The Memoirs Of Constantine Dix/The Rewards of Perseverance
V
THE REWARDS OF PERSEVERANCE
I was about to pay my usual spring visit to Brussels. At this time of the year the Belgian Paris is particularly attractive to me, and, as I have already explained, the man who buys my diamonds lives in Brussels. As a rule I combine business with pleasure. The trouble was that on this occasion I had no diamonds. They are a form of property in which I like to deal, small, valuable, and—apart from their setting—difficult of identification. I remove the settings myself and throw them away. It may possibly be remembered that some years ago a man made a curious find on the Underground Line between Gower Street and King's Cross. He found what I had intentionally lost. I never attempt to get the melting-pot value of settings. The risk is quite out of proportion to the profit. If I get a few hundred pounds' worth of diamonds I am content. In this business, as on the Stock Exchange and elsewhere, people lose money through opening their mouths too wide. It is a rare thing for spring to come round and find me with nothing in my pocket to show to my good friend, the merchant in Brussels; but it was the case this year. I had been busy on other matters. I now began to think out some simple way of supplying the deficiency.
As I turned the pages of the Morning Post my eye was arrested by the announcement that a marriage had been arranged and would take place on the third of the following month, between General Welbrand, C.B., and Madeline, youngest daughter of Sir Charles Wray, Bart., J.P., M.P., of Ditton Field, Withycomb, in the county of Norfolk.
The advertisement was of interest to me because I know something of Ditton Field. Ikey once had to admit a defeat there. He was not detected, he simply had to give the thing up after five hours' hard work. During those five hours he assured me that he had been within an ace of being shot by spring guns several times over. He came away with absolutely nothing but a sprig of rosemary which, so he said, he had picked in the garden to remember Sir Charles by. He attempted to make the journey back to London, without a ticket, in a goods truck, and, owing to a miscalculation on his part, got some fifty miles in the opposite direction before he had a chance to escape. He has always spoken to me with some bitterness of his Ditton Park experiences.
I thought it might be interesting to hear what Ikey had to say on the subject now. I met him coming out of the reading-room, and he began at once. He never fails to read the Fashionable Intelligence. "And," he said, "the presents will be 'numerous and costly,' as the papers say. The Duke, her godfather, is good for a diamond tiara anyhow, and there is not the ghost of a chance for anybody—not a blooming earthly. Mind, I wouldn't take it or think about taking it if there were. I'm a reformed character as you know. Still, it is funny to think of all that good stuff lying about loose in the big billiard-room, 'so near and yet so far,' as the song says."
"Ah, Ikey," I said, "you'd better give up thinking about it. The best way to avoid temptation is to put the subject from one's mind altogether."
"Who's talking about temptation? Look here, Mr Dix, I might want the moon, and I might talk about the moon, but I shouldn't take it. For the same reason I shouldn't take the stuff from that billiard-room. Do you think I don't know? I went back there when the second daughter was married. They'd two detectives in the house for days before, and those wedding presents were never left for one moment night or day. Even if you could get into the house, you couldn't do anything, without you chanced making a swinging job of it. No, you needn't get nervous about me, Mr Dix, you've shown me the error, and you can depend on my word that I keep out of it for the future."
I could not in the least depend on his word; indeed, this was only a few months before, under the influence of a little drink, he rejoined his old companions and fell back into evil courses. I said to him now that he would do well to show a less boastful spirit, and pointed out the need of constant watchfulness.
When I got home I sat down to think the thing out. On the face of it it was clearly a case for drugs. The difficulty would be to administer them. Sir Charles would undoubtedly deal with a first-class firm, and the detectives supplied would be good men. They would go straight to the house on their arrival and would probably not leave the house, certainly would not leave the grounds, until their work was over. It seemed to me that my only way of getting access to them would be to obtain employment of some kind in Sir Charles's household. This meant the assumption of a disguise, a careful sustaining of a new character, and the writing of a few forged testimonials. Frankly, I didn't like it.
The disguise and the alias are dangerous weapons, and, where they do not succeed perfectly, they damage the man who uses them. It was extremely improbable that I should be able to get a post as an indoor servant; my best chance would be as a groom or common labourer. That would mean that I should have to live and to work as a man of that class would. To all of this I had the strongest objection, but I did not see what else I could do.
About a week before the marriage took place I went down to Withycomb and put up at the hotel there, in my own name. They warned me that all their rooms were taken for the night before the wedding, and if I stayed on then I should have to go to the village beer house; a place where I felt sure I should be supremely uncomfortable. Things were not going well. However, I looked about the place and found an empty cottage standing by itself some way outside the village. It struck me that this would be an ideal spot in which to effect my disguise. The next afternoon I entered that cottage as Constantine Dix, a gentleman from London, interested in geology, and on the search for specimens. That was the description I had given of myself at the hotel. The small bag that I carried contained all that I wanted in the way of a disguise. I left the cottage, half an hour later, as William Bradshal, gardener, highly respectable, but in indifferent health, with a good place to go to in two months' time, and urgently in need of a job to tide him over until then.
Again my bad luck followed me. The Scotch head gardener, a sulky-looking brute, would neither hear my story nor look at my testimonials. He repeated that he didn't want anybody and there was nothing for me. When I lingered and persisted in trying to tell my story, he said that he would give me just one minute to get out of the place, and that after that he had a very good terrier. I got out of the place within my minute and I made a mental note of that head gardener. It is not a crime to ask for work, and I had not begged. It seemed to me that he was a man who should one day have a lesson. I heard afterwards that special orders had been given that no strangers were to be allowed to hang about the place under any pretext whatever. Also, I fancy that no servant was ever taken on there without a personal character and a prolonged and searching examination into his past history.
The only thing now before me was to go back to my cottage, resume the character of Mr Constantine Dix, pay my hotel bill, and go home. But I could not bring myself to go just yet. I had taken a good look at the house when I was trying for work there, and I determined to have another look at it that night.
My bedroom at the hotel was on the first floor, and gave me a fairly easy chance of coming and going at night-time without detection. I climbed down from the window at about three the next morning, the rainwater pipe affording me sufficient assistance. The billiard-room at Ditton Field is a big room, built out by Sir Charles at one side of the house. There are no rooms over it and one end of it is in view from a narrow country lane. I went down the lane, looked and saw nothing. Not one spark of light came from the window. I was just coming to the conclusion that Ikey had made a mistake, and that no watch was kept over the presents at night, when I noticed smoke curling up from the chimney of the room. A fire then was burning there, and a fire would not be burning there unless some one was sitting up. The lane comes within ten yards of the end of the billiard-room, and the fence offered no difficulties. I went with the utmost caution, feeling for places for my feet with my fingers, to be sure that there were no wires. I did not find anything of the kind, and possibly Ikey exaggerated the dangers he had gone through to cover a clumsy failure. I came close up to the wall and reached up my hand to the window above me. It was steel-shuttered. Even if there had been no detective inside it would have been impossible to tackle without burglars' tools, and these I never carry. As my fingers touched the steel I suddenly felt it begin to move under them. I had no time to get away, nor did it seem to me that there was much necessity. I stood close under the window, pressed tight against the wall, and it was a dark night. A man might have opened the window and looked out without seeing me.
Presently a man did look out. The steel shutter moved slowly up, and the light streaming out on the grass, showed me a man's shadow. Then the window was pushed up. I could smell coffee and hear the chink of the cup. Then the man leaned out. I heard a match strike and I could smell his cigarette. He smoked that cigarette out of the window, and made it last for twenty minutes, during which time I remained motionless and made no sound. Then, to my great relief, the window was shut, and the steel shutter, operated from the inside, came slowly down. I went back to my hotel with the comfortable feeling of a man who, after encountering difficulty and disappointment, at last sees his way clear.
The ascent to my bedroom was not easy but I managed it without noise or mishap of any kind. Before I went to sleep, I reviewed the situation. The billiard-room was left in charge of a detective all night. Once at least in the course of the night, he opened the window and renewed the air in the room. That would be quite natural, especially as a close atmosphere would tend to make him sleepy. I felt that I could depend upon it; he might very possibly leave the window open all the time he was there, but ten minutes would be quite enough for me. During those minutes locks and bolts and shutters for all practical purposes would have ceased to exist, and it would simply be a question whether he or I were the more intelligent and capable man. Without prejudice, I felt assured that I was.
The window in question was something between six feet six and seven feet from the ground. I gathered that at this end of the room was the usual raised platform, and that the top of a table placed on it would come very near to the bottom of the window. I was certain that this was the platform end of the room, because the window at the other end came some three feet lower down, as I had noticed when I was trying to talk to the head gardener. On the table would be placed the detective's refreshments; I should hardly have heard the chink of the cup and smelled the coffee so distinctly if they had been further back in the room. Probably, the billiard-table would be covered over, and the display of presents would already be arranged on it, on the eve of the wedding, in readiness for the reception to follow. I should be able to see into the room, once the shutter was up, either by climbing a tree in the lane ten yards away, or on the grass under the window by standing on something that would increase my height (six feet) by one foot. I proposed to drug the detective, either through his cigarette or his coffee. I had not yet decided which, and both presented difficulties. It was clear to me that there was no point in my remaining longer at the hotel, and my absence might tend to avert suspicion. I decided to leave next morning and return on the eve of the wedding on my motor, with my plans completed.
Next day I was back in London, buying a few trifles which I required to make clean work of it. Ikey would not have made clean work of it. He would have tried a surprise entry through the window, calculating on frightening the detective into silence with a revolver, or overpowering him before he could call or get at the bell-push. And it would not have answered. I fear he would have made, as he said, a swinging job of it. Personally, I hate violence, I hate bloodshed. If diamonds could only be got by such means, I would leave them alone and take something else. I happen by chance to be tall and broad, and of considerable muscular strength. A man like Ikey has a great admiration for that, says so plainly, and turns me sick; I feel as if I were being treated as a prize beast. It has happened sometimes—inevitably, I suppose—in the course of my work among very rough characters that I have had to resort to the lowest methods. It has become necessary for me to get a man out of a room, or to hit him hard. One does it if it is necessary, but one might be spared the disgust of being congratulated. The mental qualities are higher. When my mind prevails against the mind of another, I feel some satisfaction, but I try to keep myself from that silly vanity which leads to an ambitious and fatal attempt to achieve the impossible. I remember that the spiritual qualities are higher still. Among the worst and the hardest I have picked out now and again the most hopeless case of all. Friends have pleaded with me not to waste my efforts, and others have ridiculed me, but I have stuck to my man, and after repeated failures have brought him to a new life. There lies my spiritual triumph, but that too brings me no vanity—only steady submission where struggle is useless—submission to that which is fore-ordained. For there are some whom we think lost that are meant for the rescue, and there are some—myself amongst them—who have a good place among men, whose virtues are credited, whose fame is unspotted; and these are to go on to the end without hope. It is a subject to which I had intended hardly to allude, and one on which I will not dwell.
I told my housekeeper, Mrs Pethwick—an elderly but invaluable woman—that I was going to take the motor down to Brighton for a couple of days. She saw that my bag was packed, and I gave her an ordinary leather-covered ink-pot to put in it—one of those that fasten with a couple of springs. The word "ink" was stamped in gold on the top of it, but the liquid inside was not ink. It looked like it in the ink-pot, but the colour was really dark brown. You would have found on searching my motor-car three feet of fine metal tube, and an india-rubber bulb, and you would have concluded that they had some connection with the mechanism of the motor; you would have been wrong. I had my big pocket knife in my pocket. I was starting off to steal diamonds of great value, watched by a detective, and this was all the apparatus I took with me for that purpose. I also took my special cigarette—that cigarette which will be the last I ever put to my lips—but this was for afterwards, in case of failure and capture. I reached Norwich in time for dinner. I admit that it is not essential to take Norwich on the way from London to Brighton, but I had not told Mrs Pethwick that I was going by the most direct route. I had merely said that I was going to Brighton; and I did go there ultimately.
At dinner, somewhat, I fear, to the disgust of the waiter, I drank one bottle of soda water, and after dinner I slept for an hour in the smoking-room. I was extremely pleased that I was able to get to sleep quite easily. It showed me that my nerves were in good order. I left the hotel at about ten, and drove my car easily along in the direction of Withycomb, which is perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five miles from Norwich. The country about here is not very populous and the inhabitants go to bed early. I felt quite secure in running my motor into a field and leaving it hidden behind a couple of stacks. From this point I went on foot to Ditton Field, taking with me the apparatus which I have already described.
I could see from the lane that the steel shutter of the window of the billiard-room was not quite closed; the lower three inches were open and the window was open behind it. I thought it likely that it would remain like this for the rest of the night. Of course this meant that I could not command a view of the room from a tree in the lane. I had to get to the grass just in front of the window and find something to stand upon which would bring my eyes on a level with the narrow opening. I was in no particular hurry. I explored the place a little with the greatest care, and found in an unlocked potting shed a solid wine-case which I thought would serve my purpose. I kept away from the lodge, the gardener's cottage, and the house itself, as much as possible in case a dog might discover me. Dogs were what I was principally afraid of that night. I do not mean that I was afraid of a dog attacking me; a dog that did that would die before any great harm was done to me. It was the noise that I wished to avoid. I brought the packing-case up with me to my position in the lane, and from there I watched the narrow strip of light at the bottom of the window for any sign of movement. The night was pitch dark, and it had now come on to rain hard. For an hour or more I saw nothing, and then I got a glimpse of a moving hand and a shirt cuff and something that looked to me as if it might be the base of a coffee-pot. The moment for action had now arrived. I fixed the india-rubber bulb on one end of my long metal tube, dipped the other end into that ink-pot and released the bulb. The tube was now charged with the drug which was to do the work for me. I put my packing-case in position on the grass just in front of the window with the tube beside it, mounted the case and got my first view of the interior of the room. At the table near the window sat the detective—a pale young man, with a plaintive eye, who sat munching ham sandwiches in the ruminative manner of an ordinary cow. His cup of innocuous and sleep-dispelling coffee was by his side. The display of presents was already arranged on the billiard-table and other tables in the room. From the position in which I stood it would have been quite easy for me to have reached the coffee cup with my metal tube, and by squeezing the bulb, to have discharged the poison into it. But the detective would have seen me, and the snare should not be laid in sight of the bird. It was necessary for me to attract his attention elsewhere.
I went round to the other end of the billiard-room, opened the nail file in my pocket-knife and drew it once, sharply, across the steel shutter, immediately returning to my position by the opposite window. I had reflected that this course might be disastrous. The detective might have gone straight to the electric bell which would have summoned his comrade. But I was right in supposing that he would be reluctant to disturb his friend's sleep until he knew beyond question that there was some need for him. The sound which I had made on the steel shutter was suspicious, and would attract him to that end of the room, but he would wait for something further before he rang. Looking through the window I could see him at the further end of the room with his back to me, listening intently. He had already got his revolver out. Leisurely, though with proper care, I put one end of my tube through the window till it was immediately over the coffee cup, and pressed the bulb very slowly and gently. I fancy that a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes must have elapsed before the detective decided that he might return and finish his coffee, and that the sound which he had heard was probably nothing more than a twig of some tree, scratched against the shutter by the wind.
After this for a while things seemed to go very slowly. The detective took his coffee in small sips at considerable intervals. When one has absolutely nothing to do, a cup of coffee is an incident. One prolongs it; it breaks the monotony. He finished it at last, lit his pipe and picked up a journal devoted to the interests of the amateur photographer.
The action of a drug depends to some extent on the idiosyncrasy of the person who takes it. With my friend the action was slow, but it came at last. His pipe fell to the floor with a crash, and he sprang to his feet. He had actually been to sleep. He was still drowsy. If he had been wise he would have rung the bell at once. I now crouched low under the ledge of the window for I knew what would happen. The steel shutter flew up, and the man thrust his head out. The cold night air, he thought, would dispel his sleepiness. He had relit his pipe. In a few seconds it fell at my feet, and his shadow disappeared. I mounted my packing-case in an instant and saw him trying to make his way to the bell. He swayed and staggered in the intoxication of the drug. As he neared the bell and had his hand out toward it he collapsed, went over, and lay like a log. I waited for a little to see if the noise of his fall had aroused anybody, and then put my hands on the ledge of the window and pulled myself into the room. My attention was attracted first by a square morocco case, of apparent magnificence and emblazoned with a crest and initials. The card upon it signified that it was the gift of the Duchess of Tadcaster. I opened it, and found that it contained six small silver coffee-spoons, total value nine shillings. I could not help writing upon the card that this was really very shabby of Her Grace, and then I got on to serious business, going for diamonds only. It was, without exception, the biggest haul I ever made in my life. The mere removal of the stones from their settings took me days of work afterwards. Two South African magnates had been particularly handsome on this occasion. I then turned my attention to the detective. I undid his collar and put him in a better position. He murmured something about being "done for," but I think he was really unconscious, and supposed that he was talking to the other detective. I let myself down from the window and went back to the lane.
As I took a last look at the house a police whistle sounded shrilly—I heard the continued whirr of more than one electric bell, and window after window sprang into life. I saw, of course, what had happened. The other detective had entered to take his comrade's place the moment after I had left. I got out of the lane at once into a field. On these occasions it is always supposed that the burglar will be obliging enough to confine himself strictly to streets or roads or other places patrolled by the police. This is not always the case. I got back to my motor in safety, put my diamonds, roughly tied up in a couple of handkerchiefs, under one of the seats and started off. As soon as I was in the road, I got on to my top speed at once, and after that I felt perfectly secure. A policeman did challenge me, but this was forty miles away, and I think he merely wanted my name and address because my lamps were not lit. But I was busy at the time and could not stop. Naturally I was very late in arriving at Brighton, but, as I explained to the old couple who look after my cottage there, the best motor-cars break down sometimes.