The Ringer/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV
MARY LENLEY got home later than she expected, to find Johnny dozing in an armchair before the fire, for the night was unaccountably cold. A strong northerly wind had brought the chill air from the Pole and, though it was early summer, London was walking about in its overcoats.
As she gently put her hand on his shoulder, he woke with a start and stared up.
"Hallo, dear!" he said, yawned and rose.
In a sense she was thankful that he was not his old alert, watchful self when she had come in. She had time to go to her room and hide the traces of her tears. The last half-hour before she had left Meister had been an agony to the girl—thirty searing minutes. She had been in her little room when Cora Milton had called; the worst part of the interview was after The Ringer's girl had left the house.
She came back to find her brother in the kitchen, brewing the coffee. It was his one contribution to the domestic day. Johnny made coffee well—made it in large quantities, so that it only needed heating when it was required at any hour of the day or night.
She was on the point of telling him that she had to go out again that night, though for the life of her she could not think of one plausible excuse, when he said:
"I've got to go round and see some people, old girl. You won't mind being left alone?"
"Will you be late?" she asked, a fluttering at her heart.
"About eleven; maybe a little later. Why?"
"Because I want to see—go—to a sick girl friend."
She hated herself for the lame lie, and thought he would detect it instantly, but he was so out of touch with her life and her acquaintances that he did not seem to think it strange, was indeed relieved a little.
"Sick, is she? That was the one dread I had when I was away," he said; "that you'd be left with nobody here to look after you. You're leaving Meister—have you told him?"
She nodded.
"We shan't be able to give up this place for a month or so. I want to get fixed up in the country.
"He was busy pouring out the coffee.
"Cottages are hard to come by, but I know a man in Hertfordshire who'll find me a corner somewhere. I've had it in my mind for a long time to start a poultry farm. There's a big demand for English birds of the right kind. I met a man in prison who would have made a fortune out of breeding silver foxes, but they got some sort of disease and died."
He, too, was ill at ease, restless, nervous and could not keep one position for longer than a minute. He was hardly seated at the table before he rose again, went from the room and came back, only to remember that he had left his pipe in the kitchen. When he went out finally, his departure was a little abrupt, and she was not sorry to be alone.
Here and now she had to make her final decision. Was Meister bluffing? Was it possible that he could hold proof, and, if he did, that Johnny could be punished for an ancient crime, however heinous it might be? If she only had somebody to advise her—somebody in whom she could confide! Her mind went instantly to Alan Wembury and to his invitation.
"If you are ever in any kind of difficulty, will you come to me?"
But could she tell him—a police officer? If it was anything else but an old crime of Johnny's, it would have been easy. She was not greatly perturbed by Meister's view of the police and their treachery; she knew he cordially hated them. But Alan Wembury was different.
The clock moved inexorably forward. Time was indeed flying; and as every minute passed, the tension grew, till at last she rose, took down her hat and coat and went out.
Back in the station house, Alan was still engrossed in his book when the telephone bell rang. The sergeant pulled the instrument over to him.
"Hallo!" He looked up at the clock mechanically to time the call in his book. "What's that?" He covered the receiver with his hand. "The night watchman at Cleavers reports there's a man on the roof in Camden Crescent."
Alan thought for a moment.
"Yes, of course. Tell him not to worry, it is a police officer."
"On the roof of Camden Crescent?" asked the sergeant incredulously.
Alan nodded, and the officer addressed himself to his unknown vis-à-vis.
"That's all right, son. He's only one of our men—eh? He's sweeping the chimney—yes, we always have policemen sweep chimneys and we usually pick on the night." He hung up the receiver. "What's he doing up there?"
"Looking round," said Alan indifferently.
Dr. Lomond had once said that he felt the police were very hard on little criminals, that they sought crime, and grew callous to all the sufferings attendant upon its detection. Alan wondered if he had grown callous. Perhaps he had not. Perhaps no police officer should. They came to be rather like doctors, who have two personalities, in one of which they can dissociate from themselves all sentiment and human tenderness. And then the object of his thoughts appeared. John Lenley came into the charge room, nodding to the sergeant.
"I'm reporting here," he said.
He took some papers out of his pocket and laid them on the desk.
"My name's Lenley. I'm a convict on licence."
And then he caught Wembury's eye and came over to him and shook hands.
"I heard you were out, Johnny. I congratulate you."
All the time he was speaking, there was in his mind the picture of that crouching, waiting figure of justice on the roof of Camden Crescent. He had to clench his teeth to inhibit the warning that rose to his lips.
"Yes, I came out yesterday," said Johnny.
"It only seems yesterday you went away," said the sergeant, reaching down his book to take particulars of the "brief."
"To you, but not to me," said John Lenley shortly. "To me, it seems somewhere in the region of twenty million years. Time passes much more quickly in a police station than in Ward C, Dartmoor."
"Your sister was glad to see you?"
"Yes," said Lenley curtly, and seemed disinclined to make any further reference to Mary.
"I'd like to find a job for you, Johnny," said Alan, in desperation. "I think I can."
John Lenley smiled crookedly.
"Prisoners' Aid Society?" he asked. "No, thank you! Or is it the Salvation Army you're thinking of? Paper sorting at twopence a hundredweight. Compulsory service twice a day; they give you a ticket 'please admit bearer,' and if you don't attend you're kicked out! When I get a job, it will be one that a waster can't do, Wembury. I don't want helping, I want leaving alone."
There was a silence, broken by the scratching of the sergeant's pen.
"Where are you going to-night?" asked Alan. At all costs this man must be warned. He thought of Mary Lenley waiting at home. He was almost crazy with the fear that she might in some way conceive the arrest of this man as a betrayal on his part.
John Lenley was looking at him suspiciously.
"I'm going up west. Why do you want to know?"
Alan's indifference was ill-assumed.
"I don't wish to know particularly." And then: "Sergeant, how far is it from here to Camden Crescent?"
He saw Johnny start. The man's eyes were fixed on his.
"Not ten minutes' walk," said the sergeant.
"Not far, is it?" Alan was addressing the ticket-of-leave man. "A mere ten minutes' walk from Camden Crescent to the station house!"
Johnny did not answer.
"I thought of taking a lonely stroll up west," Alan went on. "Would you like to come along and have a chat? There are several things I'd like to talk to you about."
Johnny licked his lips.
"No," he said quietly. "I've got to meet a friend."
Alan picked up his book again and turned the leaves slowly. He did not raise his eyes when he said:
"I wonder if you know whom you're going to meet? You used to be a bit of an athlete in your early days, Lenley—a runner, weren't you? I seem to remember that you took prizes?"
"Yes, I've got a cup or two," he said in a tone of surprise.
"If I were you"—still Alan did not raise his eyes from the book—"I'd run and not stop running until I reached home. And then I'd lock the door to stop myself running out again!"
The desk sergeant was intrigued.
"Why?" he asked.
"He might get another cup or a diploma or something."
Johnny had turned his back on Wembury and was apparently absorbed in the information he was giving to the sergeant.
"Lenley, I thought I saw an old friend of ours in the street the other day—Henry Arthur Milton, the man they call the Ringer."
"Did you?" said Johnny Lenley dourly. "Well, the next time you think you see him, you'd better walk up to him and make sure!"
Alan chuckled.
"You were with him in Dartmoor, weren't you?"
"Yes, for a week or two."
"See much of him?"
"No, I was working in the laundry—he was in one of the shops. I don't admire him particularly. He's in Australia,they tell me!"
Wembury nodded.
"Then how could you have seen him?" Johnny's eyes were hard, and then he laughed a bitter little laugh. "You never lose an opportunity, you fellows, of trying to trip up a man, do you? Is the job you've got for me one connected with this admirable trade of yours?"
Alan shook his head.
"No, you're the last man I should choose for a 'nose.'" And, as the man made for the door: "Good-night, Lenley, if I don't see you again."
Johnny spun round.
"Do you expect to see me again?" he asked. "To-night?"
"Yes—I do."
The words were deliberate. It was the nearest to a warning that he could give consistent with his duty; and when, with a shrug, Johnny Lenley went out into the night, the heart of Alan Wembury was sore.
"God! What fools these people are!" he said aloud.
"And a good job too!" returned the sergeant. "If they weren't born suckers, you'd never catch 'em!"
Wembury said nothing. He was standing with his hands behind him, his chin on his chest, his eyes examining a bright nail that showed in the floor.
"Get Meister on the phone," he said. "I want him to ring the station every hour."
It was a few minutes before the call came through, and when Alan took the receiver and heard the oleaginous voice of the man at the other end, he realized that courage had returned, and wondered how big a price the man had paid for that jauntiness of speech.
"Yes, it's Wembury talking. I've had a cable from the Australian police saying that the Ringer is not in England. That may be true, and yet there is the chance that he has sent one of his crowd to deputize for him, sothe precautions will continue. I want you to phone me every hour."
"I am coming round to have a look at you, dear boy," said Mr. Meister's voice.
It was a cheerful voice, yet there was a quaver in it, as though, through the haze of alcohol, the underlying ferment of fear was working.
"Tell Atkins," warned Wembury, "don't walk—take a cab and let him ride with you. What's the trouble—anybody been tapping on your door?" He smiled at the answer. "Oh, no, I'm sure you're mistaken. If there had been any person on the landing I should have seen him. I went through the garden immediately afterward."
He replaced the receiver, returning to his position before the fire, and Sergeant Carter leant back in his high stool and grew speculative.
"I can't understand old Meister," he said. "You wouldn't think that a fellow as wide as he is would have a lag's sister in his office. She's straight enough, of course."
"I'm glad you put in that qualification," said Alan stiffly, "or I might have been annoyed with you."
"Annoyed with me, sir?" Sergeant Carter was hurt. "Hope I haven't said anything out of place?"
"It is no offence to be the sister of a convict," said the annoyed Alan, "under any law I know—from the laws of the Medes and Persians to the laws of auction bridge."
"Certainly not, sir," said the sergeant. "Miss Lenley couldn't think crooked."
Alan realized that the little grimace which Sergeant Carter made was intended for himself. It said so plainly, "Oh, is that how the land lies!" that he went red.
"If there's anything remarkable about the business, it is why a girl of her character should work for such a brute as Meister."
Once on the subject of Mary, he found it extremely difficult to think or talk of anybody else. When the sergeant said that it was remarkable what women would do for money, he could have murdered him.
The conversation was interrupted by the 'phone and a formal announcement of a street accident.
"No, sir, not a serious one—at least, it wasn't when it happened, but the constable's giving him first-aid—he only started learning last week. You were saying about that young lady, sir?" said the old gossip innocently.
Alan pocketed his book.
"I don't want you to get a wrong impression about Miss Lenley. I've known her for some years; she came from the same little village as I. The Lenleys were great people —until the old man got the gambling fever and went broke. And why I should be telling you all this, I don't know."
"No, sir," said the agreeable sergeant, "but if it eases your mind to talk"
"It doesn't," snapped Wembury. "I don't want to discuss it any more."
Carter approved.
"As I often tell my good lady, if a fellow is struck on a girl, it doesn't matter who she is."
"There is no suggestion that anybody is struck on Miss Lenley," said Alan hotly. "I merely know her just as you might know a lady."
Sergeant Carter was instantly virtuous.
"I don't know any ladies, sir," he disclaimed. "I'm a married man myself."
"You're a damned fool," said the irritable Alan.
"Very likely, sir. I've often thought so myself, but she wears very well."
Sergeant Carter was that type of policeman that belongs to the past, to the days of the old regulars, before every amateur in the land thought there was money in burglary and the American invasion began. He could reminisce about burglars by the hour: old broken men, whom he met nowadays, standing miserably at the corner of the street, who had acquired their hundreds with the aid of a jemmy and two inches of candle, and today could not raise their bus fares. The big burglars did not trouble Blackheath any more. Poverty was creeping like an autumn mist toward the grand houses, whose sons lay in France. One or two had become boardinghouses; one at least was falling to pieces for want of repair above the heads of its occupants. The up-to-date burglar, who required a lorry to carry his kit, worked north of the river.
"American competition is killing everything," said the sergeant sadly, and doubtless there was something to be said for his point of view.
Wembury would have gone out had it not been for the lawyer's expressed intention of coming to the station house. He did not want to be around when the inevitable happened and Johnny Lenley was brought in—unless he had taken the hint. Had he? It seemed impossible of belief that he could have the situation so plainly put before him, and yet ignore the warning.
He heard a light patter of feet on the stone steps outside the station—a woman.... He gasped with amazement as he saw the girl who came in. It was Mary Lenley.