The Greatest Thrillers of Edgar Wallace. Edgar Wallace

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Chapter XVIII

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      T.X. sat at his desk, his chin in his hands, his mind remarkably busy. Grave as the matter was which he was considering, he rose with alacrity to meet the smiling girl who was ushered through the door by Mansus, preternaturally solemn and mysterious.

      She was radiant that day. Her eyes were sparkling with an unusual brightness.

      “I’ve got the most wonderful thing to tell you,” she said, “and I can’t tell you.”

      “That’s a very good beginning,” said T.X., taking her muff from her hand.

      “Oh, but it’s really wonderful,” she cried eagerly, “more wonderful than anything you have ever heard about.”

      “We are interested,” said T.X. blandly.

      “No, no, you mustn’t make fun,” she begged, “I can’t tell you now, but it is something that will make you simply—” she was at a loss for a simile.

      “Jump out of my skin?” suggested T.X.

      “I shall astonish you,” she nodded her head solemnly.

      “I take a lot of astonishing, I warn you,” he smiled; “to know you is to exhaust one’s capacity for surprise.”

      “That can be either very, very nice or very, very nasty,” she said cautiously.

      “But accept it as being very, very nice,” he laughed. “Now come, out with this tale of yours.”

      She shook her head very vigorously.

      “I can’t possibly tell you anything,” she said.

      “Then why the dickens do you begin telling anything for?” he complained, not without reason.

      “Because I just want you to know that I do know something.”

      “Oh, Lord!” he groaned. “Of course you know everything. Belinda Mary, you’re really the most wonderful child.”

      He sat on the edge of her armchair and laid his hand on her shoulder.

      “And you’ve come to take me out to lunch!”

      “What were you worrying about when I came in?” she asked.

      He made a little gesture as if to dismiss the subject.

      “Nothing very much. You’ve heard me speak of John Lexman?”

      She bent her head.

      “Lexman’s the writer of a great many mystery stories, but you’ve probably read his books.”

      She nodded again, and again T.X. noticed the suppressed eagerness in her eyes.

      “You’re not ill or sickening for anything, are you?” he asked anxiously; “measles, or mumps or something?”

      “Don’t be silly,” she said; “go on and tell me something about Mr. Lexman.”

      “He’s going to America,” said T.X., “and before he goes he wants to give a little lecture.”

      “A lecture?”

      “It sounds rum, doesn’t it, but that’s just what he wants to do.”

      “Why is he doing it!” she asked.

      T.X. made a gesture of despair.

      “That is one of the mysteries which may never be revealed to me, except—” he pursed his lips and looked thoughtfully at the girl. “There are times,” he said, “when there is a great struggle going on inside a man between all the human and better part of him and the baser professional part of him. One side of me wants to hear this lecture of John Lexman’s very much, the other shrinks from the ordeal.”

      “Let us talk it over at lunch,” she said practically, and carried him off.

Chapter XIX

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      One would not readily associate the party of top-booted sewermen who descend nightly to the subterranean passages of London with the stout viceconsul at Durazzo. Yet it was one unimaginative man who lived in Lambeth and had no knowledge that there was such a place as Durazzo who was responsible for bringing this comfortable official out of his bed in the early hours of the morning causing him — albeit reluctantly and with violent and insubordinate language — to conduct certain investigations in the crowded bazaars.

      At first he was unsuccessful because there were many Hussein Effendis in Durazzo. He sent an invitation to the American Consul to come over to tiffin and help him.

      “Why the dickens the Foreign Office should suddenly be interested in Hussein Effendi, I cannot for the life of me understand.”

      “The Foreign Department has to be interested in something, you know,” said the genial American. “I receive some of the quaintest requests from Washington; I rather fancy they only wire you to find if they are there.”

      “Why are you doing this!”

      “I’ve seen Hakaat Bey,” said the English official. “I wonder what this fellow has been doing? There is probably a wigging for me in the offing.”

      At about the same time the sewerman in the bosom of his own family was taking loud and noisy sips from a big mug of tea.

      “Don’t you be surprised,” he said to his admiring better half, “if I have to go up to the Old Bailey to give evidence.”

      “Lord! Joe!” she said with interest, “what has happened!”

      The sewer man filled his pipe and told the story with a wealth of rambling detail. He gave particulars of the hour he had descended the Victoria Street shaft, of what Bill Morgan had said to him as they were going down, of what he had said to Harry Carter as they splashed along the low-roofed tunnel, of how he had a funny feeling that he was going to make a discovery, and so on and so forth until he reached his long delayed climax.

      T.X. waited up very late that night and at twelve o’clock his patience was rewarded, for the Foreign Office’ messenger brought a telegram to him. It was addressed to the Chief Secretary and ran:

      “No. 847. Yours 63952 of yesterday’s date. Begins. Hussein Effendi a prosperous merchant of this city left for Italy to place his daughter in convent Marie Theressa, Florence Hussein being Christian. He goes on to Paris. Apply Ralli Theokritis et Cie., Rue de l’Opera. Ends.”

      Half an hour later T.X. had a telephone connection through to Paris and was instructing the British police agent in that city. He received a further telephone report СКАЧАТЬ