SIR EDWARD LEITHEN'S MYSTERIES - Complete Series. Buchan John

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СКАЧАТЬ was a pathetic being, only too ready to talk. I learned the squalid details of his continuous misfortunes. He had been the son of a dissenting minister in Northumberland, and had drifted through half a dozen occupations till he found his present unsavoury billet. Truth was written large on his statement; he had nothing to conceal, for his foible was folly, not crime, and he had not a rag of pride to give him reticence. He boasted that he was a gentleman and well-educated, too, but he had never had a chance. His brother had advised him badly; his brother was too clever for a prosaic world; always through his reminiscences came this echo of fraternal admiration and complaint.

      It was about the brother I wanted to know, and Mr Routh was very willing to speak. Indeed, it was hard to disentangle facts from his copious outpourings. The brother had been an engineer and a highly successful one; had dallied with politics, too, and had been a great inventor. He had put Mr Routh on to a South American speculation, where he had made a little money, but speedily lost it again. Oh, he had been a good brother in his way, and had often helped him, but he was a busy man, and his help never went quite far enough. Besides, he did not like to apply to him too often. I gathered that the brother was not a person to take liberties with.

      I asked him what he was doing now.

      “Ah,” said Mr Routh, “that is what I wish I could tell you. I will not conceal from you that for the moment I am in considerable financial straits, and this case, though my hands are clean enough, God knows, will not make life easier for me. My brother is a mysterious man, whose business often takes him abroad. I have never known even his address, for I write always to a London office from which my communications are forwarded. I only know that he is in some big electrical business, for I remember that he once let drop the remark that he was in charge of some power station. No, I do not think it is in London; probably somewhere abroad. I heard from him a fortnight ago, and he told me he was just leaving England for a couple of months. It is very annoying, for I want badly to get into touch with him.”

      “Do you know, Mr Routh,” I said, “I believe I have met your brother. Is he like you in any way?”

      “We have a strong family resemblance, but he is taller and slimmer. He has been more prosperous, and has lived a healthier life, you see.”

      “Do you happen to know,” I asked, “if he ever uses another name? I don’t think that the man I knew was called Routh.”

      The clerk flushed. “I think it highly unlikely that my brother would use an alias. He has done nothing to disgrace a name of which we are proud.”

      I told him that my memory had played me false, and we parted on very good terms. He was an innocent soul, one of those people that clever rascals get to do their dirty work for them. But there was no mistaking the resemblance. There, without the brains and force and virility, went my super-butler of Blackheath, who passed under the name of Tuke.

      The clerk had given me the name of the office to whose address he had written to his brother. I was not surprised to find that it was that of the firm of stockbrokers for whom I was still acting in the bearer-bonds case where I had heard Pavia’s name.

      I rang up the partner whom I knew, and told him a very plausible story of having a message for one of Mr Pavia’s servants, and asked him if he were in touch with them and could forward letters. He made me hold the line, and then came back and told me that he had forwarded letters for Tuke, the butler, and one Routh who was a groom or footman. Tuke had gone abroad to join his master and he did not know his address. But he advised me to write to the White Lodge.

      I thanked him and rang off. That was settled, anyhow. Tuke’s real name was Routh, and it was Tuke who had gone to Bokhara.

      My next step was to ring up Macgillivray at Scotland Yard and get an appointment in half an hour’s time. Macgillivray had been at the Bar—I had read in his Chambers—and was now one of the heads of the Criminal Investigation Department. I was about to ask him for information which he was in no way bound to give me, but I presumed on our old acquaintance.

      I asked him first whether he had ever heard of a secret organisation which went under the name of the Power-House. He laughed out loud at my question.

      “I should think we have several hundreds of such pet names on our records,” he said. “Everything from the Lodge of the Baldfaced Ravens to Solomon’s Seal No X. Fancy nomenclature is the relaxation of the tired anarchist and matters very little. The dangerous fellows have no names, no numbers even, which we can get hold of. But I’ll get a man to look up our records. There may be something filed about your Power-House.”

      My second question he answered differently. “Routh! Routh! Why, yes, there was a Routh we had dealings with a dozen years ago when I used to go the North-Eastern Circuit. He was a Trade Union official who bagged the funds, and they couldn’t bring him to justice because of the ridiculous extra-legal status they possess. He knew it, and played their own privileges against them. Oh yes, he was a very complete rogue. I once saw him at a meeting in Sunderland, and I remember his face—sneering eyes, diabolically clever mouth, and with it all as smug as a family butler. He has disappeared from England—at least we haven’t heard of him for some years, but I can show you his photograph.”

      Macgillivray took from a lettered cabinet a bundle of cards, selected one, and tossed it towards me. It was that of a man of thirty or so, with short side-whiskers and a drooping moustache. The eyes, the ill-fitting jaw, and the brow were those of my friend Mr Tuke, brother and patron of the sorrowful Mr Routh, who had already that afternoon occupied my attention.

      Macgillivray promised to make certain inquiries, and I walked home in a state of elation. Now I knew for certain who had gone to Bokhara, and I knew something, too, of the traveller’s past. A discredited genius was the very man for Lumley’s schemes—one who asked for nothing better than to use his brains outside the ring-fence of convention. Somewhere in the wastes of Turkestan the ex-Trade Union official was in search of Pitt-Heron. I did not fancy that Mr Tuke would be very squeamish.

      I dined at the club and left early. Going home, I had an impression that I was being shadowed.

      You know the feeling that someone is watching you, a sort of sensation which the mind receives without actual evidence. If the watcher is behind, where you can’t see him, you have a cold feeling between your shoulders. I daresay it is a legacy from the days when the cave-man had to look pretty sharp to keep from getting his enemy’s knife between the ribs.

      It was a bright summer evening, and Piccadilly had its usual crowd of motor-cars and buses and foot passengers. I halted twice, once in St James’s Street and once at the corner of Stratton Street, and retraced my steps for a bit; and each time I had the impression that someone a hundred yards or so off had done the same. My instinct was to turn round and face him, whoever he was, but I saw that that was foolishness. Obviously in such a crowd I could get no certainty in the matter, so I put it out of my mind.

      I spent the rest of the evening in my rooms, reading cases and trying to keep my thoughts off Central Asia. About ten I was rung up on the telephone by Felix. He had had his answer from Bokhara. Pitt-Heron had left with a small caravan on June 2nd by the main road through the Hissar range. Tommy had arrived on June 10th, and on the 12th had set off with two servants on the same trail. Travelling the lighter of the two, he should have overtaken Pitt-Heron by the 15th at latest.

      That was yesterday, and my mind was immensely relieved. Tommy in such a situation was a tower of strength, for, whatever his failings in politics, I knew no one I would rather have with me to go tiger-shooting.

      Next day the sense of espionage increased. I was in the habit of walking down to the Temple by way of Pall Mall and the Embankment, but, as I did not happen to be in Court that morning, СКАЧАТЬ