Elk 02 The Joker (16 page)

And with that, unheeding the calls, he turned and walked behind the Speaker’s chair and out of sight.

‘Good God!’ Jim was white to the lips. ‘That means war!’

Elk, who had fallen into a doze, woke with a start, in time to see his companion dashing out of the House. He followed him along the corridor to Sir Joseph’s room and knocked at the door. There was no answer. Jim turned the handle and walked in.

The room was in darkness and empty. Rushing out into the passage, he waylaid a messenger.

‘No, sir, I’ve not seen Sir Joseph. He went into the House a few minutes ago.’

By the time he got back Jim found the lobby crowded with excited members. The Prime Minister was in the West of England; the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Secretary for War had left that afternoon to address a series of public meetings in the North; and already the telephones were busy seeking the other members of the Cabinet. He found nobody who had seen Sir Joseph after he left the House, until he came upon a policeman who thought he had recognised the Foreign Minister walking out into Palace Yard. Jim followed this clue and had it confirmed. Sir Joseph had come out into the Yard and taken a taxi (though his car was waiting), a few minutes before. The detectives almost ran to Whitehall Gardens; and here they had a further shock. The Minister had not arrived at his home.

‘Are you sure?’ asked Jim incredulously, thinking the butler had orders to rebuff all callers.

‘Positive, sir. Why, is anything the matter?’ asked the man in alarm.

Jim did not wait to reply. They found a cab in Whitehall and went beyond legal speed to Park Lane. There was just a chance that the Foreign Minister had returned to Harlow’s.

When they reached Greenhart House there came to them the strains of an orchestra; dancing was in full swing, both in the library and in the large drawing-room overlooking Park Lane. They found Harlow, after a search, and he seemed the most astonished man of all.

‘Of course he hasn’t come back here. He told me he was going to the House and then home to bed. What has happened?’

‘You’ll see it in the newspapers in the morning,’ said Jim curtly and drove back to Parliament in time to find the members streaming out of the House, which had been adjourned.

Whilst he was talking with a member he knew, a car drove up and the man who alighted was instantly hailed. It was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a broad-shouldered man, with a stoop, the most brilliant member of the Cabinet.

‘Yes, I’ve heard all about it,’ he said, in his thin, rasping voice. ‘Where is Sir Joseph?’

He beckoned Jim, who was known to him and, pushing his way through the crowd of members, went back with him along the corridor to his room.

‘Were you in the House when Sir Joseph spoke?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Jim.

‘Just tell me what happened.’

Briefly, almost word for word, Jim Carlton repeated the astonishing speech.

‘He must be mad,’ said the Chancellor emphatically. ‘There is not a word of truth in the whole story, unless - well, something may have happened since I saw him last.’

‘Can’t you issue a denial?’

Mr Kirknoll bit his lip. ‘In the absence of the Prime Minister, I suppose I should, but I can’t do that until I have seen Sir Joseph.’

A thought struck Jim. ‘He is not what one would describe as a neurotic man, is he?’

‘No man less so,’ said the Chancellor emphatically. ‘He is the sanest person I’ve ever met. Is his secretary in the House?’

He rang a bell and sent a messenger in search, whilst he endeavoured to telephone the absent Ministers.

The secretariat of Downing Street were evidently engaged in a similar quest, with the result that until one in the morning neither had managed to communicate with the head of the Government.

‘We can’t stop this getting into the newspapers, I suppose?’

‘It is in,’ said the Chancellor laconically. ‘I’ve just had a copy of the first editions. Why he did it, heaven only knows! He has certainly smashed the Government. What other result will follow I dare not think about.’

‘What do you think will be the first result of Sir Joseph’s speech?’

The Minister spread out his hands. ‘The markets of course will go to blazes, but that doesn’t interest us so much as the feeling it may create in France. Unhappily, the French Ambassador is in Paris on a short visit.’

Jim left him talking volubly on the Paris line and at three o’clock in the morning was reading a verbatim report of Sir Joseph Layton’s remarkable lapse. The later editions carried eight lines in heavy type:

‘We are informed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Bonn incident has never been before the Cabinet for discussion, and it is not regarded as being of the slightest importance. The Chancellor informs us that he cannot account for Sir Joseph Layton’s extraordinary statement in the House of Commons.’

All night long Jim literally sat on the doorstep of Whitehall Gardens, waiting without any great hope for Sir Joseph’s return. He learnt that the Prime Minister was returning from the West by special train; and that a statement had already been issued repudiating that of the Foreign Minister.

The opening of the Stock Exchange that morning was witnessed by scenes which had no parallel since the outbreak of the War. Stocks declined to an incredible extent, and even the banks reacted to the panic. It was too early to learn what had happened in New York, the British being five hours in advance of Eastern American time, and only at four o’clock that afternoon was the position on Wall Street revealed. Heavy selling - all gilt-edged stocks depreciated; the failure of a big broking house, were the first consequences observable in the press. In France the Bourse had been closed at noon, but there was heavy street selling; and one famous South African stock, which was the barometer in the market, had dropped to its lowest level.

At five o’clock that evening a statement was issued to the press over the signatures of the Prime Ministers of Britain and France.

‘There is no truth whatever in the statement that a state of tension exists between our two countries. The Bonn incident has been from first to last regarded as trivial, and the speech of the British Foreign Minister can only have been made in a moment of regrettable mental aberration.’

For Jim the day’s interest had nothing whatever to do with stock exchanges or the fall of shares; nor yet the fortune which he knew was being gathered, with every minute that passed, by Harlow and his agents. His interest was solely devoted to the mystery of Sir Joseph Layton’s disappearance.

There had been present at Harlow’s reception a very large number of notable people, many of whom were personal friends of the missing Minister. They were emphatic in declaring that he had not returned to Park Lane; and they were as certain that Harlow had not left the house after Sir Joseph’s departure. More than this, there were two policemen on duty at the door; and they were equally certain that Sir Joseph had not returned. The suggestion was made that the Minister had gone to his country house in Cheshire, but when inquiry was set on foot it was learned that the house and the shooting had been rented by a rich American.

Immediately he had returned to London the Prime Minister flew to Paris. When he got back Jim saw him, and the chief officer of state was a greatly worried as well as a very tired man.

‘Sir Joseph Layton has to be found!’ he said, thumping his table. ‘I tell you this, Carlton, as I have told your superiors, that it was, impossible, unless Sir Joseph went mad, that he should have stood up in the House of Commons and said something which he knew to be absolutely untrue, and which he himself would repudiate! Have you seen this man Harlow?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Jim.

‘Did he tell you what was discussed by any chance? Was it the so-called Bonn incident?’

‘Harlow says that they just talked about the Middle East and nothing else during the few minutes the Foreign Minister vas in his house. And really, sir, I don’t see how they could have had any very lengthy discussion; they were not together more than a few minutes. Apparently Sir Joseph went into a little room which Harlow uses for his more confidential interviews and drank a glass of wine. They then talked about the reception and Sir Joseph congratulated him on bringing the warring elements together. It seems to have been, according to Harlow’s account, the most uninteresting talk.’

The Prime Minister walked up and down the room with long strides, his chin on his chest.

‘I can’t understand it, I can’t understand it!’ he muttered. And then, abruptly: ‘Find Sir Joseph Layton.’ That terminated the interview for Jim.

He was rattled, badly rattled, and in his distraction he could think of only one sedative. He rang up Aileen Rivers at her office and asked her to come to tea with him at the Automobile Club.

Aileen realised from the first that Jim was directly occupied by a mystery that was puzzling not only the country but the whole of the civilised world. But she understood also the reason he had sent for her, and the thought that she as being of use to him was a very pleasant one.

As soon as he met her he plunged straight into the story of his trouble.

‘He may have been kidnapped, of course, and I should say it was very likely, though the distance between Palace Yard and Whitehall Gardens is very short; and Whitehall so full of police that it hardly seems possible. We have advertised for the taximan who drove him away from the House, but so far have had no reply.’

‘Perhaps the taximan was also kidnapped?’ she suggested.

‘Perhaps so,’ he admitted. ‘I do wish Foreign Ministers weren’t so godlike that they have to travel alone! If he’d only waited a few minutes I would have joined him.’ And then, with a smile: ‘I’m laying my burdens upon you and you’re wilting visibly.’

‘I’m not,’ she affirmed.

She considered a moment before she asked:

‘Could I not help you?’

He stared at her in amused wonder.

‘How on earth could you help me? I’m being rude I know, but I can’t exactly see - ’

She was annoyed rather than hurt by his scepticism.

‘It may be a very presumptuous thing to offer assistance to the police,’ she said with a faint hint of sarcasm, ‘but I think what may be wrong with you now is that you want - what is the expression? - a new angle?’

‘I certainly want several new angles,’ he confessed ruefully.

‘Then I’ll start in to give you one. Have you seen my uncle?’

His jaw dropped. He had forgotten all about Arthur Ingle; and never once had he associated him with the Minister’s disappearance.

‘What a fool I am!’ he gasped.

She examined his face steadily, as though she were considering whether or not to agree. In reality her mind was very far away.

‘I only suggest my uncle because he called upon me this morning,’ she said. ‘At least, he was waiting for me when I came out to lunch. It is the first time I have seen him since the night he came back from Devonshire.’

‘What did he want to see you about?’

She laughed softly.

‘He came with a most extraordinary offer, that I should keep house for him. And really, he offered me considerably more than the salary I am getting from Stebbings, and said he had no objection to my working in the daytime.’

‘You refused, of course?’

‘I refused, of course,’ she repeated, ‘but he wasn’t at all put out. I’ve never seen him in such an amiable frame of mind.’

‘How does he look?’ asked Jim, remembering the unshaven face he had seen through the window.

‘Very smart,’ was the surprising reply. ‘He told me he had been amusing himself with some of the big films that had appeared since he went to prison. He had hired them and bought a small projector. He really was fond of the pictures, as I know,’ the girl went on, ‘but it seems a queer thing to I have shut oneself up for days just to watch films! And he asked after you.’ She nodded. ‘Why should he ask after you, you are going to say, and that is the question that occurred to me. But he seems to have taken for granted that I am a very close friend of yours. He asked who had introduced me, and I told him your wretched little car on the Thames Embankment!’

‘Speak well of the dead,’ said Jim soberly. ‘Lizzie has cracked a cylinder.’

‘And now,’ she said, ‘prepare for a great shock.’

‘I brace myself,’ said Jim.

‘He asked,’ the girl went on, a twinkle in her eyes, ‘whether I thought you would object to seeing him. I think he must have taken a sudden liking to you.’

‘I’ve never met the gentleman,’ said Jim, ‘but that is an omission which shall be rectified without delay. We’ll go round together! He will naturally jump at the conclusion that we’re an engaged couple, but if you can stand that slur on your intelligence - ’

‘I will be brave,’ said Aileen.

Mr Arthur Ingle was only momentarily disconcerted by the appearance of his niece and the man who had filled his mind all that afternoon. Jim had met him once before, but only for a few seconds, when he had called to make an inquiry about Mrs Gibbins. Now he was almost jovial.

‘Where’s friend Elk?’ he asked, with a smile. ‘I understood you never moved without one another in these perilous times, when lunatic ministers are wandering about the country, and no man knows the hour or the day when he will be called up for active service! So you are Mr James Carlton!’

He opened a silver cigar-box and pushed it across to Jim, who made a careful selection.

‘Aileen told you I wanted to see you, I suppose? Well, I do. I’m a bit of a theorist, Mr Carlton, and I have an idea that my theory is right. I wonder if you would be interested to know what it is?’

He pointedly ignored the presence of the girl except to put a chair for her.

‘I’ve been making inquiries,’ said this surprising ex-convict, ‘and I’ve discovered that Sir Joseph is in all sorts of financial difficulties. This is unknown to the Prime Minister or even to his closest friend, but I have had a hint that he was very short of ready money and that his estates in Cheshire were heavily mortgaged. Now, Mr Carlton, do you conceive it as possible that the speech in the House was made with the deliberate intention of slumping the market and that Sir Joseph was paid handsomely for the part he played?’