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Roy Glashan's Library
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'GOING on for fifty—say a generous forty-two,' mused that adroit old crook, Mr. Smiler Bunn, absently surveying his partner, ex-Lord Fortworth, one evening after a triumphant dinner.
'Who is?' asked Fortworth stiffly.
'You,' replied Mr. Bunn, and, shaking his head, added ruefully, 'and me.'
'Well, what of it? What's the matter with a generous forty-two—or, say, forty?'
'Nothing,' admitted Smiler, 'providing you've got a reasonable reserve clamped down to produce a sensible income for your old age. A thing, Fortworth, which we haven't got and don't look like getting.'
'Why not?'
Mr. Bunn helped himself to another glass of their rare old liqueur brandy, and thoughtfully selected a further cigar from, the boxful at his elbow.
'Why not?' he echoed. 'You can search me for an answer, old man. Probably it's because we've never yet had the sense to pull ourselves together enough to earn it. And it's a mistake, old man, it's a serious mistake. Not only are we growing older—we're growing more unprotected.'
'Oh, I don't know, said Fortworth easily, 'I guess we can look after ourselves without straining anything.'
'Maybe we can,' admitted Mr. Bunn, 'but we're getting no younger. You don't want to forget that. And one of these days we shall be getting out o£ date in our methods, and that's when a regular income will be—well, to put it simply, a comfort in our old age.'
His face grew serious and, unconsciously, he shook a warning forefinger at his unperturbed partner.
'Otherwise,' he said, with the most profound emphasis, 'we shall find ourselves feeding along to our finish on sausages and mashed—' he paused impressively, then concluded—'and beer!'
Fortworth sat up abruptly.
'Ha!' exulted Mr. Bunn, rather pleased, 'I thought that would stick a pin into you!'
'Stick nothing,' denied Fortworth testily. 'I quite agree that we ought to provide for our old age. The thing is what is the amount to be?'
'Fifty thousand a year!' said' Mr. Bunn promptly.
The ex-financier roared with laughter. 'My God, man!' he shouted, 'but your ideas about figures are as good as a bull-goat's! D'you know how big a sum you'd need to produce an income of fifty thousand a year?'
Mr. Bunn shook his head rather sulkily.
'A million cold! At 6 per cent.'
Mr. Bunn looked serious. 'It's a lot of money, that,' he admitted. 'Work out the figures for ten thousand.'
'It calls for a clean little lump of two hundred thousand,' declared Fortworth, and added unfeelingly. 'And what are you going to do about it?'
'Do about it? Why, get it!' responded Mr. Bunn grimly.
Fortworth laughed sourly. 'Prance right in then, old man, and get it. Don't let me be a hindrance to you,' he said sardonically. 'How're you going to swing it?'
'By taking a little more interest in things and by working a good deal harder than we have been,' declared Mr. Bunn.
'I see. And by economising, too, I suppose? We'll sure have to economise it ever we're going to salt down any such stash of good, honest money as two hundred thousand plunks.'
MR. BUNN let the matter drop then. But it swiftly presented Itself for serious confederation only two days later. In this manner.
It was a pleasingly bright and sunny Thursday which followed, and the partners decided that what they described as a week-end (Thursday till Wednesday) at their country place at Purdston was clearly indicated. Consequently the late morning of that day found them en route for the luxurious little retreat they called 'Purdston Place.'
Mr. Bunn chanced to be at the wheel and was thus afforded an excellent view o£ the minor 'tragedy' which was destined to lead to the production of what might be termed the foundation-stone of their fund.
They were running gently down the road past a large, expensively brick-walled park, heavily belted with timber, when, some hundred yards in front, they perceived two men issue forth from a gate in the big wall. One of the men—the smaller—was in front of the other—a large man and a broad. The smaller man was clearly moving across the road against his own judgment and wishes, for ever and anon he would stick his feet into the dust and lean back like a stubborn jackass. But the larger man, who possessed, it appeared, a grip upon the collar of the stubborn one that was unbreakable, simply pushed him forward. so that his feet ploughed through the dust, until they reached the deep dry ditch on the opposite side of the road. Then he released his grip, and, taking extremely careful aim, hoofed the smaller man clean into the ditch. The fat man then recrossed the road and disappeared into the park.
Confessing to a feeling of amused curiosity, Mr. Bunn ran the car to a standstill, and in a mild, benevolent tone invited the occupier thereof to come forth without fear.
'The fat sportsman's gone, old man,' called Smiler cheerfully, and you're with friends, anyway.'
In a moment or so the tenant of the ditch arose therefrom. He proved to be a rather insignificant individual with a reddish face, devoid of any personal beauty, rather watery and shifty eyes, and a coyly-retreating chin. But at the moment what he lacked in personality he was making up in rage.
'Four months' faithful service!' he bawled, his speech festooned with lurid verbiage. 'Four months' faithful service—long hours—night shift—and turned down because of being thirsty! No harm in being thirsty, is there? A man who's thirsty in that place is a criminal, you'd think!'
A violent hiccough shook him where he stood, but he ignored it. Indeed, he seemed to gather fresh vitality and inspiration from it.
'As long as a man strained his eye-balls watching the bloomin' dial, and cracked his ear-drums listening for an alarm that never came, it was all right! But if he once dared to get thirsty and have a small drink—out him, the low scoundrel! That's it! Barleywater Bill would see to that, the time-serving, favor-currying, hypocritical old he-rhinoceros!'
He drew breath and loosed a bloodcurdling stream of criticism of the person he called 'Barleywater Bill.' Then he gradually ran down from a liberal bawl to gloomy mutterings, and so came to himself again.
Mr. Bunn, his attention caught by one or two of the muttered threats, sympathised. It was abundantly evident that the man had been discharged for what he described as 'thirst.' but which more probably was for too frequent and enthusiastic quenching of the said thirst. His work, the wolf-witted old rascal had gathered, had been that of night watchman in the big mansion surrounded by the park from which he had just been so tumultuously ejected. His watching seemed to have been of a somewhat special character, namely, the watching of a 'dial' only. Mr. Bunn was conscious of a feeling of profound curiosity concerning the duties of which the man had been so unceremoniously relieved—and he acted accordingly. That is to say, he produced a flask of very noble proportions and in tones of breezy commiseration invited the gentleman to extract therefrom the nourishment necessary to restore his depleted vitality to its normal standard again.
'Take a pull at that, aid man,' he said, 'and don't be afraid of it. It seems to me that you've been treated in a way that no man should be treated. Hey, Black?'
Fortworth glanced fiercely at the gate through which the mighty Barleywater Bill had vanished.
'I'm not a vindictive man,' said the ex-financier, 'but I don't mind admitting that the man who handled me as our friend here has been handled would need to keep his liver padlocked to his backbone for a few years or he'd sure lose it.'
'And you not a vindictive man, either,' chuckled Mr. Bunn. He turned to the late occupant of the nettle-bed, and took the gravely depleted flask.
Which way are you going, Mr.—er—Mr.—?'
'Grieve's my name,' said the man, dusting himself with the vague care of the semi-sober. 'Alfred Grieve—and I ain't particular which way.'
'Well, in that case you can do worse than accept a lift from us. Come and have a whisky and soda and a bit of lunch at our little place, a few miles on, and take your train from there.'
Mr. Grieve needed no pressing. He scrambled into the back of the big car, I and they slid onwards to Purdston.
IT is painful but necessary to relate that when the unfortunate Mr. Grieve departed for London by the last train he left in charge of the guard, who had received him, fast asleep, and a shining peace-time sovereign from Mr. Ferdinand Bloom, the bland, and hairless butler of ex-Lord Fortworth. With the sovereign the guard had received instructions to place Mr. Grieve in a taxi—or cause him to be so placed—and taken to his friends at an address given. Neither the guard nor Grieve knew, nor cared, that a silent yellow shadow went with them—Sing Song, the Chinese valet and sword- and burden-bearer of Mr. Bunn. with strict orders not to lose sight of Grieve at any cost.
So, happily and blissfully oblivious of all that was going on around him, the poor creature departed completely unaware of whom the partners were, where they lived, what they looked like, or, even more important, of the fact that he had unwittingly imparted to them information of such value that, at the moment the London train pulled out, it was forming the subject of an extraordinarily keen and intense conversation between Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth.
'Now, let's look,' Smiler had begun as the sound of the car conveying the saturated Grieve to the station had died away down the drive. 'We've got to get this thing worked out right—and worked out quick.
'Sure, sure!' Fortworth nodded, gravely, picking up a small object from the table as Mr. Bunn went to a drawer in his desk, took therefrom a tiny bottle of acid and returned to the table.
Fortworth passed him the object which was engaging his attention—a tiny piece of metal, shaped like a finger—an exact replica of a little finger neatly divided just before the second joint.
The adventurers craned close over the finger for a second—then stared at each other. Mr. Bunn put the bottle down, carefully re-stoppering it.
'That little soak was right, old man,' said Mr. Bunn in a low voice, harsh. with excitement! 'It's pure gold!'
'And gold is worth—' said Fortworth.
'Four pounds an ounce,' completed Mr Bunn.
He put away the bottle and the pair settled down to think things over.
It was, indeed, necessary—even, from their point of view, urgent. For the little golden finger had in a moment of alcoholic excitement and unwary exhilaration come from Mr. Alfred Grieve, who, he had whiskily informed them, had obtained it from a place where plenty more metal of the same kind was to be found.
'This li'l finger's o'ly li'l finger, y' un'stand. Ma'r of no impor'ance. Plenny more where tha' li'l fing co' from. La'y Adelai's—what I meana say—La'y Adelai's husban'. Pore ol' feller! Statue! Un'rstan'?' Mr. Grieve had said, when, aimlessly, he had taken out the finger to show them after lunch. And since men who carry about with them little chunks of gold are sufficiently rare to merit close investigation, the two partners had 'investigated' the potulent Grieve forthwith.
Without difficulty they had gleaned that his duties in the situation he had just involuntarily evacuated had been merely to occupy throughout the night a small secret room in a pavilion in the park from which he had that morning been cast, watch an electric dial, listen for an electric alarm, and once every hour he was required to leave the pavilion and walk to a big marble pedestal, erected on a hillock in the park, close by the pavilion, and take note that the statue upon the said pedestal was still in position—that is to say, he had to assure himself that the statue had not been stolen or tampered with.
The employer of Mr. Grieve, and the owner of the park, the pavilion and the statue was none other than the famous Lady Hardelott, said to be one of the richest women in England—made so by her late husband, the great shipbuilder, Sir Adam Hardelott.
As far as the partners could gather from the scrambled account they slowly distilled from the thirst-consumed Grieve, the only thing in the world which Lady Hardelott had ever loved was her husband, and when, some ten years before, he had been successfully launched from the slipway of life, she, seeking to set up a symbol of her undying devotion to him, had erected on the low hillock in the park, which had been one of his favorite spots, a marble pedestal with a small statue of Sir Adam thereupon.
It was, so those competent to judge were wont to say, a perfect statue, though very small. Indeed, almost everybody regarded the statue as too small, but only the men who had put it there knew what it weighed, and only Lady Hardelott, and, perhaps, three or four other people in the world, knew that the statue was made of pure gold.
Of the select few in the secret surprisingly enough Mr. Grieve was one, and he had only, learned of the value of the statue by sheer blind good luck. Or at any rate that was what he claimed.
He said, with a species of muzzy caution, that he had picked the golden finger up—had trodden on it one evening while making his round. Some thief, he suggested, had sawn the finger off the statue and dropped it. The secret electric wires which ran from the statue to the alarm dial and bell in the watchman's pavilion had (he woozily suggested) not worked, but, hearing him coming, the thief had promptly bolted. Returning to his pavilion Mr. Grieve had devoted the remainder of the night to an endeavor to relieve a painful dryness of the mouth and throat which, the events had produced in him. He had been duly relieved at dawn, and his nerves being still profoundly disturbed he had chosen (he thought, for the best) to take a bottle of whisky with him to a quiet retreat in. the park, in preference to lying sleepless, parched, and uneasy in bed. Unfortunately, Barleywater Bill—otherwise one Mr. William Groude, steward and confidential major-domo to Lady Hardelott—so-called on account of his bigoted temperance principles, had discovered Mr. Grieve in his sylvan retreat, and had paid him his wages forthwith and cast him out of his retired grotto.
That, briefly, was the narrative of Mr. Grieve—and it interested Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth so intensely that it would positively have interfered that night with their sleep, had they not known that the trustworthy Sing Song was now sticking to the worthy Grieve closer than a brother. For it was quite obvious to them that Grieve would shortly be making a species of attempt to steal the golden man for himself. All they desired to find out was precisely when the man intended to make his attempt, and because they knew that Sing Song was amply capable of worming that information out of a better man than Grieve if necessary, they slumbered in perfect tranquility that night.
THE following morning ushered in a day of unwonted stir for all at Purdston Place—the results of which, and of the successful labors of Sing Song, were made manifest about a fortnight later, when one morning the portly figures of Messieurs Bunn and Fortworth might have been Seen moving briskly down the long wide drive across the park to the main entrance of Hardelott Hall. There was lacking in the partners' appearance much of their customary spruceness. In place of the usual quiet-patterned, extremely good tweeds, dark brown boots, soft velours hats, and quietly-dignified sticks which the brace of old rascals usually affected in the country, they were wearing very dark blue suits of vaguely official air, hard felt-hats of the type usually referred to as bowlers, squarish black boots, and carried rather short, obviously heavy, sticks. Each had allowed an inch of tough-looking, closely-cropped whisker to grow down towards the hinges of his jawbones.
They were out after a big stake and for once they had deigned to go to real trouble to assure success. Any person of the least intelligence would have summed them up at a glance as a pair of highly-respectable retired police inspectors who had started in business as private enquiry agents.
At any rate that is what they passed as being, and what 'Barleywater Bill' Groude, meeting them, half-way to the house, decided they were. Mr. Groude passed them with a rather bitten-off but perfectly polite 'Good morning,' waited till they had rounded a bend in the road, then turned and followed them.
'There's Adam—22 carat,' said Mr. Bunn softly as they passed the statue in the park a hundred yards or so on their left. All that doesn't glitter isn't lead,' he added rather nebulously, but truthfully. Certainly nobody would have imagined that the dull-grey little statue—half life-size—was made of anything but lead or bronze, or words to that effect.
'Quarter of a ton of it!' said Smiler briefly, through, pinched-up lips.
Half an hour later they stood in the presence of Lady Hardelott—two square, blunt, hardish-looking men, obviously respectable, plainly in great earnest, palpably experienced, capable and courageous —each, in fact, the very beau ideal of a retired police inspector.
The elderly widow of Sir Adam ran a penetrating eye over them and placed them at once. She was far from being incapable herself, and she, too, was hard by nature and bleak by disposition. Rumor had it that she had never let go a shilling without first receiving eighteen-penn'orth for it. But this was undoubtedly an exaggeration. Probably she never let a shilling stand between her and eighteen-penn'orth. Be that as it may, it is certain that, in spite of her one lone romantic gyration represented by the statue, she had, with masterly skill, augmented the mammoth income left her by her husband to a size which made most large incomes look like small change beside it.
'You desire to make a statement of great importance to me, I understand, she said.
'Yes, my lady,' said Mr. Bunn.
'Very well. Be seated.'
She touched a bell on the table before her, and bade the solemn-visaged manservant who answered it send to her Mr. Groude, who entered almost instantly.
'You may proceed,' she said, 'to make your statement. Please pay close attention. Mr. Groude,' she added to the confidential steward, and with a meaning glance passed him the large card under which the partners were sheltering.
HANDFORTH & HARRIMAN,
26 Norfolk Row,
Chancery-lane, London, E.C.
INVESTIGATION NIGHT OR DAY.
WILBUR HANDFORTH
(late Linkerton's, N.Y., USA.),
JASPER HARRIMAN
(late Personal Guard, J.D- Stockfeller).
Telephone No. 09921. Gerard.
'Very good, your ladyship,' said Mr. Handforth, otherwise Mr. Bunn. 'We wish to state that in the course of business we have ascertained that the statue of the late Sir Adam Hardelott in your park is made of gold, and that within a week from now an organised attempt to steal it will be made by a gang of thieves under a man lately employed by you as night watchman, the said man being named Alfred Grieve, discharged from your service at 11 o'clock, Thursday, the 8th inst., for being intoxicated after repeated warnings. We are aware of your desire that the fact of the statue being made of gold should be kept secret, and we have the honor to request that your ladyship will permit us to place under your consideration a plan whereby the statue may be protected, end the thieves caught without the publicity which would ensue were the job handed over to the regular police.'
The faded lady nodded thoughtfully and ran her pike-point eyes over them?both in a long and careful' scrutiny.'
'You are retired detectives,' she stated. There was no suggestion of enquiry in her tone, she stated it—just as Sherlock Holmes might have done.
Messrs. Handforth and Harriman admitted it, rather humbly.
'You've set yourselves up in business with your savings,' she informed them shrewdly.
'That is so, your Ladyship,' said Mr. Handforth.
'You were employed by the firm of Linkerton's, I see—and you, Harriman, were personal guard to Mr. J.D. Stockfeller.'
Both saluted affirmatively.
'You are both of American origin and your experience is mainly American, I perceive. Have you any credentials?'
They had. They produced them, There was a personal letter of thanks and appreciation from J.D. Stockfeller to Harriman; there was a letter from the chief of the San Francisco Police to Harriman, and a note from the chief secretary of the late Mr. Jay Gould commenting in terms of high praise upon the work of Harriman in a private matter, not detailed, but evidently important. Mr. Handforth's documemts included a testimonial from Linkerton's referring praisefully to ten years of loyal service, no fewer than five letters from members of the wealthy and powerful Van der Schnatchit family and a resounding declaration as to the detective's integrity by a late Mayor of Chicago.
Lady Hardelott passed them to Mr. Groude to sort and return to the two men, who were, or seemed to be. uneasy without them.
'What would your fees for preventing this robbery amount to?' asked the lady with a marked air of indifference.
'Twenty-five pounds, and out-of-pocket expenses,' your ladyship.'
'Your charges are excessive,' said the alleged wealthiest woman in England.
They apologised.
'Surely it must be clear to you both that the fact of having myself as one of your first English clients will be of immense value to you in building up your business?'
They confessed that it was so, very readily—so readily that the eagle face of Lady Hardelott even relaxed for a moment.
'It is my patronage you wish rather than the actual money,' she stated in her shrewd, practical, keen manner,
'Yes, your ladyship,' blurted Mr. Handforth.
'Very well.' She thought for a moment, then decided. 'If I approve of your plan, and if it is successful, I will pay you the sum of ten guineas honorarium, defray your out-of-pocket expenses, and give you a letter expressing my entire satisfaction with your work. Is that agreeable to you?'
'Yes, your ladyship,' chorused the investigators most gratefully.
'Very well. After luncheon you shall give me your plan and I will consider it.'
She turned to Mr. Groude.
'Let Handforth and Harriman be given lunch in the butler's room, Groude. I will see them at two o'clock.'
'Very good, your ladyship.' Barleywater Bill moved across to the desk and , spoke softly.
'Ah, yes, Groude, I was about to speak of that. She faced the pair again.
'Are you abstainers?' she enquired.
'Total, your ladyship,' said Handforth.
And 'total, your ladyship,' chimed Harriman.
Mr. Groude smiled with patronising approval and Lady Hardelott's gesture of dismissal was quite gracious.
She could, she imagined, afford to be gracious, on the whole. She was expecting to save a statue which, if it really were solid gold throughout, was worth at least thirty thousand pounds, at a cost of perhaps twenty-odd pounds and a couple of lunches, and it was easy to be gracious on those terms. Like many a cleverer person she was conscious of a slight feeling of good-humored contempt for the two beefy detectives. They we're experienced, no doubt, but when it came to brains they were obviously in a different class from herself.
Still, they were clearly more than match for the mentality of robbers who were content to act under the banner of such a person as the man Grieve.
Lady Hardelott was quite easy in her mind on that score.
THE interview after lunch did nothing to lessen the wealthy lady's opinion of herself, though it slightly raised her opinion of Handforth and Harriman, for their plan was so very simple and effective.
The robbery (it appeared from the respectful statements of the investigators, was planned for a week ahead, and the thieves intended to do their foul work at night.
'Yes, yes—naturally,' said the keen lady. 'What do you propose?'
Messrs. Handforth and Harriman proposed, briefly, to have constructed a duplicate of the statue in lead, and on the night of the theft to substitute the lead man for the gold man. The latter would be carefully guarded by the detectives in the pavilion, assisted, suggested Mr. Handforth, by Mr. Groude. The thieves would remove the lead statue and would be arrested red-handed by the employees of Handforth and Harriman, with the statue actually in their possession.
The real statue could then be replaced, the electric wires put into order, and by dawn the whole affair would be over.
Mr. Handforth pointed out that by using a substitute statue any responsibility of damage to the gold statue would be obviated, and the discovery of a statue in the actual possession of the thieves would be conclusive evidence—this ensuring a short and not sensational trial—and finally the fact of the stolen statue being of lead would effectually convince the thieving fraternity generally that it was not worth stealing.
In conclusion Mr. Handforth very respectfully advised Lady Hardelott to prosecute for stealing a statue of lead. By doing this, Mr. Handforth pointed out, with some care, possible thieves would give the statue a wide berth, and even the actual thieves, when they issued forth from durance again, would abandon the idea of another attempt.
That, briefly, was the plan of Handforth and Harriman.
Lady Hardelott looked upon it, worried it a little, perceived that it was good, and gave permission for the sleuths to proceed accordingly. Barleywater Bill was ordered to render any aid—which did not cost money—that he could.
So the bold Handforth and Harriman went forth from Hardelott Hall to prepare their snares. With the aid of Barleywater, certain plans, photographs, and measurements, they gleaned all the information needed for the construction of the substitute statue, and so departed.
Three hours later they sat at a table at the Astoritz Hotel, dallying with liqueurs, clothed and in their right minds. They had dined and were conning over matters in a fashion that would have surprised the chisel-edged Lady Hardelott and the baby-lipped Barleywater Bill Groude, had they heard it.
'She's hard, old man—hard as wire and as twisty. But she ain't brainy—she only thinks she is. If she was half as brainy as she thinks she is she would be too shrewd to think she could buy men to fight for her thirty thousand for five pounds apiece, a letter of thanks, and a d—n bad lunch. And she's one of the richest women in England,' said Mr. Bunn dreamily.
'Yes,' agreed the full-fed Fortworth. 'She ain't fit to be trusted with it. She leans too much on Barleywater Bill. I don't like that big barrel.'
Mr. Bunn smiled indulgently and beckoned a waiter.
'Leave him,' said the old rascal, 'to me.'
AS Mr. Bunn. naturally, was not slow to point out to his partner, one of the more entrancing beauties of the scheme outlined by nim and so trustingly approved by Lady Hardelott and her obese henchman, was the entire absence of publicity attending the operation. Since, clearly, it was most unwise to allow more people than possible to learn of the value of the genuine statue, it was obvious that as few should be allowed to assist in the affair as possible.
And it was due to her keen ultra-caution on this point that, as Mr. Bunn rather coarsely put it afterwards, the lady 'skidded' rather badly. She invited Barleywater Bill to express himself in the matter, and he did so—in terms so heroic that the partners, so far from having to persuade the lady to limit her forces, found themselves instructed to carry off the affair with the help of Barleywater only and not more than two of their own most trusted assistants.
So it befell that at the coming of darkness on the night of the robbery Mr. Bunn found himself in the pavilion in the park with none other than the bulky Groude. Barleywater was evidently feeling tolerably important, for he patronised Mr. Bunn considerably.
'Now, Handforth, me man, it's nearly eight o'clock, and we've no time to lose, he observed.
'No, sir,' said Mr. Bunn meekly.
'The wires were disconnected by the estate electrician this afternoon, so as soon as your partner arrives with the substitute we are all ready.'
'Yes, sir,' responded Mr. Bunn respectfully.
Barleywater Bill produced from a capacious bag a huge two quart flask. The night was chilly, and Smiler's eyes brightened. He had suspected that William was not quite so wedded to wholly innocuous beverages as he claimed, and for a moment the man rose in his estimation.
'You've got a drop of good stuff in there, sir I'll be bound, he said.
'The very best, me man,' said Groude. 'Stimulating, sustaining, and invigorating!'
'Really, sir?' said Mr. Bunn.
'Yes, me man. It's cold cocoa—food and drink in one—cold cocoa and cream—'
'My God!' gasped Mr. Bunn. Barleywater glanced up.
'Beg pardon?'
'I said, "How odd!" sir.'
'Why odd, me man, why odd?'
'My father was the only other man I knew who used to swear by cold cream and cocoa,' lied Smiler airily.
'Intelligent fellow,' said Groude indulgently, and placed the flask and a horn cup upon a table.
Before Mr. Bunn could answer civilly a big car without lights came gliding to a standstill on the drive at the back of the pavilion.
'Here they are, sir, I think,' said Smiler, who had recognised the sound. 'Shall I go and help them carry across the substitute statue?'
'Yes, do, Handforth, do!'
Mr. Bunn swung like a padded-pawed grizzly into the dark, and welcomed Mr. Harriman and his assistant detectives, who appeared to be a person of Chinese appearance, and one who looked like a retired butler. Sing Song, the Chink, and Bloom, the partners' Purdston butler, made very presentable assistant sleuths.
'All right?' asked Mr. Bunn cautiously.
'Sure!' growled Fortworth. Mr. Bunn opened a gate and the car ran across the turf of the park toward the pavilion, stopping at the back of that little building.
'The substitute's here, sir!' reported Smiler.
Barleywater moved out towards the gold statue.
'Very good! Bring it to the pedestal and be quick about it!' commanded the fat one, moving towards the pedestal himself.
The four investigators threw, themselves upon an object in the car, and with infinite labor and many groanings carried it to the pedestal, where Mr. Groude swiftly examined it in the light of a flash-lamp.
'A poor imitation—but it will do,' he said, and proceeded to supervise the really hard work of getting the gold statue off the pedestal and the lead one erected thereon. Fortunately the pedestal was low, and the steps leading up to it were broad, and though the statues weighed something like four hundredweight each, half an hour's really hard work did the business. But it made Messrs. Handforth and Harriman perspire as they had never perspired before. Nor. with the globular Groude present, could they seek relief in language.
By nine o'clock the lead figure was on the pedestal, and the gold one (which looked not in the least like gold, but precisely like the lead it was painted, or treated in some way, to resemble) was in the pavilion under a roll of sacking.
'All satisfactory, I think, sir,' said Mr. Handforth. 'if you approve, my partner and the men will now go to their posts for intercepting the thieves.'
'Very good, Handforth,' said Barleywater Bill graciously, and took a seat.
Smiler dismissed the little gang to posts in the main road by which he expected the thieves to come, and then, having sent them well on their way, returned to share the vigil with the unspeakable Groude.
He had been away from the pavilion five minutes. Much can be done in five minutes—and there was a gleam in Mr. Bunn's eye that might have stirred even the befattened wits of Barleywater Bill had that gentleman noticed it. But he did not.
That was, Mr. Bunn always maintained, the dullest evening he had ever wrestled through in the whole of his life. Since the exigencies of the situation unquestionably demanded it, he sat respectfully in his chair until precisely eleven o'clock listening to the views of Mr. Groude upon (1) Politics. (2) Religion. (3) Temperance. (4) The Lower Classes. (5) The Exquisite Perfection of Mr. Groude, and (6) The Sin of Gluttony.
It was indeed a dismal séance, and its utter dreariness and gloom were not relieved until within an hour of midnight when Barleywater Bill, imagining he heard a noise out by the statue, stepped outside for a moment—thus affording Mr. Bunn the long-waited opportunity of dropping into the horn cup a little powder, most carefully prepared. He stirred it well into the horrible brew of cream and cold cocoa which the man affected, and experienced the gratification of seeing him empty the cup almost immediately he returned.
Thereafter, Mr. Bunn allowed him to gurgle himself into a drug-inspired slumber from which he would not awaken till dawn—if then.
'And that,' mused Mr. Bunn, easing Mr. Groude's collar and surveying him dourly, 'and that fixes you, I think!'
He went out of the pavilion and, pointing a green-lensed electric torch towards the high road, flashed it thrice.
Five minutes later the low purr of the partners' big Rolls-Royce made itself manifest as it came stealing, without lamps up the drive to the back of the pavilion. From it, in the pitchy darkness, emerged Fortworth, Sing Song, and Bloom. Smiler groped his way across and there followed low groaninga and gaspings.
Within a space of seconds the quartet bore into the pavilion yet another figure which they swiftly set up on the floor side by side with the gold figure. Unlike the first substitute, now on the pedestal, this one was a literally perfect replica of the gold statue.
'Good enough, hey?' said Smiler. 'Come on, then. Look alive.'
Again they strained through the darkness, laboring under the weight of the gold statue, leaving the lead replica under the sacking.
'Now, Sing Song, you're for Purdston. And the sooner the better. Pull your freight for all you're worth—more, in fact—that's a good lad,' urged Mr. Bunn tensely to the shadow at the wheel 'Then slide back in the touring car and join the others at their posts. All clear?'
'Yes, master.'
Delaying them only long enough to diminish the valuable contents of Fortworth's flask by 70 per cent, Mr. Bunn hurried back to the pavilion, and the big car hummed away into the darkness.
Smiler saw that Groude was 'in order,' admired the second lead statue and proceeded to fall into a gentle doze. Lulled and lapped by pleasant dreams he slumbered. Several times he smiled in his sleep and once he spoke.
'Reserve... yes, yes... Old-Age Pension, hey? Ha! Ha!... Income... decent... live and let live!' he mumbled, and woke with a violent start to perceive a strange, rather scared-looking man standing over him holding a revolver in his face with a muzzle that looked like the entrance to a railway tunnel.
'Make one sound and you're a dead man,' said the intruder. Mr. Bunn put his hands up without a word.
The man looked over his shoulder at several others crowding in the doorway —among them Mr. Grieve.
'All right, boys, I've got the watchman safe—hurry up!' said he of the revolver urgently.
They disappeared into the darkness. Evidently they too knew the value of haste, for almost instantly Mr. Bunn heard a heavy thud. They had 'shoved' Sir Adam bodily off his pedestal. Followed an odd, thick, soft rabbin? sound: Mr. Bunn ?' strained his ears, puzzled for a moment. His guard grinned nervously.
'It s all right, ole man—they're hack-sawing the image into quarters. Gold's heavy stuff.'
Evidently they had a good hack-saw, for in less than ten minutes they were back—four of them. Hastily they bound and gagged the much enduring Smiler and disappeared.
But his shrewd old eyes twinkled as he sat there awaiting release.
He did not wait long. Within twenty minutes three of them were back again—bruised, battered, and dejected, the prisoners of Sing Song, Fortworth and Bloom. Mr. Grieve was not among them. He, it appeared, had managed to escape—with a haunch of lead which, he fondly believed to be gold, and which was ultimately inherited by a bewildered and furious London landlady shortly after Grieve had departed by stealth to other apartments, leaving his box behind in lieu of rent.
Hustling the three prisoners into the back room of the pavilion, Messrs. Bunn and Go. poured a little chloroform on a creased handkerchief, wiped Mr. Groude's hair and face with it, and threw it on the ground. They then light-heartedly administered a series of extraordinarily violent restoratives to him and dragged him forth from his slumbers.
Muzzily, he demanded instant explanation. This Mr. Bunn promptly provided. It appeared that he, Groude, had dropped on to sleep and that, while he slumbered. Mr. Handforth, visiting the statue, had been surprised and overcome by the thieves, who had then crept into the pavilion and foully chloroformed the dozing Mr. Groude. There was the reeking handkerchief, marked 'A. Grieve,' to prove it. Both Mr. Handforth and Barleywater Bill being thus rendered helpless, the scoundrels had dismembered the leaden statue at their leisure and made away with it—only to be captured (bar Grieve) by the waiting detectives.
Deeply chagrined at his lapse, still seriously puzzle-witted from the drug, and desperately anxious that no hitch should occur likely to affect his reputation with Lady Hardelott, Barleywater Bill 'got busy.' He wanted the gold statue put back on the pedestal and he wanted it done at once. He drove Handforth & Co. to it like the man with the whip driving galley slaves And they worked—they worked like lions.
Long before dawn the statue which Barleywater believed to be the gold statue—hadn't he, with his own hand, put sacking on it, and also removed the sacking?—was once again in position with the wires connected up and all in order—even the lead filings had been swept up and scattered in the grass.
Then, having dismissed their assistants (who promptly returned to Purdston to hack the golden man into perfectly shapeless but none the less valuable chunks), Messrs. Handforth and Harriman, supervised by Groude, herded their prisoners—three abject and quite ordinary sneak thieves, towards the hall, there to await the arrival of the local police—whose efforts, it may be said, subsequently procured each of them, on the evidence of Mr. Groude and their own confessions, six months' hard labor on the simple charge of mutilating a leaden statue with the intention of stealing the lead.
Barleywater Bill had just sufficient decency in his system to provide a species of breakfast for the partners. But, if they expected any compliments from Lady Hardelott, later, they were deceived. She did not even see them. Mr. Groude reported that all had gone according to plan, and evidently she was satisfied with the obese one's report. She sent out a cheque for ten guineas, and a brief letter stating that she had employed them on a private matter, that they had given satisfaction, and that they appeared to be honest, sober, hard-working men. The cheque and the sparse encomium were conveyed to them by Gronde without verbosity.
'That, I think, is all, my men. Good morning,' said Barleywater Bill.
Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth perceived that they were dismissed and so, with rather subtle sarcasm, they respectfully raised their hats to Mr. Groude and went away.
On the way out they passed the statue.
'There he is, old man,' said Mr. Bunn cautiously. 'As counterfeit a little statue as ever came down the turnpike! He looks very well, though, hey?'
'Well enough,' granted Fortworth. 'But he nearly broke my back last night, d—n him!'
'What if he did?' returned Mr. Bunn gaily. 'With gold at £4 an ounce—and something like 7,000 ounces of it salted down at Purdston towards our Old-Age Pensions!'
They both turned to take a farewell look at the leaden man.
'He's all right,' said Smiler approvingly. 'I wonder if they'll ever discover that be ain't the Adam they think he is?'
'Some day they will. But I don't suppose they'll ever trouble Handforth and Harriman about it!' said Fortworth.
He was right. For 'Handforth, and Harriman' went out of business that morning. And stayed out.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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