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The Box with Broken Seals (Strange Case of Mr. Jocelyn Thew), a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Chapter 23 |
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_ CHAPTER XXIII Crawshay was awakened the next morning a little before the customary hour by his servant, who held out a card. "Gentleman would like a word with you at once, sir," the latter announced. Crawshay glanced at the card, slipped out of bed, and, attired in his dressing gown and slippers, made an apologetic entrance into the sitting room. The young man who was waiting there received him kindly, but obviously disapproved of the pattern of his dressing gown. "Chief wants a word with you, sir," he announced. "He is keeping from ten to ten-thirty." "I will be there," Crawshay promised, "on the stroke of ten." "Then I need not detain you further," his visitor remarked, making a graceful exit. Crawshay bathed, shaved and breakfasted, and at five minutes before ten entered an imposing-looking building and sent up his card to a very great man, who had a fancy for being spoken of in his department as Mr. Brown. After a very brief delay, he was admitted to the august presence. Mr. Brown waved his secretaries from the room, shook hands kindly with Crawshay and motioned him to a chair close to his own. "Mr. Crawshay," he said, "this is the first time I have had the pleasure of meeting you, but we have received at various times excellent reports as to your work at Washington." "I am very pleased to hear it, sir." "From what I gather as to the present situation, however," the great man continued, "I imagine that you were more successful in the conventional secret service work than you have been in the very grave business I have sent for you to discuss." "I should like to point out, sir," Crawshay begged, "that that foolish journey to Halifax was undertaken entirely against my convictions. I protested at the time! Neither had I any confidence in the summons to Chicago." Mr. Brown took the circumstance into gracious consideration. "I am glad to hear that," he said, "and I must admit that your recovery was almost brilliant. A sense of humour," he went on, "sometimes obtrudes itself into the most serious incidents, and the idea of your boarding that steamer from a seaplane and then getting to work upon your investigations will always remain to me one of the priceless unrecorded incidents of the war. But to put the matter into plain words, our enemies got the better of you." "Absolutely," was the honest confession. "There is no doubt," the right honourable gentleman continued, "that the person who took charge of this affair is exceedingly clever. He appears to have resource and daring. Personally, I, like you, never believed for a moment that the whole of the records of German espionage in America for the last three years, would be found upon the same steamer as that by which the departing ambassadorial staff travelled. However, I can quite see that under the circumstances you had to yield to the convictions of those who were already in charge of the affair." "You have had full reports, sir, I suppose?" Crawshay asked. "You know the manner in which the documents were brought into this country?" "A ghastly business," Mr. Brown acknowledged, "ingenious but ghastly. Yes, Mr. Crawshay," he went on, "I think I have been kept pretty well posted up till now. I have sent for you because I am not sure whether one point has been sufficiently impressed upon you. As you are of course aware, there are many documents and details connected with this propaganda which are of immense value to the police of New York, but there is just one--a letter written in a moment of impulse by one great personage to another, and stolen--which might do the cause of the Allies incalculable harm if it were to fall into the wrong hands." "I had a hint of this, sir. Mason knew of it, too. His idea was that they would be quite willing to destroy all the rest of the treasonable stuff they have, if they could be sure of getting this one letter through." "The documents have been in England now," Mr. Brown observed, "for some days. Have you formed any theory at all as to where they may be concealed?" "To be perfectly frank," Crawshay confessed, "I have not. Doctor Gant, Jocelyn Thew, a young woman called Nora Sharey, and Miss Beverley are the four people possibly implicated in their disappearance, although of these two I consider Miss Sharey and Miss Beverley out of the question. Nevertheless, their rooms and every scrap of property they possess have been searched thoroughly, and their movements since they arrived in London are absolutely tabulated. Not one of them has written a letter or dispatched a parcel which has not been investigated, nor have they made a call or even entered a shop without being watched. It seems absolutely impossible that they can have taken any steps towards the disposal of the documents since Jocelyn Thew arrived in London." "Have they given any indication of their future plans?" "Doctor Gant," Crawshay replied, "has booked a passage back in the American boat which sails for Liverpool early to-morrow morning. We shall escort him there, and his effects will be searched once more in Liverpool. Otherwise, we have no intention of detaining him. He and Miss Beverley were simply the tools of the other man." "And the other man?" "He has shown no signs of making any move whatsoever. He lives, to all appearance, the perfectly normal life of a man of leisure. I understand that he is entirely a newcomer to this sort of business, but he is, without a doubt, the most modern thing in secret service. He lives quite openly at a small suite in the Savoy Court. He never makes the slightest concealment about any of his movements. We know how he has spent every second of his time since we first took up the search, and I can assure you that there is not a single suspicious incident recorded against him." "You are satisfied," Mr. Brown asked, "with the aid which you are getting from Scotland Yard?" "Absolutely," Crawshay declared. "Brightman, too--the man who came down with me from Liverpool--has done excellent work." "And notwithstanding all this," was the somewhat grave criticism, "you have not the slightest idea where these documents are to be found?" "Not the slightest," Crawshay confessed. "All that I do feel convinced of is that they have not left the country." The great man leaned back a little wearily in his chair. There were some decoded cables, lying under a paper weight by his side, imploring him in the strongest possible terms to make use of every means within his power to solve this mystery,--a personal appeal from a man whose good will might sway the balance of the future. He was used to wonderful service in every department he controlled. His present sense of impotence was galling. "Tell me, Mr. Crawshay," he asked, "how long was the gap of time between your losing sight of Jocelyn Thew and when you picked him up in London?" "Very short indeed," was the emphatic reply. "Jocelyn Thew must have left the _City of Boston_ at about eight o'clock on Monday morning. He met Gant at five o'clock that evening at Crewe station. Gant had come direct from Frisby, the little village near Chester where he had left the body of Phillips. It is obvious, therefore, that Gant had the papers with him when he joined Jocelyn Thew. They travelled to London together but parted at Euston, Gant going to a cheap hotel in the vicinity of Regent Street, whilst Thew drove to the Savoy. Gant called at the Savoy Hotel at nine o'clock that evening, and the two men dined together in the grill room and took a box at a music hall--the Alhambra. Up to this time neither of them had received a visitor or dispatched a message--Thew, in fact, had spent more than an hour in the barber's shop. They returned from the Alhambra together, went up to Thew's rooms, had a drink and separated half an hour later. This, of course, is in a sense posthumous information, but Scotland Yard have it tabulated down to the slightest detail, and we are unable to find a single suspicious circumstance in connection with the movements of either man. At four o'clock the following morning, when both men were asleep in their rooms, the cordon was drawn around them. Since then they haven't had a chance." "The fact that the papers are not in the possession of either of them," Mr. Brown said reflectively, "proves that they made some move of which you have no record." "Precisely," Crawshay agreed, "but it must have been a move of so slight a character that chance may reveal it to us at any moment." "Describe Jocelyn Thew to me," Mr. Brown begged. "He has every appearance," Crawshay declared, "of being a man of breeding. He is scarcely middle-aged--tall and of athletic build. He dresses well, speaks well, and I should take him anywhere for an English public school and college man." "Did New York give you his record?" "In a cloudy sort of way. He seems to have had a most interesting career, ranching out West, fighting in Mexico, fighting in several of the Central American states, and fighting, I shrewdly suspect, against England in South Africa. He seems to have been a sort of stormy petrel, and to have turned up in any place where there was trouble. In New York the police always suspected him of being connected with some great criminal movements, but they were never able to lay even a finger upon him. He lived at one of the best hotels in the city, disappeared sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for a year, but always returned quite quietly, with apparently any amount of money to spend, and that queer look which comes to a man who has been up against big things." "He is an Englishman, I suppose?" "He must be. His accent and manners and appearance are all unmistakable." "How long was he suspected of being in the pay of our enemies before this thing transpired?" "Only a very short time. There was a little gang in New York--Rentoul, the man who had the wireless in Fifth Avenue, was in it--and they used to meet at a place in Fourteenth Street, belonging to an old man named Sharey. That's where Miss Sharey comes into the business. There were some queer things done there, but they don't concern this business, and New York has the records of them." "Jocelyn Thew," Mr. Brown repeated slowly to himself. "Where did you say he was staying?" "At the Savoy Court." Mr. Brown looked fixedly at the cables, fluttering a little in the breeze which blew in through the half-open window. "All this isn't very encouraging, Mr. Crawshay," he sighed. "Up to the present no," the former admitted. "Yet I can promise you one thing, sir. Those papers shall not leave the country." "I am glad to hear you speak with so much confidence," Mr. Brown observed drily. "Mr. Jocelyn Thew seems at any rate to have managed to secrete them without difficulty." "That may be so," Crawshay acknowledged, "and yet I am convinced of one thing. They are disposed of in some perfectly obvious way, and within the next forty-eight hours he will make some effort to repossess himself of them. If he does, he will fail." Mr. Brown glanced at his watch. "I am very much obliged to you for coming to see me," he said. "You are doing your best, I know, and I beg you, Mr. Crawshay, never for a moment to let your efforts relax. The mechanical side of the watch that is being kept upon these people I know we can rely upon, but you must remember that you are the brains of this enterprise. Your little band of watchers will be quiet enough to see the things that happen and the things that exist. It is you who must watch for the things which don't happen." Crawshay smiled slightly as he rose to take his leave. "I do not as a rule suffer from over-confidence, sir," he said, "but I think I can promise you that by Wednesday night not only will the papers be in our hands, but Mr. Jocelyn Thew will be so disposed of that he will be no longer an object of anxiety to us." "Get on with the good work, then," was Mr. Brown's laconic farewell. Late on the following afternoon, Jocelyn Thew and Gant paced the long platform at Euston, by the side of which the special for the American boat was already drawn up. Curiously enough, in their immediate vicinity Mr. Brightman was also seeing a friend off, and on the outskirts of the little throng Mr. Henshaw was taking an intelligent interest in the scene. "Perhaps, after all," Jocelyn Thew declared, "you are right to go. You have been very useful, and you have, without a doubt, earned your thousand pounds." "It was easy money," the other admitted, "but even now I am nervous. I shall be glad to be back once more in my own country." "You are certainly right to go," the other repeated. "If you had been different, if you had been one of those men after my own heart," Jocelyn Thew went on, resting his hand for a moment upon Gant's shoulder, "one of those who, apart from thought of gain or hope of profit, love adventure for its own sake, I should have begged you to stay with me. I would have sent you on bogus errands to mysterious places. I would have twisted the brains of those who have fastened upon us in a hundred different fashions. But alas, my friend, you are not like that!" "I am not," Gant admitted, gruffly but heartily. "I have done a job for you, and you have paid me very well. I am glad to have done it, because I love Germany and I do not love England. Apart from that my work is finished. I like to go home. I am happiest with my wife and family." "Quite so," his companion agreed. "I know your type, Gant,--in fact, I chose you because of it. You like, as you say, to do your job and finish with it,--and you have finished." The doctor turned for a moment deliberately round and looked at his companion. He was a heavy-browed, unimaginative, quiet-living man. The things which passed before his eyes counted with him, and little else. The thousand pounds which he was taking home was more than he had been able to save throughout his life. To him it represented immense things. He would probably not spend a dollar more, or indulge in a single luxury, yet the money was there in the background, a warm, comforting thing. "You have still," he said, "a desperate part to play. Can you tell me honestly that you enjoy it, that you have no fear?" Jocelyn Thew repeated the word almost wonderingly. "Fear! Do you really know me so little, my friend of few perceptions? Listen and I will confess something. I have fought for my life at least a dozen times, fought against odds which seemed almost hopeless. I have seen death with hungry, outstretched arms, within a few seconds' reach of me, but I have never felt fear. I do not know what it is. The length of one's life is purely a relative thing. It will come in ten or twenty years, if not to-morrow. Why not to-morrow?" "If you put it like that," Gant grunted, "why not to-day?" "Or at any moment, if you will. I am quite ready, as ready as I ever shall be. If I fail to bring off what I desire within the next few days, there will be an end of me. Do I look as though I were worrying about that?" "You don't indeed," the doctor agreed. "You ought to have been in my profession. You might have become the greatest surgeon in the world." Jocelyn Thew shrugged his shoulders. "Even that is possible," he admitted. "Unfortunately, there was a cloud over my early days, a cloud heavy enough even to prevent my offering my services to the world through the medium of any of the recognized professions. So you see, Gant, I had to invent one of my own. What would you call it, I wonder?--Buccaneer? Adventurer? Explorer? Perhaps my enemies would find a more unkind word.--Now you had better step in and take your seat. Behold the creatures of our friend Brightman and the satellites of the aristocratic Crawshay close in upon us! They listen for farewell words. Is this your carriage? Very well. Here comes your porter, hungry for remuneration. Shall I give them a hint, Gant?" There flashed in the hunted man's eyes for a moment a gleam of almost demoniacal humour. Gant glowered at him. "You are mad!" he exclaimed. "Not I, my dear friend," Jocelyn Thew assured him, as he gripped his hand in a farewell salute. "Believe me, it is not I who am mad. It is these stupid people who search for what they can never find. They lift up the Stars and Stripes and find nothing. They lift up the Union Jack; again nothing. They try the Tricolour; _rien de tout_. But if they have the sense to try the Crescent--eh, Gant?--Well, a safe voyage to you, man. Sleep in your waistcoat, and remember me to every one in New York. I can't promise when I shall be back. I have taken a fancy to England. Still, one never knows.--Good-by." Thew watched the long train crawl out of the station, waved his hand in farewell, forced a greeting upon the reluctant Brightman, whom he passed examining the magazines upon a bookstall, and, summoning a taxi, was duly deposited at the Alhambra Theatre. He made his way to the box office. "I have called," he explained to the young man, "to see you about Box A on Monday night. I understand that there is a benefit performance." "Quite so, sir," the young man replied, "and I ought to have explained the matter to you at the time, when you engaged the box. If you will remember, although you took it for a week, you only paid for five nights. I omitted to tell you that for Monday night the box is not ours to dispose of." "It isn't yet sold, I hope?" "Not yet, sir. The boxes will be disposed of by auction to-morrow afternoon at the Theatrical Garden Party. Mr. Bobby is going to act as auctioneer." "I see," Jocelyn Thew said thoughtfully. "The performance is, I believe, on behalf of the Red Cross?" "That is so." "In that case, supposing I offer you now one hundred guineas for the box?" "Very generous indeed, sir," the young man admitted, "but we are pledged to allow all the boxes to be sold by Mr. Bobby. I think that if you are prepared to go to that sum, you will have no difficulty in securing it." Jocelyn Thew frowned slightly. "I wasn't thinking of going to the Theatrical Garden Party," he remarked. "You could perhaps get a friend to bid for you, sir," the young man suggested. "We hope to get fifty guineas for the large boxes, but I should think an offer such as yours would secure any one of them." "I rather dislike the publicity of an auction," Jocelyn Thew observed, as he turned to take his leave. "However, if charity demands it, I suppose one must waive one's prejudices." He strolled out and hesitated for a moment on the pavement. A curious change had taken place in what a few hours ago had seemed to be a perfect summer day. The clouds were thick in the sky, a few drops of rain were already falling, and a cold wind, like the presage of a storm, was bending the trees in the square. For a single moment he was conscious of an unsuspected weakness. A wave of depression swept in upon him. An unreasoning premonition of failure laid a cold hand upon his heart. He met the careless gaze of an apparent loiterer who was studying the placards without derision, almost with apprehension. Then he ground his heel into the pavement and re-entered his taxicab. "Savoy," he directed. _ |
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