The Man Who Bought London (15 page)

Hember Street, Commercial Road, has long since been given over to the stranger within the gate. Great gaunt ‘models’, which are models in ugliness, models in cheerless drabness, but never models of what domestic comfort should be, raised their unshapely, lopsided heads to the grey skies, and between model and model are untidy doorways through which, all the time, pass in and out never-ending strings of ugly men and stodgy, vacant-faced children.

Here you may catch the sound of a dozen tongues; every language that is spoken from the Baltic to the Caspian, and from the Ural Mountains to the Finnish shore is repeated in the jibber-jabber of these uncleanly men and frowsy girl-women. The neighbourhood is for the most part populated by respectable and honest (if unsavoury) people, hard-working and industrious in a sense which the average working-class man of London would not understand, for it is an industry which rises at five and ends its work when smarting eyes and reeling brain make further effort impossible.

Yet there is a fair sprinkling of the Continental criminal classes to be found here, and Hermann Zeberlieff went armed to his interview. It was of his seeking. For some time past he had been under the impression that the house in Park Lane was being watched. He could not afford to bring Micheloff, that little pseudo-Frenchman with the blotchy face and the little eyes, to the notice of the watchers.

Without knocking Zeberlieff passed through an open door, along an uncarpeted hall, and mounted the stairs to the third floor of one of the houses.

He tapped on a door and a cheerful voice said: ‘
Entrez
!’

Micheloff, in his shirt sleeves, smoking a long, thin cigar, was neither heroic nor domestic. He was just commonplace.

‘Come in!’ he roared – his joviality was expressed in measure of sound. ‘Come in,
mon vieux
!’

He dusted a rickety chair with great ostentation, but Hermann ignored the civility.

The room was large and simply furnished – a bed, a table, a couple of chairs, a couple of trunks well labelled, a picture of President Carnot and a little glass ikon over the mantelpiece seemed to make this place ‘home’ for Micheloff.

‘Lock the door,’ said Hermann. ‘I have very important business, and I do not desire intrusion.’

Obediently the smaller man turned the key.

‘My friend,’ said Hermann, ‘I have big work for you – the best work in the world so far as payment is concerned. There is a thousand pounds for you and another thousand for distribution amongst your friends – it is the last piece of work I shall ask you to do. If it succeeds I shall be beyond the necessity for your help; if I fail I shall be beyond its scope.’

‘You shall succeed, my ancient,’ said the short man, enthusiastically. ‘I will work for you with greater fervour since now I know that you are one with me in spirit. Ah! pupil of Le Cinq!’ he shook his finger in heavy jocularity. ‘What shall we teach you that you cannot teach us?’

Hermann smiled. He was never indifferent to praise – even the praise of a confessed cut-throat. ‘There must be no killing,’ he said. ‘I am through with that – even now the infernal police are continuing their inquiries into the death of the girl Gritter.’

‘So much the better,’ said the other heartily. ‘I am a babe – these things distress me. I have a soft heart. I could weep.’ There were tears in his eyes.

‘Don’t weep, you fool!’

Hermann hated weeping. It was another of his pet abominations. The sight of tears lashed him to frantic desperation.

Micheloff spread out his fat hands.

‘Excellency!’ he said with great impression, ‘I do not weep.’

‘Listen to me,’ said Hermann, lowering his voice. ‘Do you know King Kerry?’

The other nodded.

‘You know his office?’

Micheloff shrugged his shoulders.

‘Who does not know the office of the great King Kerry – the window, the mirrors, and the safe full of millions,
ma foi
?’

‘You will find precious few millions there,’ he said dryly. ‘But you will find much that will be valuable to me.’

Micheloff looked dubious.

‘It is a great undertaking,’ he said – the conversation was in the staccato French of Marseilles – ‘the guard – all the circumstances are against success. And the safe – it is combination – yes?’

Hermann nodded.

‘Before it was combination,’ said the other man regretfully, ‘and there was a death regrettable.’

‘I have reason to think that he changes the combination every week – it was probably changed yesterday. I will give you two. You may try –’ A light came to his eyes. ‘I wonder,’ he said to himself, then slowly, ‘try “Elsie”.’

Micheloff nodded.

‘That is but one,’ he said.

‘That is all I can give you now,’ said Hermann, rising. ‘If that fails you must use your blowpipe. I leave the details to you. Only this – I want a packet you will find marked “Private”. Leave everything relating to the business, but bring all that is marked “Private”.’

He left behind him two hundred pounds and Micheloff would have embraced him at the sight of the money, but the other pushed him back roughly.

‘I do not like your Continental customs,’ he said, and added, to appease the humiliated Russian, ‘I have lost things like that.’

He went downstairs to the accompaniment of a roar of laughter. It was an excellent joke on Micheloff – he repeated it with discreet modification at his club that night.

The faithful man-servant, Martin, was waiting up when Hermann arrived home.

‘Get me a strong cup of coffee, and go to bed,’ he said.

He went up to his study and switched on the light and folded his coat over the back of a chair. It was one of his eccentricities that he valeted himself.

He drew a chair up to the desk and sat, his chin on his palm, looking vacantly before him until Martin came up with the coffee. ‘Leave it and go to bed,’ he said.

‘What time in the morning, sir?’ asked the man.

Hermann jerked his head impatiently. ‘I will write the hour on the slate,’ he said. He had a small porcelain slate affixed to his bedroom door to convey his belated instructions. He stirred his coffee mechanically, and drank it steaming hot. Then he addressed himself to the correspondence that awaited him. It was characteristic of him that, face to face with ruin as he was, he sent generous cheques to the appeals which came to him from hospitals and charitable institutions. The few letters he wrote
in his big, sprawling handwriting were brief. Presently he had finished all that was necessary and he resumed his old attitude.

He remained thus till the church clock struck four, and then he passed into his bedroom, locking the door behind him.

‘Oh, Mr Kerry, You can make me merry; Buy me Trafalgar Square, I want to keep my chicken there! Oh, Mr Kerry, Just jot my wishes down; I can comb my moustache with the Marble Arch If you’ll lend me London Town.’

It was gentle wit, but the great house roared with amusement at this latest addition to the gayest of the revues.

None laughed more heartily than Kerry in the shadow of the stage box. He was in the company of Elsie Marion, Vera Zeberlieff and Gordon Bray. Elsie Marion didn’t know whether she approved, but the stately girl by her side laughed quietly.

‘This is the last word in fame,’ said Gordon Bray.

He sat at King Kerry’s elbow, and was genuinely amused.

‘How embarrassed the singer would be,’ said Kerry with a little twinkle in his eye, ‘if I stepped round to the stage door and offered him a conveyance of a slice of London.’

‘When do you go away, sir?’ It was Bray who asked the question. King Kerry turned his head and spoke over his shoulder.

‘I want to get away at the end of the week,’ he said. ‘It is rather late for Marienbad, but I must be unfashionable. I am afraid I shall be away for a fortnight.’

‘Afraid!’ smiled Bray.

The millionaire nodded.

‘Yes,’ he said seriously, ‘I do not really want to go away at all. The healthiest experience in life is to be interested in your work, and I have not yet grown stale.’

They saw the revue through to its pleasant end and adjourned for supper. Vera was a member of the Six Hundred Club, and to
this exclusive establishment the party went. King Kerry seized the first opportunity to speak to Vera alone.

‘I want to see you tomorrow,’ he said. ‘There is something very important I should like to discuss with you, something which I think you ought to know.’

His tone was so grave that the girl looked at him a little apprehensively. ‘It is not Hermann again?’ she asked.

He nodded. Something told her that he knew. ‘It is to do with Hermann,’ he said. ‘I am afraid you have got just a little hurt coming – I would have spared you that, if I could.’

She shrugged her shoulders with a gesture of weariness.

‘I can stand just one more,’ she replied. ‘I do not think you really know what life has been with Hermann.’

‘I can guess,’ he said grimly.

She recovered her spirits at supper, and made an excellent hostess, and Elsie, to whom this was a new and a beautiful world, had a most fascinating hour as the tango dancers glided and dipped between the gaily decorated tables.

The Six Hundred is the best of the night clubs. Duchesses order tables in advance and the most famous actresses of the world are members, and may be seen nightly in their precious toilettes seated about the little tables of the great dining-hall. Here was laughter and music and song, and the murmur and magic of life, the life of the leisured and the artistic – of the section of Bohemia which dresses for dinner.

Elsie watched the unaccustomed scenes, comforted by the light and the glitter. It was unlike anything she had ever seen before. No staring eyes surveyed them; the club was used to celebrities and even the whisper that the ‘King of London’ was in its midst aroused little more than passing interest.

Vera was sitting next to Kerry, and after the first course had been served she spoke to him under her breath.

‘Hermann is here,’ she said. ‘He is sitting a little to your left and behind you.’

He nodded. ‘I saw him come in,’ he said. ‘I do not anticipate any particular danger from him here.’

He looked at his watch.

‘Oh, please do not think of going yet, Mr Kerry!’ the girl begged.

‘I am not going,’ he said. ‘But it is a practice of mine, as you know, to make a call at my office before I go home, and I was just wondering what was the hour.’

Hermann Zeberlieff had seen the action, and suddenly he rose, leaving the elegant Mr Hubbard, whose guest he was, without any apology and strolled across to the table.

A dead silence greeted him, but he was not in any way embarrassed. From where he stood, he could look down at King Kerry and his sister, and there was an ample display of good humour on his handsome face.

‘Does anybody feel inclined,’ he asked languidly, ‘to do a little scientific hatchet-burying?’

He addressed the company at large. There was not one there against whom he had not offended. Elsie was ignorant perhaps of the part the man had played, but she looked up at him anxiously.

Gordon Bray, with the memory of drugged drink and an awakening in a certain wine cellar in Park Lane, went a dull red. King Kerry’s face was expressionless, and it was only Vera who smiled gaily at the man who had neglected no effort to remove her from the world.

‘Because,’ Hermann went on, ‘if at this particularly genial moment of life you feel inclined to accept me as your guest I am in a most humble frame of mind.’

It was a situation at once delicate and trying: Vera for the moment was deceived by his loneliness and looked a little pleadingly at King Kerry.

‘Certainly,’ he responded. ‘Will you ask the waiter to put a chair for your brother?’

‘What about your guest?’ asked Vera.

Hermann shrugged his shoulders.

‘He is waiting for somebody else,’ he said, ‘and he will be rather relieved than otherwise to get rid of me.’

It happened that he partly spoke the truth, because Hubbard was expecting Leete, who joined him a few minutes later. But since the two had foregathered to talk ways and means with the man who had so calmly deserted them, they found little consolation in one another’s society.

Hermann was charming. Never before had King Kerry known him so gay, so cheerful, so full of sparkling wit, so ready with good-natured banter.

It was a new Hermann they saw – a suave, polished man of the world, versed in its niceties, its tone, and its standard of humour. He told stories that were new, had anecdotes that not one member of the party had heard before, which was strange: but never once did he address Kerry, though he blandly included Gordon Bray in his conversation whenever the opportunity offered.

That young man, resentful as he was, and with the memory of his unpleasant experience behind him, found himself engaged in an animated conversation with this man who had treated him so badly.

The coffee stage had long since come and gone. King Kerry fidgeted uneasily, he did not like late hours, and he still had a little work to do at the office. Late nights disorganized the following day, for he laid down an irreducible minimum of seven hours for sleep.

Still Hermann rattled on, and they were forced against their will to listen and be amused.

Martin Hubbard had long since gone with Leete, and Hermann had met their scowls with his most pleasant smile. They were out of the scheme for the moment.

The tables began to thin a little; the more sedate members had gathered up their belongings and departed in a cloud of chatter and laughter.

Vera’s table was one of the last four occupied in the room.

‘I really think we must go now,’ said Kerry. ‘It is nearly three o’clock.’

They rose, Hermann with an apology.

‘I’m afraid I have kept you,’ he said.

Kerry returned a conventional and polite reply.

It was whilst Vera was settling the bill that young Lord Fallingham, whom King Kerry knew slightly, came in with a most hilarious party.

He was settling upon a table when he caught sight of the millionaire and came over.

‘How do you do, Mr King Kerry?’ he said cordially. ‘I congratulate you on the fruition of your scheme, and I only regret that the successful conclusion of your business has removed so picturesque a spectacle from London.’

‘Meaning me?’ asked King Kerry good humouredly.

‘Meaning your Jewel House,’ said the young man.

King Kerry shook his head.

‘It will be a long time before the Jewel House departs,’ he said. ‘The one concrete evidence of the Trust’s existence will remain for many years.’

The young man looked down at him a little bewildered.

‘But you are moving from Glasshouse Street,’ he persisted. ‘I went round there to find you tonight; I have just come from there.’

‘You have just come from there?’ repeated Kerry in astonishment.

‘Yes. I have a man here,’ he jerked his head towards his table, ‘who is home from India, and I took him round to see the wonderful sights, and, alas! there were no longer wonderful sights to be seen.’

‘Exactly what do you mean?’ King Kerry’s voice was sharp and commanding. ‘I have not moved from Glasshouse Street.’

‘I do not quite understand you,’ said Fallingham slowly. ‘The place is in darkness, and you have two huge bills pasted up on the window outside saying that your office is removed to 106, Piccadilly Circus.’

For a moment Elsie’s startled eyes met the millionaire’s, then he turned quickly to the smiling Hermann.

‘I see,’ he said, without raising his voice.

‘Exactly, Mr King Kerry, what do you see?’ drawled the other.

‘I understand your intrusion into this party,’ said King Kerry, ‘and your entertaining conversation is explained.’

With an excuse he left them and hurried downstairs.

He hailed the first taxi-cab he could see and drove to his office. The shop front was in darkness; he peered through, but could not see the safe. Once the lights were out, as they had not
been since the opening of the Jewel House, the safe would be in the shadow.

He unlocked the outer door and entered, pressing over the switch on the left of the door. But no light resulted. He went out again into the street and called the nearest policeman.

‘This place has been burgled,’ he said.

‘Burgled, sir! Why I thought you had moved your furniture tonight.’

‘Who put those bills up?’

King Kerry pointed to the large printed notice on the window.

‘I don’t know,’ said the man. ‘When I came on duty the shop was in darkness and these bills were posted. Naturally, when I saw there was no light I acted according to the instructions the police had received from you, and went across, but seeing the bills I thought it was all right.’

He whistled two of his mates, and the four men entered the building, the policemen flashing their lamps before them. In the commissionaire’s box they found the unfortunate guard whose duty it was to protect the treasures of the safe. He was unconscious. He had been clubbed into insensibility, gagged and bound. The arrival of the relief only came just in time to save his life.

The commissionaire was nowhere to be seen. They found him afterwards in the smaller office, treated in very much the same way as his assistant. The only account he could give was that suddenly, while he was sitting in his box, something had been squirted in his face, something that had taken away his breath.

‘I think it was ammonia,’ he said, and that, before he could struggle or cry, he was knocked down, and awoke to find himself strung and gagged in the little office.

An examination of the place showed that all the electric light cables were cut. Possibly the burglary had been committed at the very moment when the police were changing over.

There was no necessity to unlock the steel door leading from the inner office to the safe room, the lock had been burnt out and the safe was open wide, and was apparently uninjured.

King Kerry uttered a smothered exclamation.

‘Lend me your lamp,’ he said, and rapidly examined the contents of the safe. None of the documents affecting the Trust had been disturbed, or if they had been moved they had been put back as they had been found. One bundle of envelopes, the most important to him, had gone.

‘You had better report this,’ he said, after a long silence. ‘I will get somebody in to repair the damage to the electric cable.’

He sat in the inner office with no more light than a candle afforded, and there Elsie found him. Alarmed by the look on the millionaire’s face, she had followed. ‘Is anything gone?’ she asked.

‘A bundle of mine,’ he said quietly; ‘but, fortunately, nothing belonging to the business has been touched.’

‘Are you sure your bundle has gone?’ she asked.

It was a true woman’s question, the inevitable expression of distrust in man’s power of search. He smiled slightly. ‘You had better look for yourself,’ he said. ‘There is a lamp over there.’

She went into the office; the safe was still open and she was carefully examining the contents before she remembered that she did not know what she was seeking.

She went back to Kerry. ‘It is a bunch of long envelopes,’ he said, ‘inscribed “Relating to the affairs of King Kerry – Private”.’

She nodded and went back. She turned over every envelope in the safe without making any discovery. Then she flashed her
lamp over the floor. Here she found something: One long, thin envelope, carefully sealed, had fallen, and lay on its edge against the side of the safe, kept in its upright position possibly by the edge of the carpet.

She picked it up and, turning the lantern light upon it, read –

‘Marriage Certificate of King Kerry and Henrietta Zeberlieff.’

The girl stared at the envelope.

Zeberlieff! Hermann’s sister!