, I remember. But, my dear fellow, why speak of your 'Vanishing Cracksman' days when you have so utterly put them behind you, and for five whole years have lived a life beyond reproach? Whatever you did in those times you have amply atoned for. And what can that have to do with your impoverished state?"

      "It has everything to do with it. I said I would be worthy of that one dear woman, and I never can be, Mr. Narkom, until I have made restitution; until I can offer her a clean hand as well as a clean life. I can't restore the actual things that the 'Vanishing Cracksman' stole; for they are gone beyond recall, but I can, at least, restore the value of them, and that I have been secretly doing for a long time."

      "Man alive! God bless my soul! Cleek, my dear fellow, do you mean to tell me that all the rewards, all the money you have earned in the past five years——"

      "Have gone to the people from whom I stole things in the wretched old days that lie behind me," he finished very gently. "It goes back, in secret gifts, as fast as it is earned, Mr. Narkom. Don't you see the answers, the acknowledgments, in the 'Personal' columns of the papers now and again? Wheresoever I robbed in those old days, I am repaying in these. When the score is wiped off, when the last robbery is paid for, my hand will be clean, and I can offer it; never before."

      "Cleek! My dear fellow! What a man! What a man! Oh, more than ever am I certain now that old Sir Horace Wyvern was right that night when he said that you were a gentleman. Tell me—I'll respect it—tell me, for God's sake, man, who are you? What are you, dear friend?"

      "Cleek," he made reply. "Just Cleek! The rest is my secret and—God's! We've never spoken of the past since that night, Mr. Narkom, and, with your kind permission, we never will speak of it again. I'm Cleek, the detective, at your service once more. Now, then, let's have the new strange case on which you called me here. What's it all about?"

      "Necromancy—wizardry—fairy-lore—all the stuff and nonsense that goes to the making of 'The Arabian nights'!" said Narkom, waxing excited as his thoughts were thus shoved back to the amazing affair he had in hand. "All your 'Red Crawls' and your 'Sacred Sons' and your 'Nine-fingered Skeletons' are fools to it for wonder and mystery. Talk about witchcraft! Talk about wizards and giants and enchanters and the things that witches did in the days of Macbeth! God bless my soul, they're nothing to it. Those were the days of magic, anyhow, so you can take it or leave it, as you like; but this—— Look here, Cleek, you've heard of a good many queer things and run foul of a good many mysteries, I'll admit, but did you ever in this twentieth century, when witchcraft and black magic are supposed to be as dead as Queen Anne, hear of such a marvel as a man putting on a blue leather belt that was said to have the power of rendering the wearer invisible, and then forthwith melting into thin air and floating off like a cloud of pipe smoke?"

      "Gammon!"

      "Gammon nothing! Facts!"

      "Facts? You're out of your head, man. The thing couldn't possibly happen. Somebody's having you!"

      "Well, somebody had him, at all events. Young Carboys, I mean—the chap that's engaged, or, rather, was engaged, to Captain Morrison's daughter; and the poor girl's half out of her mind over it. He put the belt on in the presence of her and her father in their own house, mind you walked into a bedroom, and vanished like smoke. Doors locked, windows СКАЧАТЬ