The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation

"High praise," laughed Fullaway. "And original too. Well, let's fix up and get some food, and then we'll go into my private rooms and have a talk over the situation."

Mr. Franklin Fullaway, following a certain modern fashion, introduced into life by twentieth-century company promoters and magnates of the high finance, had established his business quarters at his hotel. It was a wise and pleasant thing to do, he explained to Allerdyke; you had the advantage of living over the shop, as it were; of being able to go out of your private sitting-room into your business office; you had the bright and pleasant surroundings; you had, moreover, all the various rooms and saloons of a first-rate hotel wherein to entertain your clients if need be. Certainly you had to pay for these advantages and luxuries, but no more than you would have to lay out in the rents, rates, and taxes of palatial offices in a first-class business quarter.

"And my line of business demands luxurious fittings," remarked the American, as he installed Allerdyke in a sybaritic armchair and handed him a box of big cigars of a famous brand. "You're not the first millionaire that's come to anchor in that chair, you know!"

"If they're millionaires in penny-pieces, maybe not," answered Allerdyke. He lighted a cigar and glanced appraisingly at his surroundings—at the thick velvet pile of the carpets, the fine furniture, the bookcases filled with beautiful bindings, the choice bits of statuary, the two or three unmistakably good pictures. "Doing good business, I reckon?" he said, with true Yorkshire curiosity. "What's it run to, now?"

Fullaway showed his fine white teeth in a genial laugh.

"Oh, I've turned over two and three millions in a year in this little den!" he answered cheerily. "Varies, you know, according to what people have got to sell, and what good buyers there are knocking around."

"You keep a bit of sealing wax, of course?" suggested Allerdyke. "Take care that some of the brass sticks when you handle it, no doubt?"

"Commission and percentage, of course," responded Fullaway.

"Ah, well, you've an advantage over chaps like me," said Allerdyke. "Now, you shall take my case. We've made a pile of money in our firm, grandfather, father, and myself; but, Lord, man, you wouldn't believe what our expenses have been! Building mills, fitting machinery—and then, wages! Why, I pay wages to six hundred workpeople every Friday afternoon! Our wages bill runs to well over fourteen hundred pound a week. You've naught of that sort, of course—no great staff to keep up?"

"No," answered Fullaway. He nodded his head towards the door of a room through which they had just passed on their way into the agent's private apartments. "All the staff I have is the young lady you just saw—Mrs. Marlow. Invaluable!"

"Married woman?" inquired Allerdyke laconically.

"Young widow," answered Fullaway just as tersely. "Excellent business woman—been with me ever since I came here—three years. Speaks and writes several languages—well educated, good knowledge of my particular line of business. American—I knew her people very well. Of course, I don't require much assistance—merely clerical help, but it's got to be of a highly intelligent and specialized sort."

"Leave your business in her hands if need be, I reckon?" suggested Allerdyke, with a sidelong nod at the closed door.

"In ordinary matters, yes—comfortably," answered Fullaway. "She's a bit a specialist in two things that I'm mainly concerned in—pictures and diamonds. She can tell a genuine Old Master at a glance, and she knows a lot about diamonds—her father was in that trade at one time, out in South Africa."

"Clever woman to have," observed Allerdyke; "knows all your business, of course?"

"All the surface business," said Fullaway, "naturally! Anything but a confidential secretary would be useless to me, you know."

"Just so," agreed Allerdyke. "Told her about this affair yet?"

"I've had no chance so far," replied Fullaway. "I shall take her advice about it—she's a cute woman."

"Smart-looking, sure enough," said Allerdyke. He let his mind dwell for a moment on the picture which Mrs. Marlow had made as Fullaway led him through the office—a very well-gowned, pretty, alert, piquant little woman, still on the sunny side of thirty, who had given him a sharp glance out of unusually wide-awake eyes. "Aye, women are clever nowadays, no doubt—they'd show their grandmothers how to suck eggs in a good many new fashions. Well, now," he went on, stretching his long legs over Fullaway's beautiful Persian rug, "what do you make of this affair, Fullaway, in its present situation? There's no doubt that everything's considerably altered by what we've heard of this morning. Do you really think that this French maid affair is all of a piece, as one may term it, with the affair of my cousin James?"

"Yes—without doubt," replied Fullaway. "I believe the two affairs all spring from the same plot. That plot, in my opinion, has originated from a clever gang who, somehow or other, got to know that Mr. James Allerdyke was bringing over the Princess Nastirsevitch's jewels, and who also turned their eyes on Zélie de Longarde's valuables. The French maid, Lisette, was probably nothing but a tool, a cat's paw, and she, having done her work, has been cleverly removed so that she could never split. Further—"

A quiet knock at the door just then prefaced the entrance of Mrs. Marlow, who gave her employer an inquiring glance.

"Mr. Blindway to see you," she announced. "Shall I show him in?"

"At once!" replied Fullaway. He leapt from his chair, and going to the door called to the detective to enter. "News?" he asked excitedly, when Mrs. Marlow had retired, closing the door again. "What is it—important?"

The detective, who looked very solemn, drew a letter-case from his pocket, and slowly produced a telegram.

"Important enough," he answered. "This case is assuming a very strange complexion, gentlemen. This arrived from Hull half an hour ago, and the chief thought I'd better bring it on to you at once. You see what it is—"

He held the telegram out to both men, and they read it together, Fullaway muttering the words as he read—

From Chief Constable, Hull, to Superintendent C.I.D., New Scotland Yard.

Dr. Lydenberg, concerned in Allerdyke case, was shot dead in High Street here this morning by unseen person, who is up to now unarrested and to whose identity we have no clue.

CHAPTER XIII

AMBLER APPLEYARD

Fullaway laid the telegram down on his table and looked from it to the detective.

"Shot dead—High Street—this morning?" he said wonderingly. "Why!—that means, of course, in broad daylight—in a busy street, I suppose? And yet—no clue. How could a man be shot dead under such circumstances without the murderer being seen and followed?"

"You don't know Hull very well," remarked Allerdyke, who had been pulling his moustache and frowning over the telegram, "else you'd know how that could be done easy enough in High Street. High Street," he went on, turning to the detective, "is the oldest street in the town. It's the old merchant street. Half of it—lower end—is more or less in ruins. There are old houses there which aren't tenanted. Back of these houses are courts and alleys and queer entries, leading on one side to the river, and on the other to side streets. A man could be lured into one of those places and put out of the way easily and quietly enough. Or he could be shot by anybody lurking in one of those houses, and the murderer could be got away unobserved with the greatest ease. That's probably what's happened—I know that street as well as I know my own house—I'm not surprised by that! What I'm surprised about is to hear that Lydenberg has been shot at all. And the question is—is his murder of a piece with all the rest of this damnable mystery, or is it clean apart from it? Understand, Fullaway?"

"I'm thinking," answered the American. "It takes a lot of thinking, too."

"You see," continued Allerdyke, turning to Blindway again, "we're all in a hole—in a regular fog. We know naught! literally naught. This Lydenberg was a foreigner—Swede, Norwegian, Dane, or something. We know nothing of him, except that he said he'd come to Hull on business. He may have been shot for all sorts of reasons—private, political. We don't know. But—mark me!—if his murder's connected with the others, if it's all of a piece with my cousin's murder, and that French girl's, why then—"

He paused, shaking his head emphatically, and the other two, impressed by his earnestness, waited until he spoke again.

"Then," he continued at last, after a space of silence, during which he seemed to be reflecting with added strenuousness—"then, by Heaven! we're up against something that's going to take it out of us before we get at the truth. That's a dead certainty. If this is all conspiracy, it's a big 'un—a colossal thing! What say, Fullaway?"

"I should say you're right," replied Fullaway. "I've been trying to figure things up while you talked, though I gave you both ears. It looks as if this Lydenberg had been shot in order to keep his tongue quiet forever. Maybe he knew something, and was likely to split. What are your people going to do about this?" he asked turning to the detective. "I suppose you'll go down to Hull at once?"

"I shan't," answered Blindway. "I've enough to do here. One of our men has already gone—he's on his way. We shall have to wait for news. I'm inclined to agree with Mr. Allerdyke—it's a big thing, a very big thing. If Mr. Allerdyke's cousin was really murdered, and if the Frenchwoman's death arose out of that, and now Lydenberg's, there's a clever combination at work. And—where's the least clue to it?"

Allerdyke helped himself to a fresh cigar out of a box which lay on Fullaway's table, lighted it, and smoked in silence for a minute or two.

The other men, feeling instinctively that he was thinking, waited.

"Look you here!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Clue? Yes, that's what we want. Where's that clue likely to be found? Why, in this, and this only—who knew, person or persons, that my cousin was bringing those jewels from the Princess Nastirsevitch to this country? Get to know that, and it narrows the field, d'ye see?"

"There's the question of Miss Lennard's jewels, too," remarked Fullaway.

"That may be—perhaps was—a side-issue," said Allerdyke. "It may have come into the big scheme as an after-thought. But, anyway, that's what we want—a first clue. And I don't see how that's to be got at until this Princess arrives here. You see, she may have talked, she may have let it out in confidence—to somebody who abused her confidence. What is certain is that somebody must have got to know of this proposed deal between the Princess and your man, Fullaway, and have laid plans accordingly to rob the Princess's messenger—my cousin James. D'ye see, the deal was known of at two ends—to you here, to this Princess, through James, over there, in Russia. Now, then, where did the secret get out? Did it get out there, or here?"

"Not here, of course!" answered Fullaway, with emphasis. "That's dead sure. Over there, of a certainty. The robbery was engineered from there."

"Then, in that case, there's naught to do but wait the arrival of the Princess," said Allerdyke. "And you say she'll be here to-morrow night. In the meantime no doubt you police gentlemen'll get more news about this last affair at Hull, and perhaps Miss Lennard'll find those references about the Frenchwoman, and maybe we shall mop things up bit by bit—for mopped up they'll have to be, or my name isn't what it is! Fullaway," he went on, rising from his chair, "I'll have to leave you—yon man o' mine'll be arriving from Yorkshire with my things before long, and I must go down to the hotel office and make arrangements about him. See you later—at dinner to-night, here, eh?"

He lounged away through the outer office, giving the smart lady secretary a keen glance as he passed her and getting an equally scrutinizing, if swift, look in return.

"Clever!" mused Allerdyke as he closed the door behind him. "Deuced clever, that young woman. Um—well, it's a pretty coil, to be sure!"

He went down to the office, made full and precise arrangements about Gaffney, who was to be given a room close to his own, left some instructions as to what was to be done with him on arrival, and then, hands in pockets, strolled out into Aldwych and walked towards the Strand, his eyes bent on the ground as if he strove to find in those hard pavements some solution of all these difficulties. And suddenly he lifted his head and muttered a few emphatic words half aloud, regardless of whoever might overhear them.

"I wish to Heaven I'd a right good, hard-headed Yorkshireman to talk to!" he said. "A chap with some gumption about him! These Cockneys and Americans are all very well in their way, but—"

Then he pulled himself up sharply. An idea, a name, had flashed into his mental field of vision as if sent in answer to his prayer. And still regardless of bystanders he slapped his thigh delightedly.

"Ambler Appleyard!" he exclaimed. "The very man! Here, you!"

The last two words were addressed to a taxi-cab driver whose car stood at the head of the line by the Gaiety Theatre. Allerdyke crossed from the pavement and jumped in.

"Run down to this end of Gresham Street," he said. "Go quick as you can."

He wondered as he sped along the crowded London streets why he had not thought of Ambler Appleyard before. Ambler Appleyard was the manager of his own London warehouse, a smart, clever, pushing young Bradford man who had been in charge of the London business of Allerdyke and Partners, Limited, for the last three years. He had come to London with his brains already sharpened—three years of business life in the Metropolis had made them all the sharper. Allerdyke rubbed his hands with satisfaction. Exchange of confidence with a fellow-Yorkshireman was the very thing he wanted.

He got out of his cab at the Aldersgate end of Gresham Street, and walked quickly along until he came to a highly polished brass plate on which his own name was deeply engraven. Running up a few steps into a warehouse stored with neat packages of dress goods, he encountered a couple of warehousemen engaged in sorting and classifying a consignment of fabrics just arrived from Bradford. Allerdyke, whose visits to his London warehouse were fairly frequent, and usually without notice, nodded affably to both and walked across the floor to an inner office. He opened the door without ceremony, closed it carefully behind him, and stepping forward to the occupant of the room, who sat busily writing at a desk, with his back to the entrant, and continued to write without moving or looking round, gave him a resounding smack on the shoulder.

"The very man I want, Ambler, my lad!" he said. "Sit up!"

Ambler Appleyard raised his head, slowly twisted in his revolving chair, and looked quietly at his employer. And Allerdyke, dropping into an easy-chair by the fireplace, over which hung a fine steel engraving of himself, flanked by photographs of the Bradford mills and the Bradford warehouse, looked at his London manager, secretly admiring the shrewdness and self-possession evidenced in the young man's face. Appleyard was certainly no beauty; his outstanding features were sandy-coloured hair, freckled cheeks, a snub nose, and a decidedly wide mouth; moreover, his ears, unusually large, stood out from the sides of his head in very prominent fashion, and gave a beholder the impression that they were perpetually stretched to attention. But he was the owner of a well-shaped forehead, a pair of steady and honest blue eyes, and a firmly cut square chin, and his entire atmosphere conveyed the idea of capacity, resource, and energy. It pleased Allerdyke, too, to see that the young man was attentive to his own personal appearance—his well-cut garments bore the undoubted stamp of the Savile Row tailor; the silk hat which covered his crop of sandy hair was the latest thing in Sackville Street headgear; from top to toe he was the smart man-about-town. And that was the sort of man Marshall Allerdyke liked to have about him, and to see as heads of his departments—not fops, nor dandies, but men who knew the commercial value of good appearance and smart finish.

"I didn't know you were in town, Mr. Allerdyke," said the London manager quietly. "Still, one never knows where you are these days."

"I've scarcely known that myself, my lad, these last seventy-two hours," replied Allerdyke. "You mightn't think it, but at this time yesterday I was going full tilt up to Edinburgh. I want to tell you about that, Ambler—I want some advice. But business first—aught new?"

"I've brought that South American contract off," replied Appleyard.

"Fixed it this morning."

"Good!" said Allerdyke. "What's it run to, like?"

"Seventy-five thousand," answered Appleyard. "Nice bit of profit on that, Mr. Allerdyke."

"Good—good!" repeated Allerdyke. "Aught else?"

"Naught—at present. Naught out of the usual, anyway," said the manager.

He took off his hat, laid aside the papers he had been busy with on Allerdyke's entrance, and twisted his chair round to the hearth. "This advice, then?" he asked quietly. "I'm free now."

"Aye!" said Allerdyke. He sat reflecting for a moment, and then turned to his manager with a sudden question.

"Have you heard all this about my cousin James?" he asked with sharp directness.

Appleyard lifted a couple of newspapers from his desk.

"No more than what's in these," he answered. "One tells of his sudden death at Hull; the other begins to hint that there was something queer about it."

"Queer!" exclaimed Allerdyke. "Aye, and more than queer, my lad. Our James was murdered! Now, then, Ambler, I've come here to tell you all the story—you must listen to every detail. I know your brains—keep 'em fixed on what I'm going to tell; hear it all; weigh it up, and then tell me what you make of it; for I'm damned if I can make either head or tail, back, side, or front of the whole thing—so far. Happen you can see a bit of light. Listen, now."

Allerdyke, from long training in business habits, was a good teller of a plain and straightforward tale: Appleyard, for the same reason, was a good listener. So one man talked, in low, earnest tones, checking off his points as he made them, taking care that he emphasized the principal items of his news and dwelt lightly on the connecting links, and the other listened in silence, keeping a concentrated attention and storing away the facts in his memory as they were duly marshalled before him. For a good hour one brain gave out, and the other took in, and without waste of words.

It came to an end at last, and master looked at man.

"Well?" said Allerdyke, after a silence that was full of meaning—"well?"

"Take some thinking about," answered Appleyard tersely. "It's a big thing—a devilish clever thing, too. There's one fact strikes me at once, though. The news about the Nastirsevitch jewels leaked out somewhere, Mr. Allerdyke. That's certain. Either here in London, or over there in Russia, it leaked out. Now until this Princess comes you've no means of knowing if the leakage was over yonder. But there's one thing you do know now—at this very minute. There were three people here in England who knew that the jewels were on the way from Russia, in Mr. James Allerdyke's charge. Those three were this man Fullaway, his lady secretary, and Delkin, the Chicago millionaire! Now, then, Mr. Allerdyke—how much, or what, do you know about any one of 'em?"

CHAPTER XIV

FIFTY THOUSAND POUNDS REWARD

Allerdyke encountered this direct question with a long, fixed stare of growing comprehension; his silence showed that he was gradually taking in its significance.

"Aye, just so!" he said at last. "Just so! How much do I know of any of 'em? Well, of Fullaway no more than I've seen. Of his secretary no more than what I've seen and heard. Of Delkin no more than that such a man exists. Sum total—what!"

"Next to naught," said Appleyard. "In a case like this you ought to know more. Fullaway may be all right. Fullaway may be all wrong. His lady secretary may be as right as he is, or as wrong as he is. As to Delkin—he might be a creature of Fullaway's imagination. Put it all to yourself now, Mr. Allerdyke—on the face of what you've told me, these three people—two of 'em, at any rate, for a certainty—knew about these valuables coming over in Mr. James's charge. So far as you know, your cousin had 'em when he left Christiania and reached Hull. There they disappear. So far as you're aware, nobody but these people knew of their coming—no other people in England knew, at any rate, so far, I repeat, as your knowledge goes. I should want to know something about these three, if I were in your place, Mr. Allerdyke."

"Aye—aye!" replied Allerdyke. "I see your point. Well, I've been in Fullaway's company now for two days—there's no denying he's a smart chap, a clever chap, and he seems to be doing good business. Moreover, Ambler, my lad, James knew him and James wasn't the sort to take up with wrong 'uns. As to the secretary, I can't say. Besides, Fullaway said this afternoon that he hadn't told her all about it yet."

"All about the Hull affair and the Lennard affair, I took that to mean from your account," remarked Appleyard. "If she's his confidential secretary, with access to his papers and business, she'd know all about the Princess transaction. Now, of course, an inquiry or two of the usual sort would satisfy you about Fullaway—I mean as a business man. An inquiry or two would tell you all about Delkin. But you can't get to know all about Mrs. Marlow from any inquiry. And you can't find out all about Fullaway from any inquiry. He may be the straightest business man in all London—and yet have a finger in this pie, and his secretary with him. Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds' worth of jewels, Mr. Allerdyke, is—a temptation! And—these folks knew the jewels were on the way. What's more, they'd time to intercept their bearer—Mr. James."

Allerdyke rubbed his chin and knitted his brows in obvious bewilderment. "There must ha' been more than them in at it," he said musingly. "A regular gang of 'em, judging by results."

"Every gang has its ganger," replied Appleyard, with a knowing smile. "There's no doubt this is a big thing—but there must be a central point, a head, a controlling authority in it. We come back, you see, after all, to where we started—these people were the only people in England who knew about these jewels, so far as we know."

"Aye, but only so far as we know," said Allerdyke. "There may have been others. There may have been folks who got to know about them over there in Russia and who communicated their knowledge to some folks here. And there's always this to be borne in mind—the affair, the plot, may have been originated there, and worked from there. Remember that!"

"Quite so—and you can't decide on anything relating to that until this Princess comes," agreed Appleyard. "It'll have to rest till you've heard all she has to say, and then you'll know where you are. But in the meantime you can find out a bit about Fullaway and this millionaire man—I can find out for you, if you like, in a few hours."

"Do, my lad!" said Allerdyke. "It's always well to know who you're dealing with. Aye—make an inquiry or two."

"But remember that all I can inquire about will be in the ordinary business way," continued Appleyard. "I can ascertain if there is a Delkin in town, who's a Chicago millionaire, and if Fullaway's a reputable business man—but that'll be all. As to the secretary, I can't do anything."

"I'll keep an eye on her myself," said Allerdyke. "Well, do this, then, and let me know the results. I've put up at the Waldorf, and there I shall stop while all this is being investigated here in London, but I shall pop in and out here, of course. And now I'll go back there and find out if there's any fresh news from the police or from Hull. I reckon there'll be some fine reading in the newspapers in a day or two, Ambler—it'll all have to come out now."

In this supposition Allerdyke was right. The police authorities, finding that the affair had assumed dimensions of an astonishing magnitude, decided to seek the aid of the Press, and to publish the entire story in the fullest possible fashion. And Allerdyke and all London woke next morning to find the newspapers alive with a new sensation, and every other man asking his neighbour what it all meant. Three mysterious murders—two big thefts—together—the newspaper world had known nothing like it for years, and the only regrets in Fleet Street were those of the men who would have sacrificed their very noses to have got the story exclusively to themselves. But the police authorities had exercised a wise generosity, and no one newspaper knew more than another at that stage—they all, as Fullaway said to Allerdyke at breakfast, got a fair start, and from that one could run their own race.