The three men appeared most friendly when, as arranged, Larose met them at the garage at Aldgate at half-past three that afternoon. He was given a seat with Royne at the back of the car, and the latter chatted animatedly as they were driven along. Royne had nice manners, and made an interesting companion.
Passing a number of dark-skinned men upon the pavement in the Mile End road, Larose remarked casually what a lot of foreigners there seemed to be about, and Royne told him the particular ones he had been looking at were Lascars.
“They come from East India,” he explained, “and our climate soon knocks the poor devils up. They always look unhealthy and never live to grow old. But still, in their own country they don’t live to any age, either. They mature too quickly and are old men when they get to forty.” Then he asked. “Ever been in India?”
“Only to Ceylon,” replied Larose, remembering he had told them he had been a steward on a boat, “when I was in a P. & O. going to Sydney.”
“Oh, then you’ve been to Australia!” exclaimed Royne. “I’ve always wanted to go there, but it’s never been my luck,” and he proceeded to ply Larose with questions about the great Commonwealth.
Larose smiled to himself. He was being pumped to find out if he really had been a steward on a boat and not only that, but from the questions he was asked, he was soon quite sure that Royne, contrary to what he had stated, had been to Australia himself. He noticed, however, that Royne only asked about the capital cities of Australia, all on the seaboard, as if he could only check Larose’s replies to these questions.
Half an hour out upon the journey and when well in the country, Pellew called out over his shoulder, “Like a drink? I’m going to have one,” and shortly afterwards the car was pulled up before a little inn.
“What village is this?” asked Larose, all eyes and ears for everything that was taking place.
“Wickford,” replied Royne, who had got out first and was leading the way into the inn. “They keep good beer here.”
Glancing over the door as they went in Larose saw the inn was kept by an Emelia Ann Hoggins, but it was a man who was behind the bar and, as the latter said good afternoon to Royne, Larose thought he made an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
This barman was a coarse, thick-set man with rather frowning eyes. He spoke with a pronounced north country burr, and although he joined in the general conversation which ensued, Larose noticed he seemed to address most of his remarks to Royne, as if he knew him best.
Presently Larose’s eye fell upon the large photograph of a greyhound upon one of the shelves where the bottles were, and he remarked upon what a fine photograph it was.
“Yes, my brother took it,” said the barman. “It’s his dog, Ivory Fangs, who was runner-up in the Waterloo Cup last year.” He sighed heavily. “If he’d only won we should have made a fortune. We got two hundred to one the night of the draw, and he only lost by a couple of points.”
“A magnificent-looking dog!” commented Larose, impressed again by the artistic nature of the photograph.
“And coursing’s the finest sport in the world,” said the barman enthusiastically. “We’re mad on it up in Lancashire, where I come from.”
They finished their refreshment and returned to the car, but Larose noticed that Royne came out last and had a few low words with the barman.
They drove straight to the boat-shed at the mouth of the Crouch and the launch was taken out for a run. Royne took command, the others obeying his orders.
Larose soon saw there was justice in Pellew’s complaints about the engine, for it ran very sluggishly.
“But I think its only the points of the plugs,” he said. “When she’s thoroughly warmed up, stop her, and I’ll adjust them.”
The sea was beautifully calm as they chugged out to sea, and Larose was most interested in the number of buoys they passed.
“It must be pretty difficult to navigate about here at night,” he said to Royne, who was at the helm. “You want to have a good chart.”
“Oh, it’s all right if you know which side of the buoys to keep on,” said Royne. “At night they are all lighted up. Still, you’ve got to keep your eyes skinned, even in day-time when the tide’s low.” He pointed with his arm. “Now if we were only a hundred yards to port, on the left there, we’d probably meet with nasty trouble. We’d be right on top of the Gunfleet sandbank, although on a calm day like this the sea looks the same depth everywhere.”
The engine was stopped for a few minutes and Larose went thoroughly over the plugs. The launch was certainly much better afterwards, but he expressed himself as being still unsatisfied.
“As I say, I think the trouble was only in the plugs,” he said, “but I can’t be quite certain it was nothing else. I ought to see her when she’s been running full out for a couple of hours or so. That’s when, if trouble’s coming, it will come,” and his verdict tipped the scales in Pellew’s mind and caused him to resolve definitely to take Larose with them upon their next long deepsea expedition.
They spent a very pleasant evening together, and gradually all doubts in their minds that Larose was not what he made himself out to be, died down.
For one thing, he went once again, as he had done before to Pellew, into so many intimate details of prison life that they were convinced he had served his time in some penal institution. Then he knew so much about the underworld of London that they were sure his knowledge must have been obtained at first hand.
Again, when they started playing cards, he showed them so many tricks employed by the card-sharper that they speedily came to regard him as a master cheat.
Then Pellew opened his mind fully and, entirely with the approval of the others, told him of the smuggling they were engaged upon.
“But it is not opium we are handling this time,” he said. “We’ve got a parcel of cocaine coming and we think that should be more profitable.”
“Oh, yes,” agreed Larose at once, “if you can place it properly. I’ve heard that those who deal in it get about twenty times what it costs them.” He smiled. “But you probably know much more about that than I do.”
Finally, it was arranged that Larose should come in with them and receive a tenth share of any profit that was made. At first he demured a little at the smallness of his share, but in the end he agreed that it would do, at any rate to begin with.
“But we haven’t heard yet the exact date when the boat will be passing up the channel,” said Pellew, “and if you are not going to tell us where you live, how can we let you know when we want you?”
“Well, I can’t very well give you my address, can I?” said Larose. “You might go round and frighten my wife out of that letter which is my only safeguard ——”
He smiled pleasantly. “You see we are all a tough lot and, if we were in a tight place, I don’t think there’s much any of us would stick at.” He nodded significantly at Pellew. “You didn’t take a gun, with a silencer”— he stressed strongly upon the last three words —“down to Wickham Towers for nothing. Oh, yes, I saw that gun, as well as the suede gloves, in your suit case.” His face brightened. “But I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll phone up every day to Curtain Lane and keep in touch with you that way. If I don’t phone up you’ll know I’ve got something better on, and am not going to chip in with you in this cocaine running. See!”
Pellew saw. Inwardly, he was furious, but he realised Larose knew too much to be made an enemy; and so he held his tongue and just nodded.
That night in bed, Larose, with his greater knowledge now of the characters of the three men, proceeded to sum them up and put them up in their exact places.
They were all rogues, but all in very differing ways. Of course, it was Pellew who set the pace and dominated the other two. But for him the latter would certainly never contemplate any crime of deliberate violence. Pellew, however, was by nature and disposition a man of violence.
Rising was a drinker, and all his moral sense had been sapped by drink, or, it might be, by an occasional recourse to drugs.
Royne would probably have been a very mild type of criminal if he had not fallen under Pellew’s influence. It was inconceivable that on his own he would ever commit a deliberate and carefully-planned murder. In everything he would prefer to rely upon craft rather than violence to obtain his ends, and would then be very proud of his cleverness. He had a quick, alert brain, and was decidedly the most gentlemanly of the three.
Still, he was not to be trusted, for in a moment of crisis and with his back against the wall, he might nerve himself momentarily to be equally as deadly as Pellew.
They were all educated men, Pellew in a heavy sort of way. Rising was of a scientific turn of mind, and evidently knew a lot about drugs. It might almost be, Larose thought, that he had had a medical training, because when talking about forbidden drugs at dinner he had explained that of all forms of opium heroin was perhaps one of most pleasant to take. It could be used conveniently as a snuff, and those who indulged in it, too, did not show the same pallor and emaciation as morphia addicts did. Then he had laughingly warned the others against eating too much salt, as it would inevitably, he said, tend to harden their arteries in the course of time.
As for Royne, Larose was in a way less puzzled about his one-time calling than in the case of the other two. He had certainly travelled to many parts of the world, but never spoke of any cities that were not on the coastline of the countries he had visited. Therefore Larose felt sure he must have been employed in a ship at one time, and this idea was strengthened when he remembered that Royne had at once taken command of the motor launch when it had put to sea that afternoon.
The next morning they all left for the City soon after eight, and on the journey up a little happening started Larose thinking hard.
Just before reaching Wickford, the little village where they had stopped to have a drink the previous afternoon, Royne announced suddenly that he had run out of cigarettes and asked Pellew to pull up for a few moments at the inn.
He was not gone two minutes and then, upon his return to the car, remarked that the barman had told him he had just had a letter saying his new dog might turn up any day now, whereupon Larose noticed that Pellew frowned.
Reaching the garage in Aldgate, Larose bade them good-bye and then, making sure he was not followed, walked to Mark Lane and took a westward-bound train.
An hour later, attired very differently now from the way he had been the previous day, he was motoring back with all speed to Wickford.
In his life’s work in the tracking down of crime, he had learnt so well that when any person was under suspicion there were no words or acts too trivial to be neglected. So now he was curious as to what exactly were Royne’s relations with the barman of the Wickford Inn.
That there was some secret understanding between them he was quite sure. He remembered that the previous afternoon the man had shaken his head at Royne directly he had seen him, and also, that there had been some whispering between the two as the party was leaving the inn. Then Royne had called in there again that morning and Pellew had frowned, it might have been in disappointment, when Royne had told them about the barman’s dog.
One or other of the three men in Curtain Lane had been able to obtain possession of the plans of the R8 submarine! The R8 was being built in Bolton’s shipyard at Birkenhead! Birkenhead was in Lancashire, on the estuary of the Mersey, right opposite Liverpool! Only a few miles from Liverpool was Aintree, where the Waterloo Cup was run, the richest prize in the world for greyhounds! The brother of the barman was a greyhound enthusiast and he was an expert photographer!
He summed up all these facts, and then asked himself breathlessly as to whether it was wholly improbable that the barman’s brother worked in the submarine sheds and had supplied the stolen plans. What a safe and unsuspected place it would be to send them to, a little village such as Wickford!
Arriving at Wickford, he made his way to the post office, which was also a little general shop, and kept, he saw by the name over the door, by one Angas McToon.
Walking inside, he asked for a quarter of a pound of boiled sweets, and noted with some amusement with what extreme care the tall, big-boned man who served them weighed them. Not one too many or one too few, just the exact weight, even to half a sweet.
He regarded the man critically. He was tight-lipped and taciturn-looking, with pale blue eyes under sandy brows. “Yes,” he thought, “he’s a man who can hold his tongue when he wants to. I’ll be quite safe with him.”
He paid for the sweets and then asked, “You are Mr. McToon?”
The man eyed him solemnly. “I am,” he replied and his lips closed like a vice.
“Well, I want some information,” said Larose smilingly, “and I’m prepared to pay for it. I’m making some enquiries about a party here and I don’t want him to know. You look to me like a man who doesn’t talk much.”
“Nay, I don’t talk unless I want to,” admitted McToon, and he added significantly, “I mayn’t now.”
Larose took out a ten shilling note and pushed it over the counter, but the Scot contented himself with eyeing it cautiously and let it lie.
“I represent a motor firm in London,” began Larose glibly, “and I want to know the financial standing of the barman here at the Rose and Crown. I want to ——”
“Oh, I’ll tell ye about him!” exclaimed McToon excitedly. “I’ll not hold me tongue there,” and with no hesitation now, he reached out and pocketed the Treasury note. “He’s a droonken mon and a deesgrace to the village. A score of times he’s insoolted me, and he’s spread it aboot that I give bad weight. If it were not that this is the post office he should never come into my shop again.”
“What’s his name?” asked Larose.
The Scotsman raised his eyebrows. “Who knows? He calls himself Smith, Ted Smith, but it may be Brown or Green or anything.” He nodded significantly. “I’m told one day a stranger in a car pulled up for a drink and was very surprised to see him there at the inn. Then he began calling him by another name. But this Smith looked scared and hush-hushed him! Ay, he’s a mystery and it’s like he’s been in prison. He’s only come to this village about three months.”
“And he doesn’t own the inn?” suggested Larose. “I see over the door ——”
“Own the inn!” scowled McToon. “Not he! Mrs. Hoggins employs him because she’s crippled with rheumatism, and he drinks as much as he sells.”
“But, why is he a mystery?” asked Larose.
“Because she pays him thirty shillings a week,” scoffed the Scotchman, “and he bets in pounds and pounds. He bets on dogs, horses and anything that runs. He gets money from somewhere.”
“Then does he have any letters?” asked Larose.
McToon shook his head and looked cunning. “Ah, I mustn’t tell you that,” he said. “That’s postal business.” He lowered his voice. “Still, I might whisper to you that when he gets any they’re mostly from bookmakers. They come from Chelmsford and Romford. I know their envelopes and handwriting. I sort all the letters, ye see.”
“Did he get any this morning?” asked Larose laughingly.
“One,” replied McToon, “but it wasn’t a bookmaker this time. It was postmarked Birkenhead.”
“A summons, perhaps?” suggested Larose, with his heart beating quickly.
“No, it was a wee bit of a letter. It seemed there was just a half-sheet of paper in it when I thumbed it.”
“But does he get any letters in long, big envelopes,” asked Larose, thinking the plans of a submarine would be bulky. “They would be summonses, then, of course!”
The Scotchman considered. “Well, I mind a big square one coming a bit while ago. There was saxpence postage on it and it was sealed with a smudge of brown sealing wax. I mind, too, it was a good linen envelope and blue.”
“And where did it come from?” asked Larose, suppressing the excitement which he felt.
“I dinna remember,” said McToon most regretfully, after a long pause. “I forget.”
Larose was feeling very pleased with himself as he drove away. That he had scored a bulls-eye he felt almost sure. The barman’s brother had been the one who had obtained the photographs of the plans. The difficulty, of course, would be the identification of the man. Still, he was inclined to be pretty hopeful about that.
He proceeded straight to Scotland Yard, but had to wait nearly two hours before he could get hold of Inspector McKinnon. Then he came straight to the point.
“Look here,” he said sharply, “I have found out that there is some business, which is being kept very secret, going on between Royne and the barman of an inn in Wickford, a little village in Essex. This barman has a brother, who is an expert photographer, in Birkenhead, and communications have been passing between them. Some weeks ago the barman received a bulky letter from his brother and it is quite possible it contained a photograph of the plans of the R8,” and very quickly he proceeded to outline the discoveries he had made.
The inspector listened in amazement. “My word, you’ve got a nerve!” he exclaimed with enthusiasm. “Fancy risking putting yourself in the clutches of those men again!”
“Oh, that was nothing!” said Larose. “I felt certain I could bluff them right enough.” He looked at his watch. “Now I want you to come with me straight away to Birkenhead and I’ll try and pick out the man. If I’m right, he’s still working on the submarine and is only waiting his chance to find out about those ballast tanks. We may get him tomorrow morning.”
“But you tell me you don’t know who he is!” exclaimed the inspector in surprise. “You say the barman’s name is an assumed one!”
“But for all that I may be able to spot the brother at once,” said Larose. “The barman’s got no lobes to his ears and I’ve noticed that often runs in the whole family. The lower part of his ear runs straight into his neck. Besides, he’s a short, stocky man of a special type and his brother is probably something like him.”
So the following morning the two men were being conducted round the shed where the submarine was being built. Their guide, an intelligent-looking fellow in the usual working overalls, did not know who they were. He had simply been told to take them over the shed and do exactly as they requested him.
The submarine was nearing completion and the shed was a hive of industry, with busy workers everywhere. Confronted with the number of men about, Larose felt his confidence ebbing just a little, and the inspector admitted afterwards that he had been quite sure they were upon a wild goose chase.
Neither of them asked any questions, but with stolid and impassive faces, tried to convey the impression that they were experts and understood everything that was going on.
They proceeded leisurely and nothing happened for quite a long while. Then Larose said very quietly to their guide.
“Now, I want to walk back again along that gangway. We will go first, and when you see me take my right hand out of my pocket, take careful notice of the man I am nearest to. I shall want to know who he is when we get outside. You understand, you are not to speak, but just follow us as if you had shown us all we wanted and we were going out.”
“All right,” nodded the guide. “You don’t want the man to know anything. I understand.”
The inspector felt a hot wave of expectancy surge through him. So Larose had marked down his man, he guessed, and he was all eyes for what was now going to happen.
They walked slowly up the gangway, and then Larose took his hand out of his pocket. The inspector’s heart throbbed painfully, as he saw they were passing a short, thick-set man who was directing two others, placing some thick copper wire in position. His eyes swept covertly over the man’s head and he saw he had unshapely, ill-defined ears.
Once out of the shed, Larose said sharply to the young fellow, “You spotted the man all right? Then we’ll go straight back to the office, and you’ll come with us, please.”
So they all three proceeded into the private room of the head of the firm where the latter at once asked anxiously, “Well, did you see the man you wanted?”
Larose nodded and then the young fellow who had escorted them, in reply to Mr. Benton’s question, stated that the man Larose had indicated was a William Bond, the foreman in charge of the electrical installations.
“And he’s one of our most important and most trusted men!” exclaimed the submarine builder. “He’s been with us for more than twenty years.” He spoke sharply. “What have you against him?”
Without replying, Larose looked in the direction of the young man and Mr. Benton, following his thoughts, said quickly. “Oh, you can speak in front of him.” He smiled. “He’s my son.”
So Larose proceeded to say at once they suspected this William Bond had been disposing of photographs of the plans of the submarine. Mr. Benton listened in pained and amazed silence.
“Now has it been possible for him at any time to have access to the plans, so that he could have photographed them?” asked Larose.
“He’s certainly had access to a copy of the plans,” admitted Mr. Benton slowly, “and it might have been possible,” he hesitated, “yes, it might have been that they were not always in their case when he returned it to us.” He spoke with an effort. “You see, we trusted him so. He might have taken them home for the night and then replaced them directly the case was given him again the next morning.”
“Well, we’ll get a search warrant,” said the inspector briskly, “and go through his home at once. Then we’ll arrest him when he comes home.”
Accompanied by two local detectives they proceeded to the man’s house, a small one in a garden suburb. His wife, an elderly woman, looked very scared when, upon opening the door to them, she learnt who they were and what their business was. Leaving one of the detectives to keep an eye upon her and see she did not leave the house, they proceeded to go through everything most thoroughly. The house was well furnished, and there were signs that there was no lack of money.
Photography was evidently the man’s chief hobby, and there were photographs all over the place, mainly, however, of greyhounds and horses. Opening a small desk in the parlor, almost the first thing Larose’s eyes fell upon was a large blue linen envelope, and he held it up triumphantly to the inspector.
“A sure thing!” he exclaimed delightedly. “It’s exactly like the one the Wickford Postmaster told me that barman had received some time back. This Bond chap undoubtedly bought them both at the same time.”
They looked into a Savings Bank book, and saw Bond had ￡108 to his credit but none of it had been paid in in a big sum. Then Larose picked up a sheet of paper with a two-penny duty stamp upon it, and his eyes opened very wide.
“Look, look, what’s this!” he exclaimed excitedly. “A receipt for ￡78 15-, paid on May the 8th last for ‘Brindled dog, Sugar, by Good Judge out of Pretty Girl.’ Great Jupiter, that’s 75 guineas he paid for a greyhound six weeks ago! Now where the blazes did he get all that ready cash from? Depend upon it that’s part of the money he received for the photographs of those plans!”
“Well, we’ll try a bluff on him,” said the inspector. “That’s the only way. We’ll bounce him that his barman brother has been caught for passing on the plans and has confessed everything.” His face fell. “But what about his wife here? If she’s free she may have some means of getting a message through to Wickford.”
“Then arrest her, too,” said Larose. “Take her as an accomplice. Didn’t you notice her nitrate of silver stained fingers? Well then, of course, she helps him with the photography and it’s any odds she knows all about the plans.”
“Good man!” laughed the inspector. “Then we’ll get in one of the women police and bundle her off before her husband comes home.”
“But I’m sure we are missing something,” said Larose. “Seventy-five guineas wasn’t all he got for those plans. Much more likely it was nearer ￡500. So he’s hidden the rest away somewhere.”
But going over everything minutely as they did, they found no hidden store of notes, and Larose began to look rather glum.
“You know, we really haven’t anything definite against this man,” he said warningly, “and unless he confesses, you certainly won’t be able to hold him long. It all amounts to this. Until we can actually lay hands upon that copy of the plans Pellew is going to sell to those Japs, we can’t even prove that any photograph was taken. We’ve followed a beautiful trail and it’s led us to exactly where we expected, but there’s nothing for us now we’ve got there.”
“Still, you see, I’ll bluff him,” nodded the inspector confidently. “He’ll be so surprised at seeing us here that he’s bound to think we know a great deal more than we do.”
“But I’m not so sure about that,” said Larose gloomily. “He doesn’t look a party to be easily bluffed, nor his wife either. They both appear to me to be of the kind who will always think before they speak.”
And, as it turned out, Larose was quite right.
When the man came into his kitchen through the back door he was obviously very startled to find strangers there. But his face quickly took on a stolid wooden look, and he closed his lips tightly. He made no comment at all when the inspector proceeded to tell him whom they were and what they had come for, but just stood staring hard.
The inspector advised him to make a clean breast of everything. He said they had found out he had been taking photographs of the submarine and passing them over to his brother in Wickford to sell. His brother had been caught at it and had now admitted everything. They had got, too, the incriminating letter which he, Bond, had mailed to his brother only two days ago.
Then the man spoke for the first time. “What was there incriminating in it?” he said, as if very surprised. “He wants me to buy him a greyhound and I wrote I would, when I could pick one up at the price he wanted to give.” He spoke very quietly. “I don’t believe a word you say. My brother could never have got hold of any submarine plans to sell.” He shrugged his shoulders. “At any rate I know nothing about it.”
Larose shot in a sharp question and the man turned instantly in his direction.
“Then how do you account for all this money we found in the house?” asked Larose, and for one fleeting second the man’s eyes left Larose’s face.
“I won it at betting,” he said. “I backed Whitehaven at fifty to one.”
That was all they could get out of him, as he refused to say another word. He looked quite unperturbed when the two local detectives took him away.
“A tough chap!” sighed the inspector, mopping his forehead with his handkerchief. “I hope to goodness his brother speaks at the other end.” He looked very disconsolate. “If he doesn’t we’re in a hell of a hole.”
“But I think you over-reached things a bit,” commented Larose thoughtfully. “You said his brother had been caught selling the plans, and he must have known that wasn’t true, as they were sold weeks and weeks ago and he got his share of the money safely.” His face brightened suddenly. “A-ah. I’ve thought of something! I tricked him into admitting there was money in the house and didn’t you notice how he looked round then?”
He sprang to his feet, and his own eyes went searching about the kitchen. Then he sank back into his chair again and chuckled delightedly.
“You’re nearest, Inspector!” he laughed. “So just bring down that pile of newspapers on the shelf, will you? I saw you lifted them all up once, but I don’t think you went through them.”
The inspector hesitated a moment as if he were rather annoyed at the request and then, reaching up to a high shelf, brought down a score and more of neatly folded, pink-colored sporting papers, and bumped them upon the table. Larose, now throwing off his assumption of indifference, quickly moved up close and stood watching intently, as he unfolded them one by one.
About ten seconds passed and then the inspector jerked out a paper which had been in about the middle of the pile. He gave one sharp, significant look at Larose, and then holding up the paper, shook out a regular cascade of bank notes.
“Gosh,” he exclaimed with intense fervor, “how simple!”
“All fivers!” said Larose, as he shuffled the notes apart to see what their values were. “All been in circulation, too, and no sequence of numbers.” He nodded to the inspector. “These men have been very careful.”
Two more newspapers also gave up a large number of notes, the total adding up to ￡405.
“Now that suggests guilt, if you like,” said Larose cheerfully, “and you have something to go on at last. If this money were honestly acquired it isn’t likely it would not have been put in a safe place. If he won it, too, as he says by betting, he’ll have to produce the bookmaker who paid and that’ll be a nasty snag to get over.”
“Now, what about that barman?” asked the Inspector. “What are we to do there?”
“We can’t touch him, yet,” said Larose emphatically. “We must’nt put the wind up Pellew again. We’ve got to lay hands on the other set of plans which is going to be given to the Jap. Then, we can pull in the net, if you like.”
“But what’s troubling me there,” frowned the inspector, “is how to learn where the plans are going to be passed over. Of course, we’ll hear when the Jap phones up to make the appointment, but if Pellew is only going to produce them as he says when he’s taken the Jap to some outlandish part of the country, how the deuce are we going to follow them to this place without being seen? It seems very doubtful to me that we can ever bring it off.”
But returning to London that night by train, and when in a compartment by themselves, the inspector suddenly began to chuckle delightedly.
“See here, Mr. Larose!” he exclaimed. “You’re not the only one who gets ideas, and a damned good one’s just come to me. Now, I shouldn’t be at all surprised that when Pellew told that Jap he’d got those plans hidden somewhere away in the country, he was bluffing, just bluffing. But I don’t think he’d be bluffing if he said it to anyone now. He’d be speaking the exact truth.”
“But they won’t be actually out in the country,” said Larose. “They’ll be hidden somewhere close to Marle House, so that they’ll be all ready for him to get hold of in a couple of minutes or so, when he wants to plant them wherever he’s going to meet that Jap.”
The inspector laughed. “I don’t agree with you there, sir.” He laid his hand upon Larose’s arm and went on very impressively. “They’re planted already; a good twenty miles away from that bit of Essex coast!”
“Oh, then you’re clairvoyant, are you?” laughed Larose.
“Not at all!” exclaimed the inspector. “I’m just using my wits. What I believe happened is this. Pellew went off to that house party for the weekend and on Saturday morning, when Rising and Royne took out the car and slipped my men in those country lanes, they hid those plans”— he paused a moment to enjoy his triumph —“somewhere on Galleywood Common.” He leant back confidently. “At any rate, that’s what I think.”
Larose nodded approvingly. “Good man! And they took those photos so that they could show Pellew when he got back where they had hidden them!” He shook his head. “But it’s no good your attempting to search for what they’ve hidden!”
“Not a bit,” agreed the inspector instantly. “But we’ll be ready for them when they come, and give them a nice little surprise. Remember, the Jap is to ring up on Monday or Tuesday.”
Early the next morning Larose called at Curtain Lane and was received as a friend of the family.
“But why didn’t you phone up yesterday, as you said you were going to?” asked Pellew.
“Well, to be quite honest with you,” replied Larose, looking rather sheepish, “I half thought of chucking it. I had made out to several parties, whom I knew I could trust, that I had some cocaine to sell, but I found they were not at all anxious to buy, at any rate, for the present. They said it was so difficult to place now. But I saw that wholesale chemist chap and he said he would take a parcel at 4 an ounce in a couple of weeks or so.” He laughed. “And so I have changed my mind.”
“Well, it’s tonight we’re going to pick it up,” said Pellew, “and you’d better come.”
“Oh, yes, I’ll come,” exclaimed Larose eagerly, “and I’ll bring some different sparkling plugs with me, in case those ones you’ve got now give any trouble.”
“All right,” said Pellew. Then he asked frowningly. “Have you got a gun?”
Larose nodded. “But I shan’t bring it with me tonight and none of you ought to have one either. If we were held up, I suppose we could always dump the stuff but it would look darned suspicious if we were found to be armed.”
“If we are held up,” said Pellew with an ugly smile, “we shall think you’ve tipped us off and then”— he nodded significantly, “a gun would come in very handy.”
“But that’s not fair,” said Larose protestingly. He grinned. “Still, I’ll risk it, as I suppose you are taking every precaution that you won’t be caught.”
“Certainly, we are,” agreed Pellew instantly. He spoke sternly but most politely. “So, if you don’t mind you shall now remain with us here, until we leave this afternoon. Then we shall be quite certain it can’t have leaked out what we are doing tonight. You shall go down into the cellar with Royne and help him bottle some sherry from the casks.”
It was a very weird experience for Larose that night. The launch was, of course, ostensibly being taken out upon a fishing expedition, and rods and fishing tackle were much in evidence upon the deck.
They left the Crouch just before seven o’clock and dusk found them fishing a few miles out beyond the Kentish Flats off Herne Bay. It was a perfect summer night, with bright starlight but no moon showing.
The fishing was good and they had soon caught a good number. Directly darkness had well fallen, however, they pulled up the anchor and proceeded much farther out to sea, in a north-easterly direction. Their lights were now extinguished and they drifted with the tide.
To Larose they appeared to be out of the direct line of shipping and to have the sea almost to themselves.
Presently, however, the lights of a ship were sighted and, after a long scrutiny through some binoculars, Royne announced, “That ought to be her.”
Half an hour later a small steamer passed them and they proceeded to follow in her wake. Presently, a light was flashed twice from the steamer’s stern, and the speed of the launch was immediately slowed down.
Then the eyes of everyone upon the launch were concentrated upon the surface of the sea, and very soon Pellew called out, “There it is,” and a couple of minutes later a small round buoy was drawn up with the boat-hook. A length of rope followed, and finally a small cylinder about two feet long and eighteen inches in circumference.
“Worth at least ￡600,” announced Rising confidently. “That is, of course if we can place it.”
The launch was turned round and they started back at a fair pace for the Crouch, with the lights now shining.
They had a few anxious moments when a destroyer, appearing out of nowhere, seemed to be coming after them. Larose was leaning across the hatchway and he would have sworn that Pellew, who was standing just behind him, had got an automatic in his hand and was pointing it straight into his back.
But the destroyer passed like an express train and Pellew moved back to the stern of the launch again.
Everything then went off all right and by ten o’clock they were having a late supper of fried fish at Marle House.
Larose did not ask what they had done with the cocaine, but he knew it had not been brought out of the shed.
The following morning at the usual time, they set out for the City, with Pellew driving at his usual rapid pace. Approaching Wickford, however the car was slowed down and Larose was quite sure they were going to stop again at the inn, but the car passed through the village without pulling up, and was then accelerated to top speed again.
Larose chuckled to himself. He had seen all heads turned towards the inn as they went by, and was quite sure they had been looking for some signal by which the barman was going to let Royne know he had heard from Birkenhead.
“But that letter will never come now, you beauties,” he murmured, “and with any luck you’ll all three soon be in the same kind of place as your pal is.”
He parted from them at the garage with the assurance that within a day or two he would let them know as to the disposal of the cocaine to his friend, the wholesale chemist.