Berry And Co. (21 page)

A taxi slowed for a distant corner and turned into the street. For a moment it seemed to falter. Then its speed was changed clumsily, and it began to grind its way in our direction. My heart began to beat violently. Again the speed was changed, and the rising snarl choked to give way to a metallic murmur, which was rapidly approaching. I could hardly breathe… Then the noise swelled up, hung for an instant upon the very crest of earshot, only to sink abruptly as the cab swept past, taking our hopes with it.

Two-thirds of the silver had disappeared.

Berry cleared his throat.

“You know,” he said, “this is an education. In my innocence I thought that a burglar shoved his swag in a sack and then pushed off, and did the rest in the back parlour of a beer-house in Notting Dale. As it is, my only wonder is that you didn’t bring a brazier and a couple of melting-pots.”

“Not my job,” was the reply. “I’m not a receiver. Besides, you don’t think that all this beautiful silver is to be broken up?” The horror of his uplifted hands would have been more convincing if both of them had been empty. “Why, in a very little while, particularly if you travel, you will have every opportunity of buying it back again in open market.”

“But how comic,” said Berry. “I should think you’re a favourite at Lloyd’s. D’you mind if I blow my nose? Or would that be a
casus belli
?”

“Not at all” – urbanely. “Indeed, if you would care to give me your word…”

Berry shook his head.

“Honour among thieves?” he said. “Unfortunately I’m honest, so you must have no truck with me. Never mind. D’you touch cards at all? Or only at Epsom?”

Beneath the green mask the mouth tightened, and I could see that the taunt had gone home. No man likes to be whipped before his underlings.

Nobby profited by the master’s silence, and had devoured two more chocolates before Berry spoke again – this time to me.

“Gentleman seems annoyed,” he remarked. “I do hope he hasn’t misconstrued anything I’ve said. D’you think we ought to offer him breakfast? Of course, five is rather a lot, but I dare say one of them is a vegetarian, and you can pretend you don’t care for haddock. Or they may have some tripe downstairs. You never know. And afterwards we could run them back to Limehouse. By the way, I wonder if I ought to tell him about the silver which-not. It’s only nickel, but I don’t want to keep anything back. Oh, and what about the dividend warrant? Of course it wants riveting and – er – forging, and I don’t think they’d recognize it, but he could try. If I die before he goes, ask him to leave his address; then, if he leaves anything behind, the butler can send it on. I remember I left a pair of bed-socks once at Chatsworth. The Duke never sent them on, but then they were perishable. Besides, one of them followed me as far as Leicester. Instinct, you know. I wrote to
The Field
about it.” He paused to shift uneasily in his seat. “You know, if I have to sustain this pose much longer, I shall get railway spine or a hare lip or something.”

“Hush,” said I. “What did Alfred Austin say in 1895?”

“I know,” said Berry. “‘Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet ’tis early morn.’ Precisely. But then all his best work was admittedly done under the eiderdown.”

The clock upon the wall was chiming the hour. Two o’clock.

Would Jonah never come?

I fancy the same query renewed its hammering at Berry’s brain, for, after a moment’s reflection, he turned to the master.

“I don’t wish to presume upon your courtesy,” he said, “but will the executive portion of your night’s work finish when that remaining treasure has been bestowed?”

“So far as you are concerned.”

“Oh, another appointment! Of course, this ‘summer time’ stunt gives you another hour, doesn’t it? Well, I must wish you a warmer welcome.”

“That were impossible,” was the bland reply. “Once or twice, I must confess, I thought you a little – er – equivocal, but let that pass. I only regret that Mrs Pleydell, particularly, should have been so much inconvenienced.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Berry. “As a matter of fact, we’re all very pleased to have met you. You have interested us more than I can say, with true chivalry you have abstained from murder and mutilation, and you have suffered me to blow my nose, when a less courteous visitor would have obliged me to sniff with desperate and painful regularity for nearly half an hour. Can generosity go further?”

The rogue upon the club-kerb began to shake with laughter again.

“You’re a good loser,” he crowed. “I’ll give you that. I’m quite glad you came down. Most of my hosts I never see, and that’s dull, you know, dull. And those I do are so often – er – unsympathetic. Yes, I shall remember tonight.”

“Going to change his rings,” murmured Berry.

“And now the highly delicate question of our departure is, I am afraid, imminent. To avoid exciting impertinent curiosity, you will appreciate that we must take our leave as artlessly as possible, and that the order of our going must be characterized by no unusual circumstance, such, for instance, as a hue and cry. Anything so vulgar as a scene must at all costs be obviated. Excuse me. Blake!”

Confederate Number One stepped noiselessly to his side and listened in silence to certain instructions, which were to us inaudible.

I looked about me.

The last of the silver had disappeared. The packer was dismantling the scales as a preliminary to laying them in the last suit-case. The clerk was fastening together the sheets which he had detached from the flimsy order-book. Number Three had taken a light overcoat from a chair and was putting it on. And the time was six minutes past two…

And what of Jonah? He and Harry would probably arrive about five minutes too late. I bit my lip savagely…

Again the chief malefactor lifted up his voice.

“It is my experience,” he drawled, “that temerity is born, if not of curiosity, then of ignorance. Now, if there is one vice more than another which I deplore, it is temerity – especially when it is displayed by a host at two o’clock of a morning. I am therefore going to the root of the matter. In short, I propose to satisfy your very natural curiosity regarding our method of departure, and, incidentally, to show you exactly what you are up against. You see, I believe in prevention.” His utterance of the last sentences was more silky than ever.

“The constables who have passed this house since half-past twelve will, if reasonably observant, have noticed the carpet which, upon entering, we laid upon the steps. A departure of guests, therefore, even at this advanced hour, should arouse no more suspicion than the limousine-landaulette which has now been waiting for some nine minutes.

“The lights in the hall will now be turned on, the front door will be opened wide, and the footman will place the suit-cases in the car, at the open door of which he will stand, while my colleagues and I – I need hardly say by this time unmasked – emerge at our leisure, chatting in a most ordinary way.

“I shall be the last to enter the car – I beg your pardon. Tonight I shall be the last but one” – for an instant he halted, as if to emphasize the correction – “and my entry will coincide with what is a favourable opportunity for the footman to assume the cap and overcoat which he must of necessity wear if his closing of the front door and subsequent occupation of the seat by the chauffeur are to excite no remark… You see, I try to think of everything.”

He paused for a moment, regarding the tips of his fingers, as though they were ungloved. Then—

“Your presence here presents no difficulty. Major and Mrs Pleydell will stay in this room, silent…and motionless…and detaining the dog. You” – nonchalantly he pointed an extremely ugly trenchdagger in my direction – “will vouch with your – er – health for their observance of these conditions. Be good enough to stand up and place your hands behind you.”

With a glance at Berry, I rose. All things considered, there was nothing else to be done.

The man whom he had addressed as “Blake” picked up Nobby and, crossing the room, laid the terrier in Berry’s arms. Then he lashed my wrists together with the rapidity of an expert.

“Understand, I take no chances.” A harsh note had crept into the even tones. “The slightest indiscretion will cost this gentleman extremely dear.”

I began to hope very much that my brother-in-law would appreciate the advisability of doing as he had been told.

“George, my coat.” The voice was as suave as ever again. “Thank you. Is everything ready?”

Berry stifled a yawn.

“You don’t mean to say,” he exclaimed, “that you’re actually going? Dear me. Well, well… I don’t suppose you’ve a card on you? No. Sorry. I should have liked to remember you in my prayers. Never mind. And you don’t happen to know of a good plain cook, do you? No. I thought not. Well, if you should hear of one…”

“Carry on.”

Blake laid a hand on my shoulder and urged me towards the door. As I was going, I saw the master bow.

“Mrs Pleydell,” he said, “I have the honour – Dear me! There’s that ridiculous word again. Never mind – the honour to bid
adieu
to a most brave lady.”

With a faint sneer my sister regarded him. Then—

“
Au revoir
,” she said steadily.

“So long, old bean,” said Berry. “See you at Vine Street.”

As I passed into the hall, the lights went up and a cap was clapped on to my head and pulled down tight over my eyes. Then I was thrust into a corner of the hall, close to the front door. Immediately this was opened, and I could hear everything happen as we had been led to expect. Only there was a hand on my shoulder…

I heard the master coming with a jest on his lips.

As he passed me, he was speaking ostensibly to one of his comrades…ostensibly…

“I shouldn’t wait up for Jonah,” he said.

Thanks to the fact that one of the Assistant Commissioners of Police was an old friend of mine, we were spared much of the tedious interrogation and well-meant, but in the circumstances utterly futile, attentions of the subordinate officers of the CID.

Admission to the house had been gained without breaking, and there were no finger-prints. Moreover, since our visitors had worn masks, such descriptions of them as we could give were very inadequate. However, statements were taken from my sister, Berry and myself, and the spurious telegram was handed over. The insurance company was, of course, informed of the crime.

Despite the paucity of detail, our description of the gang and its methods aroused tremendous excitement at Scotland Yard. The master, it appeared, was a veritable Prince of Darkness. Save that he existed, and was a man of large ideas and the utmost daring, to whose charge half the great unplaced robberies of recent years were, rightly or wrongly, laid, little or nothing was known of his manners or personality.

“I tell you,” said the Assistant Commissioner, leaning back and tilting his chair, “he’s just about as hot as they make ’em. And when we do take him, if ever we do – and that might be tomorrow, or in ten years’ time – we might walk straight into him next week with the stuff in his hands; you never know – well, when we do take him, as like as not, he’ll prove to be a popular MP, or a recognized authority on livestock or something. You’ve probably seen him heaps of times in St James’s, and, as like as not, he’s a member of your own Club. Depend upon it, the old sinner moves in those circles which you know are above suspicion. If somebody pinched your watch at Ascot, you’d never look for the thief in the enclosure, would you? Of course not. Well, I may be wrong, but I don’t think so. Meanwhile let’s have some lunch.”

For my sister the ordeal had been severe, and for the thirty hours following the robbery she had kept her bed. Berry had contracted a slight cold, and I was not one penny the worse. Jill was overcome to learn what she had missed, and the reflection that she had mercifully slept upstairs, while such a drama was being enacted upon the ground floor, rendered her inconsolable. Jonah was summoned by telegram, and came pelting from Somerset, to be regaled with a picturesque account of the outrage, the more purple features of which he at first regarded as embroidery, and for some time flatly refused to believe. As was to be expected, Nobby paid for his treachery with an attack of biliousness, the closing stages of which were terrible to behold. At one time it seemed as if no constitution could survive such an upheaval; but, although the final convulsion left him subdued and listless, he was as right as ever upon the following morning.

The next Sunday we registered what was to be our last attendance of Church Parade for at least three months.

By common consent we had that morning agreed altogether to eschew the subject of crime. Ever since it had happened we had discussed the great adventure so unceasingly that, as Berry had remarked at breakfast, it was more than likely that, unless we were to take an immediate and firm line with ourselves, we should presently get Grand Larceny on the brain, and run into some danger of qualifying, not only for admission to Broadmoor, but for detention in that institution till His Majesty’s pleasure should be known. For the first hour or two which followed our resolution we either were silent or discussed other comparatively uninteresting matters in a preoccupied way; but gradually lack of ventilation began to tell, and the consideration of the robbery grew less absorbent.

As we entered the Park at Stanhope Gate—

“Boy, aren’t you glad Adèle’s coming?” said Jill.

I nodded abstractedly.

“Rather.”

“You never said so the other night.”

“Didn’t I?”

“I suppose, if she comes to Southampton, you’ll go to meet her. May I come with you?”

“Good heavens, yes. Why shouldn’t you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I thought, perhaps, you’d rather…”

I whistled to Nobby, whose disregard of traffic was occasionally conducive to heart failure. As he came cantering up–

“Adèle isn’t my property,” I said.

“I know, but…”

“But what?”

“I’ve never seen Nobby look so clean,” said Jill, with a daring irrelevance that took my breath away.

“I observe,” said I, “that you are growing up. Your adolescence is at hand. You are fast emerging from the chrysalis of girlish innocence, eager to show yourself a pert and scheming butterfly.” My cousin regarded me with feigned bewilderment. “Yes, you’ve got the baby stare all right, but you must learn to control that little red mouth. Watch Daphne.”