The Complete Four Just Men (40 page)

He crossed the room and strolled towards the conservatory, reading the letter carefully. He read it twice, then he folded it up and put it into his pocket; he had occasion to go to that pocket again almost immediately, for he pulled out his watch to see the time.

When he had left the little retreat on his way to the hall, he left behind him a folded slip of paper on the floor.

This an exalted Horace, deliriously happy, discovered on his way back to the card-room. He handed it to Lord Verlond who, having no scruples, read it – and, reading it in the seclusion of his study, grinned.

Chapter 10

A policeman’s business

There was living at Somers Town at that time a little man named Jakobs. He was a man of some character, albeit an unfortunate person with ‘something behind him’. The something behind him, however, had come short of a lagging. ‘Carpets’ (three months’ hard labour) almost innumerable had fallen to his share, but a lagging had never come his way.

A little wizened-faced man, with sharp black eyes, very alert in his manner, very neatly dressed, he conveyed the impression that he was enjoying a day off, but so far as honest work was concerned Jakobs’s day was an everlasting one.

Mr Jakobs had been a pensioner of Colonel Black’s for some years. During that period of time Willie Jakobs had lived the life of a gentleman. That is to say, he lived in the manner which he thought conformed more readily to the ideal than that which was generally accepted by the wealthier classes.

There were moments when he lived like a lord – again he had his own standard – but these periods occurred at rare intervals, because Willie was naturally abstemious. But he certainly lived like a gentleman, as all Somers Town agreed, for he went to bed at whatsoever hour he chose, arose with such larks as were abroad at the moment, or stayed in bed reading his favourite journal.

A fortunate man was he, never short of a copper for a half-pint of ale, thought no more of spending a shilling on a race than would you or I, was even suspected of taking his breakfast in bed, a veritable hall-mark of luxury and affluence by all standards.

To him every Saturday morning came postal orders to the value of two pounds sterling from a benefactor who asked no more than that the recipient should be happy and forget that he ever saw a respected dealer in stocks and shares in the act of rifling a dead man’s pockets.

For this William Jakobs had seen.

Willie was a thief, born so, and not without pride in his skilful-fingered ancestry. He had joined the firm of Black and Company less with the object of qualifying for a pension twenty years hence than on the off chance of obtaining an immediate dividend.

He was guarded by the very principles which animated the head of his firm.

There was an obnoxious member of the board – obnoxious to the genial Colonel Black – who had died suddenly. A subsequent inquisition came to the conclusion that he died from syncope: even Willie knew no better. He had stolen quietly into the managing director’s office one day in the ordinary course of business, for Master Jakobs stole quietly, but literally and figuratively. He was in search of unconsidered stamps and such loose coinage as might be found in the office of a man notoriously careless in the matter of small change. He had expected to find the room empty, and was momentarily paralysed to see the great Black himself bending over the recumbent figure of a man, busily searching the pockets of a dead man for a letter – for the silent man on the floor had come with his resignation in his pocket and had indiscreetly embodied in this letter his reasons for taking the step. Greatest indiscretion of all, he had revealed the existence of this very compromising document to Colonel Black.

Willie Jakobs knew nothing about the letter – had no subtle explanation for the disordered pocket-book. To his primitive mind Colonel Black was making a search for money: it was, in fact, a stamp-hunt on a large scale, and in his agitation he blurted this belief.

At the subsequent inquest Mr Jakobs did not give evidence. Officially he knew nothing concerning the matter. Instead he retired to his home in Somers Town, a life pensioner subject to a continuation of his reticence. Two years later, one Christmas morning, Mr Jakobs received a very beautiful box of chocolates by post, “with every good wish”, from somebody who did not trouble to send his or her name. Mr Jakobs, being no lover of chocolate drops, wondered what it had cost and wished the kindly donor had sent beer.

‘Hi, Spot, catch!’ said Mr Jakobs, and tossed a specimen of the confectioner’s art to his dog, who possessed a sweet tooth.

The dog ate it, wagging his tail, then he stopped wagging his tail and lay down with a shiver – dead.

It was some time before Willie Jakobs realized the connection between the stiff little dog and this bland and ornate Christmas gift.

He tried a chocolate on his landlord’s dog, and it died. He experimented on a fellow-lodger’s canary, and it died too – he might have destroyed the whole of Somers Town’s domestic menagerie but for the timely intervention of his landlord, who gave him in charge for his initial murder. Then the truth came out. The chocolates were poisoned. Willie Jakobs found his photograph in the public Press as the hero of a poisoning mystery: an embarrassment for Willie, who was promptly recognized by a Canning Town tradesman he had once victimized, and was arrested for the second time in a week.

Willie came out of gaol (it was a ‘carpet’) expecting to find an accumulation of one-pound postal orders awaiting him. Instead he found one five-pound note and a typewritten letter, on perfectly plain uncompromising paper, to the effect that the sender regretted that further supplies need not be expected.

Willie wrote to Colonel Black, and received in reply a letter in which ‘Colonel Black could not grasp the contents of yours of the 4th. He has never sent money, and fails to understand why the writer should have expected’, etc., etc.

Willie, furious and hurt at the base ingratitude and duplicity of his patron, carried the letter and a story to a solicitor, and the solicitor said one word – ‘Blackmail!’ Here, then, was a disgruntled Willie Jakobs forced to work: to depend upon chance bookings and precarious liftings. Fortunately his right hand had not lost its cunning, nor, for the matter of that, had his left. He ‘clicked’ to good stuff, fenced it with the new man in Eveswell Road (he was lagged eventually because he was only an amateur and gave too much for the stuff), and did well – so well, indeed, that he was inclined to take a mild view of Black’s offences.

On the evening of Lord Verlond’s dinner party – though, to do him justice, it must be confessed that Jakobs knew nothing of his lordship’s plans – he sallied forth on business intent.

He made his way through the tiny court and narrow streets which separated him from Stibbington Street, there turning southwards to the Euston Road, and taking matters leisurely, he made his way to Tottenham Court Road,
en route
to Oxford Street.

Tottenham Court Road, on that particular night, was filled with interested people.

They were interested in shop windows, interested
in one another, interested in boarding and alighting from buses. It was an ideal crowd from Jakobs’s point of view.

He liked people who
concentrated, who fixed their minds on one thing and had no thought for any other. In a sense he was something of a psychologist, and he looked round to find some opulent person whose powers of concentration might be of service to himself.

Gathered round the steps of an omnibus, impatiently waiting for other passengers to disembark, was a little crowd of people, and Jakobs, with his quick, keen eye, spotted a likely client.

He was a stout man of middle age. His hat was placed at such an angle on his head that the Somers Towner diagnosed him as ‘canned’. He may or may not have been right in his surmise. It is sufficient that he appeared comfortably off, and that not only was his coat of good material, but he had various indications of an ostentatious character testifying to his present affluence. Willie Jakobs had had no intention of taking a bus ride. I doubt very much whether he changed his plans even now, but certain it is that he began to elbow his way into the little throng which surrounded the bus, by this time surging forward to board it.

He elbowed his way with good effect, for suddenly ceasing his efforts, as though he had remembered some very important engagement, he began to back out. He reached the outskirts of the little knot, then turned to walk briskly away.

At that moment a firm hand dropped on his shoulder in quite a friendly way. He looked round quickly. A tall young man in civilian dress stood behind him.

‘Hullo!’ said the young man, kindly enough, ‘aren’t you going on?’

‘No, Mr Fellowe,’ he said. ‘I was going down for a blow, but I remember I left the gas burning at home.’

‘Let’s go back and put it out,’ said Constable Fellowe, who was on a very special duty that night.

‘On second thoughts,’ said Jakobs reflectively, ‘I don’t think it’s worth while. After all, it’s one of those penny-in-the-slot machines and it can only burn itself out.’

‘Then come along and see if my gas is burning,’ said Frank humorously.

He held the other’s arm lightly, but when Jakobs attempted to disengage himself he found the pressure on his arm increased. ‘What’s the game?’ he asked innocently.

‘The same old game,’ said Frank, with a little smile. ‘Hullo. Willie, you’ve dropped something.’

He stooped quickly, without releasing his hold, and picked up a pocket-book.

The bus was on the point of moving off as Frank swung round and with a signal stopped the conductor.

‘I think someone who has just boarded your bus has lost a pocket-book. I think it is that stoutish gentleman who has just gone inside.’

The stoutish gentleman hastily descended to make a public examination of his wardrobe. He discovered himself minus several articles which should, by all laws affecting the right of property, have been upon his person.

Thereafter the matter became a fairly commonplace incident.

‘It’s a cop,’
said
Willie philosophically. I didn’t see you around, Mr Fellowe.’

‘I don’t suppose you did, yet I’m big enough.’

‘And ugly enough,’ added Willie impartially.

Frank smiled. ‘You’re not much of an authority on beauty, Willie, are you?’ he asked jocosely, as they threaded their way through the streets which separated them from the nearest police-station.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Willie, ‘
’andsome is as ’andsome does. Say, Mr Fellowe, why don’t the police go after a man like Olloroff? What are they worrying about a little hook like me for – getting my living at great inconvenience, in a manner of speaking. He is a fellow who makes his thousands, and has ruined his hundreds. Can you get him a lagging?’

‘In time I hope we shall,’ said Frank.

‘There’s a feller!’ said Willie. ‘He baits the poor little clerk – gets him to put up a fiver to buy a million pounds’ worth of gold mines. Clerk puts it – pinches the money from the till, not meanin’ to be dishonest, in a manner of speakin’, but expectin’ one day to walk into his boss, covered with fame and diamonds, and say, “Look at your long-lost Horace!” See what I mean?’

Frank nodded.

‘ “Look at your prodigal cashier”,’ Jakobs continued, carried away by his imagination.
‘
“Put your lamps over my shiners, run your hooks over me Astrakhan collar. Master, it is I, thy servant!” ’

It was not curious that they should speak of Black. There had been a case in court that day in which a too-credulous client of Black’s, who had suffered as a result of that credulity, had sued the colonel for the return of his money, and the case had not been defended.

‘I used to work for him,’ said Mr Jakobs, reminiscently. ‘Messenger at twenty-nine shillings a week – like bein’ messenger at a mortuary.’

He looked up at Frank.

‘Ever count up the number of Black’s friends
who’ve died
suddenly?’ he asked. ‘Ever reckon that up? He’s a regular jujube tree, he is.’

‘
“Upas” is the word you want, Willie,’ said Frank gently.

‘You wait till the Four get him,’ warned Mr Jakobs cheerfully. ‘They won’t half put his light out.’

He said no more for a while, then he turned suddenly to Frank.

‘Come to think of it, Fellowe,’ he said, with the gross familiarity of the habitué in dealing with his captor, ‘this is the third time you’ve pinched me.’

‘Come to think of it,’ admitted Frank cheerfully, ‘it is.’

‘Harf a mo’.’ Mr Jakobs halted and surveyed the other with a puzzled air. ‘He took me in the Tottenham Court Road, he took me in the Charin’ Cross Road, an’ he apperryhended me in Cheapside.’

‘You’ve a wonderful memory,’ smiled the young man.

‘Never on his beat,’ said Mr Jakobs to himself, ‘always in plain clothes, an’ generally watchin’ me – now, why?’

Frank thought a moment. ‘Come and have a cup of tea, Willie,’ he said, ‘and I will tell you a fairy story.’

‘I think we shall be gettin’ at facts very soon,’ said Willie, in his best judicial manner.

‘I am going to be perfectly frank with you, my friend,’ said Fellowe, when they were seated in a neighbouring coffee-shop.

‘If you don’t mind,’ begged Willie, ‘I’d rather call you by your surname – I don’t want it to get about that I’m a pal of yours.’

Frank smiled again. Willie had ever been a source of amusement.

‘You have been taken by me three times,’ he said, ‘and this is the first time you have mentioned our friend Black. I think I can say that if you had mentioned him before it might have made a lot of difference to you, Willie.’

Mr Jakobs addressed the ceiling. ‘Come to think of it,’ he said, ‘he ’inted at this once before.’

‘I ’int at it once again,’ said Frank. ‘Will you tell me why Black pays you two pounds a week?’

‘Because he don’t,’ said Willie promptly. ‘Because he’s a sneakin’ hook an’ because he’s a twister, because he’s a liar – ’

‘If there’s any reason you haven’t mentioned, give it a run,’ said Constable Fellowe in the vernacular.

Willie hesitated. ‘What’s the good of my tellin’ you?’ he asked. ‘Sure as death you’ll tell me I’m only lyin’.’

‘Try me,’ said Frank, and for an hour they sat talking, policeman and thief.

At the end of that time they went different ways – Frank to the police-station, where he found an irate owner of property awaiting him, and Mr Jakobs, thankfully, yet apprehensively, to his Somers Town home.

His business completed at the station, and a station sergeant alternately annoyed and mystified by the erratic behaviour of a plain-clothes constable, who gave orders with the assurance of an Assistant-Commissioner, Frank found a taxi and drove first to the house of Black, and later (with instructions to the driver to break all the rules laid down for the regulation of traffic) to Hampstead.