Elk 02 The Joker (17 page)

As he was speaking, he clasped his hands before him, his fingers intertwined; he emphasised every point with a little jerk of his clasped hands and, watching him, the mist rolled from Jim Carlton’s brain, and he instantly solved the mystery of those private film shows which had kept Mr Ingle locked up in his flat for a week. And to solve that was to solve every mystery save the present whereabouts of Sir Joseph Layton.

He listened in silence whilst Ingle went on to expound and elaborate his theory and when the man had finished: ‘I will bring your suggestion to the notice of my superiors,’ he said conventionally.

It was evidently not the speech that Mr Ingle expected. For a moment he looked uncomfortable, and then, with a laugh: ‘I suppose you think it strange that I should be on the side of law and order - and the governing classes! I felt a little sore when I came out of prison. Elk probably told you of the exhibition I made of myself in the train. But I’ve been thinking things over, Carlton, and it has occurred to me that my extremism is not profitable either to my pocket or my mind.’

‘In fact,’ smiled Jim, ‘you’re going to become a reformed character and a member of the good old Tory party?’

‘I don’t know that I shall go as far as that,’ demurred the other, amused, ‘but I have decided to settle down. I am not exactly a poor man, and all that I have got I have paid for - in Dartmoor.’

Only for a second were the old harsh cadences audible in his voice. He nodded towards Aileen Rivers.

‘You’ll persuade this girl to give me a chance, Mr Carlton? I can well understand her hesitation to keep house for a man liable at any moment to be whisked off to durance, and I fear she does not quite believe in my reformation.’

He smiled blandly at the girl, and then turned his eyes upon Jim.

‘Could you not persuade her?’

‘If I could persuade her to any course,’ said Jim deliberately, ‘it would not be the one you suggest.’

‘Why?’ challenged the other.

‘Because,’ said Jim, ‘you are altogether wrong when you say that there is no longer any danger of your being whisked off to durance. The danger was never more pressing.’

Ingle did not reply to this. Once his lips trembled as though he were about to ask a question, and then with a laugh he walked to the table and took a cigar from the box.

‘I guess I won’t detain you,’ he said. ‘But you’re wrong, Carlton. The police have nothing on me! They may frame something to catch me, but you’ll have to be clever to do even that.’

As they passed out of the building:

‘I seem to spend my days giving warnings to the last people in the world who ought to be warned,’ said Jim bitterly. ‘Aileen, maybe you’ll knit me a muzzle in your spare moments? That will help considerably!’

The outstanding feature of this little speech from the girl’s point of view was that he had called her by her name for the first time. Later, when they were nearing her boarding house, she asked: ‘Do you think you will find Sir Joseph?’

He shook his head.

‘I doubt very much if he is alive,’ he said gravely.

But his doubts were to be dispelled, and in the most surprising manner. That night a drunken black-faced comedian hit a policeman over the head with a banjo, and that vulgar incident had an amazing sequel.

THERE is a class of entertainer which devotes its talents to amusing the queues that wait at the doors of the cheaper entrances of London’s theatres. Here is generally to be found a man who can tear paper into fantastic shapes, a ballad singer or two, a performer on the bones and the inevitable black-faced minstrel.

It was eleven o’clock at night, and snow was lightly falling, when a policeman on point duty at the end of Evory Street saw a figure staggering along the middle of the road, in imminent danger from the returning theatre traffic. The man had obviously taken more drink than vas good for him, for he was howling at the top of his voice the song of the moment; and making a clumsy attempt to accompany himself on the banjo which was slung around his neck.

The London police are patient and long-suffering people, and had the reeling figure been less vocal he might have passed on to his destination without interference. For drunkenness in itself is not a crime according to the law; a man must be incapable or create a disturbance, or obstruct the police in the execution of their duty, before he offends. The policeman had no intention of arresting the noisy wayfarer.

He walked into the middle of the road to intercept and quieten him; and then discovered that the reveller was a black-faced comedian with extravagant white lips, a ridiculous Eton collar and a shell coat. On his head was a college cap, and this completed his outfit with the exception of the banjo, with which he was making horrid sounds.

‘Hi, hi!’ said the policeman gently. ‘A little less noise, young fellow!’

Such an admonition would have been sufficient in most cases to have reduced a midnight song-bird to apology, but this street waif stood defiantly in the middle of the road, his legs apart, and invited the officer to go to a warmer climate, and, not satisfied with this, he swung his banjo, and brought it down with a crash on the policeman’s helmet.

‘You’ve asked for it!’ said the officer of the law and took his lawful prey in a grip of iron.

By a coincidence, Jim Carlton was at Evory Street Station when the man was brought in, singing not unmusically, and so obviously drunk that Jim hardly turned his head or interrupted the conversation he was having with the inspector on duty, to look at the charge. They made a rapid search of the man, he resisting violently and at last, when they had extracted a name (he refused his address) he was hustled between a policeman and a jailer into the long corridor off which the cells are placed.

The door of Cell No. 7 was opened and into this he was pushed, struggling to the last to maintain his banjo.

‘And,’ said the jailer when he came back to the charge-room, wiping his perspiring brow, ‘the language that bud is using would turn a soldier pale!’

The reason for Jim’s presence was to arrange a local supervision of Greenhart House and to obtain certain assistance in the execution of a plan which was running through his mind; and that task would have been completed when the black-faced man was brought in, but that the officer he had called to see was away. Jim lingered a little while, talking police shop, before he paid his last visit to Sir Joseph’s house. He had the inevitable reply: No News had reached Whitehall Gardens of the Foreign Minister.

The man he came to see at Evory Street was due to appear at the police court in the role of prosecutor and Jim strolled down to the court next morning, arriving soon after the magistrate had taken his seat. There he met the inspector from Evory Street. Before Jim could broach the subject which had brought him, the inspector asked:

‘Were you at the station when that black-faced fellow was pulled in last night?’

‘Yes, I remember the noisy gentleman,’ said Jim. ‘Why?’

The inspector shook his head, puzzled. ‘I can’t understand where he got it from. The sergeant searched him carefully, but he must have had it concealed in some place.’

‘What is the matter with him?’ asked Jim, only half interested.

‘Dope,’ said the other. ‘When the jailer went and called him this morning it was as much as he could do to wake him up. In fact, he thought of sending for the divisional surgeon. You never saw a sicker-looking man in your life! Can’t get a word out of him. All he did was to sit on his bed with his head in his hands, moaning. We had to shake him to get him into the prison van.’

The first two cases were disposed of rapidly, and then a policeman called: ‘John Smith,’ and there tottered into court the black-faced comedian, a miserable object, so weak of knee that he had to be guided up the steps into the steel-railed dock. Gone was the exhilaration of the night before, and Jim had an unusual feeling of pity for the poor wretch in his absurd clothes and black, shining face.

The magistrate looked over his glasses.

‘Why wasn’t this man allowed to wash his face before he came before me?’ he asked.

‘Couldn’t get him to do anything, sir,’ said the jailer, ‘and we haven’t got the stuff to take off this make-up.’

The magistrate grumbled something, and the assaulted policeman stepped into the box and took his oath to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. He gave his stereotyped evidence and again the magistrate looked at the drooping figure in the dock.

‘What have you to say, Smith?’ he asked.

The man did not raise his head.

‘Is anything known about him? I notice that his address is not on the charge sheet.’

‘He refused his address, your Worship,’ said the inspector.

‘Remanded for inquiries!’

The jailer touched the prisoner’s arm and he looked up at him suddenly; stared wildly round the court, and then:

‘May I ask what I am doing here?’ he asked in a husky voice, and Jim’s jaw dropped.

For the black-faced man was Sir Joseph Layton!

EVEN THE magistrate was startled, though he did not recognise the voice. He was about to give an order for the removal of the man when Jim pushed his way to his desk and whispered a few words.

‘Who?’ asked the magistrate. ‘Impossible!’

‘May I ask’ - it was the prisoner speaking again - ‘what is all this about - I really do not understand.’

And then he swayed and would have fallen, but the jailer caught him in his arms.

‘Take him out into my room.’ The magistrate was on his feet. ‘The court stands adjourned for ten minutes,’ he said; and disappeared behind the curtains into his office.

A few seconds later they brought in the limp figure of the prisoner and laid him on a sofa.

‘Are you sure? You must be mistaken, Mr Carlton!’

‘I am perfectly sure - even though his moustache has been shaved off,’ said Jim, looking into the face of the unconscious man. ‘This is Sir Joseph Layton, the Foreign Minister. I could not make a mistake. I know him so well.’

The magistrate peered closer.

‘I almost think you are right,’ he said, ‘but how on earth - ’

He did not complete his sentence; and soon after he went out to carry on the business of the court. Jim had sent an officer to a neighbouring chemist for a pot of cold cream; and by the time the divisional surgeon arrived all doubt as to the identity of the black-faced man had been removed with his make-up. His white hair was stained, his moustache removed, and so far as they could see, not one stitch of his clothing bore any mark which would have identified him.

The doctor pulled up the sleeve and examined the forearm.

‘He has been doped very considerably,’ he said, pointing to a number of small punctures. ‘I don’t exactly know what drug was used, but there was hyoscine in it, I’ll swear.’

Leaving Sir Joseph to the care of the surgeon, Jim hurried out to the telephone and in a few minutes was in communication with the Prime Minister.

‘I’ll come along in a few minutes,’ said that astonished gentleman. ‘Be careful that nothing about this gets into the papers - will you please ask the magistrate, as a special favour to me, to make no reference in court?’

Fortunately, only one police-court reporter had been present, he had seen nothing that aroused his suspicion and his curiosity as to why the prisoner had been carried to the magistrate’s room was easily satisfied.

Sir Joseph was still unconscious when the Premier arrived. An ambulance had been summoned and was already in the little courtyard, and after a vain attempt to get him to speak, the Foreign Secretary was smuggled out into the yard, wrapped in a blanket and dispatched to a nursing home.

‘I confess I’m floored,’ said the Prime Minister in despair. A nigger minstrel…assaulting the police! It is incredible! You say you were at the police station when he was brought in; didn’t you recognise him then?’

‘No, sir,’ said Jim truthfully, ‘I was not greatly interested - he seemed just an ordinary drunk to me. But one thing I will swear; he was not under the influence of any drug when he was brought into the station. The inspector said he reeked of whisky, and he certainly found no difficulty in giving expression to his mind!’

The Premier threw out despairing hands.

‘It is beyond me; I cannot understand what has happened. The whole thing is monstrously incredible. I feel I must be dreaming.’

As soon as the Premier had gone, Jim drove to the nursing home to which the unfortunate Minister had been taken. The Evory Street inspector had gone with the ambulance, and had an astonishing story to tell.

‘What do you think we found in his pocket?’ he asked.

‘You can’t startle me,’ said Jim recklessly. ‘What was it - the Treaty of Versailles?’

The inspector opened his pocket-book and took out a small blank visiting card, blank, that is, except for a number of scratches, probably made by some blunt instrument, but the writer had attempted to get too much on so small a space, for Jim saw that it was writing when he examined the card carefully. Two words were decipherable, ‘Marling’ and ‘Harlow’ and these had been printed in capitals. He took a lead pencil, scraped the point upon the card, and sifted the fine dust over the scratches until they became more definite.

The writing was still indecipherable even with such an aid to legibility as the lead powder. Apparently the message had been written with a pin, for in two places the card was perforated.

‘The first word is “whosoever”,’ said Jim suddenly. ‘“Whosoever…please” is the fourth word and that seems to be underlined…’

He studied the card for a long time and then shook his head.

‘“Harlow” is clear and “Marling” is clear. What do you make of it, inspector?’

The officer took the card from his hand and examined it with a blank expression. ‘I don’t know anything about the writing or what it means,’ he said. ‘The thing I am trying to work out is how did that card come in his pocket - it was not there last night when the sergeant searched him - he takes his oath on it!’