Angel Esquire

Title: Angel Esquire

Author: Edgar Wallace

Release date: December 4, 2023 [eBook #72316]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: A. L. Burt Company, 1908

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72316

Credits: Emmanuel Ackerman, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

A Superlatively Good Mystery Story by a Writer of Thrillers.

Angel Esquire

By EDGAR WALLACE

Angel Esquire, of Scotland Yard, has his hands full in helping Jimmy Stannard, as he is known to the criminal element of London, solve the puzzle of the great safe which held the fortune of Old Reale who had placed it there, and who had taken the precaution to hide the combination in a bit of doggerel verse that served as a cryptogram.

When Old Reale’s Will was read it was found that four people might benefit by it. Two of them, known as members of the famous “Borough Lots” gang would stop at nothing to gain possession of the fortune. Jimmy and his friend are pitted against them in a story that constitutes the finest entertainment for the person liking excitement, love and mystery combined.

OTHER BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR:

THE BLACK ABBOT THE CLUE OF THE NEW PIN THE DOOR WITH SEVEN LOCKS THE MELODY OF DEATH A KING BY NIGHT THE RINGER THE SINISTER MAN THE TERRIBLE PEOPLE TERROR KEEP TRAITOR’S GATE

A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers · New York

See Reverse Side of Jacket for Complete List of 75c Fiction

ANGEL ESQUIRE

By EDGAR WALLACE Author of “The Girl from Scotland Yard,” “The Traitors’ Gate,” “The Clue of the New Pin,” “The Green Archer,” “The Hairy Arm,” “Blue Hand,” “The Black Abbott,” “The Sinister Man,” “Terror Keep,” “The Ringer,” “The Door with Seven Locks,” “A King by Night,” “The Melody of Death,” “The Four Just Men,” “Jack O’Judgment,” etc.

A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York Published by arrangement with Lincoln Mac Veagh, The Dial Press Printed in U. S. A.

Copyright, 1908, BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

Copyright, 1927, BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY (Incorporated) Printed in the United States of America

ANGEL ESQUIRE

CHAPTER I THE LOMBARD STREET DEPOSIT

Mr. William Spedding, of the firm of Spedding, Mortimer and Larach, Solicitors, bought the site in Lombard Street in the conventional way. The property came into the market on the death of an old lady who lived at Market Harborough, who has nothing to do with this story, and it was put up to auction in the orthodox fashion.

Mr. William Spedding secured the site at £106,000, a sum sufficiently large to excite the interest of all the evening papers and a great number of the morning journals as well.

As a matter of exact detail, I may add that plans were produced and approved by the city surveyor for the erection of a building of a[2] peculiar type. The city surveyor was a little puzzled by the interior arrangement of the new edifice, but as it fulfilled all the requirements of the regulations governing buildings in the City of London, and no fault could be found either with the external appearance—its façade had been so artfully designed that you might pass a dozen times a day without the thought occurring that this new building was anything out of the common ruck—and as the systems of ventilation and light were beyond reproach, he passed the plans with a shrug of his shoulders.

“I cannot understand, Mr. Spedding,” he said, laying his forefinger on the blue print, “how your client intends securing privacy. There is a lobby and one big hall. Where are the private offices, and what is the idea of this huge safe in the middle of the hall, and where are the clerks to sit? I suppose he will have clerks? Why, man, he won’t have a minute’s peace!”

Mr. Spedding smiled grimly.

“He will have all the peace he wants,” he said.

[3]“And the vaults—I should have thought that vaults would be the very thing you wanted for this.” He tapped the corner of the sheet where was inscribed decorously: “Plan for the erection of a New Safe Deposit.”

“There is the safe,” said Mr. Spedding, and smiled again.

This William Spedding, now unhappily no longer with us—he died suddenly, as I will relate—was a large, smooth man with a suave manner. He smoked good cigars, the ends of which he snipped off with a gold cigar-cutter, and his smile came readily, as from a man who had no fault to find with life.

To continue the possibly unnecessary details, I may add further that whilst tenders were requested for the erection of the New Safe Deposit, the provision of the advertisement that the lowest tender would not necessarily be accepted was justified by the fact that the offer of Potham and Holloway was approved, and it is an open secret that their tender was the highest of all.

[4]“My client requires the very best work; he desires a building that will stand shocks.” Mr. Spedding shot a swift glance at the contractor, who sat at the other side of the desk. “Something that a footling little dynamite explosion would not scatter to the four winds.”

The contractor nodded.

“You have read the specification,” the solicitor went on—he was cutting a new cigar, “and in regard to the pedestal—ah—the pedestal, you know——?”

He stopped and looked at the contractor.

“It seems all very clear,” said the great builder. He took a bundle of papers from an open bag by his side and read, “The foundation to be of concrete to the depth of twenty feet.... The pedestal to be alternate layers of dressed granite and steel ... in the center a steel-lined compartment, ten inches by five, and half the depth of the pedestal itself.”

The solicitor inclined his head.

“That pedestal is to be the most important[5] thing in the whole structure. The steel-lined recess—I don’t know the technical phrase—which one of these days your men will have to fill in, is the second most important; but the safe that is to stand fifty feet above the floor of the building is to be—but the safe is arranged for.”

An army of workmen, if the hackneyed phrase be permitted, descended upon Lombard Street and pulled down the old buildings. They pulled them down, and broke them down, and levered them down, and Lombard Street grew gray with dust. The interiors of quaint old rooms with grimy oak paneling were indecently exposed to a passing public. Clumsy, earthy carts blocked Lombard Street, and by night flaring Wells’ lights roared amidst the chaos.

And bare-armed men sweated and delved by night and by day; and one morning Mr. Spedding stood in a drizzle of rain, with a silk umbrella over his head, and expressed, on behalf of his client, his intense satisfaction at the progress made. He stood on a slippery plank that formed[6] a barrow road, and workmen, roused to unusual activity by the presence of “The Firm”—Mr. Spedding’s cicerone—moved to and fro at a feverish rate of speed.

“They don’t mind the rain,” said the lawyer, sticking out his chin in the direction of the toiling gangs.

“The Firm” shook his head.

“Extra pay,” he said laconically, “we provided for that in the tender,” he hastened to add in justification of his munificence.

So in rain and sunshine, by day and by night, the New Safe Deposit came into existence.

Once—it was during a night shift, a brougham drove up the deserted city street, and a footman helped from the dark interior of the carriage a shivering old man with a white, drawn face. He showed a written order to the foreman, and was allowed inside the unpainted gate of the “works.”

He walked gingerly amidst the debris of construction, asked no questions, made no replies to[7] the explanations of the bewildered foreman, who wondered what fascination there was in a building job to bring an old man from his bed at three o’clock on a chill spring morning.

Only once the old man spoke.

“Where will that there pedestal be?” he asked in a harsh, cracked cockney voice; and when the foreman pointed out the spot, and the men even then busily filling in the foundation, the old man’s lips curled back in an ugly smile that showed teeth too white and regular for a man of his age. He said no more, but pulled the collar of his fur coat the tighter about his lean neck and walked wearily back to his carriage.

The building saw Mr. Spedding’s client no more—if, indeed, it was Mr. Spedding’s client. So far as is known, he did not again visit Lombard Street before its completion—even when the last pane of glass had been fixed in the high gilded dome, when the last slab of marble had been placed in the ornate walls of the great hall, even when the solicitor came and stood in silent[8] contemplation before the great granite pedestal that rose amidst a scaffolding of slim steel girders supporting a staircase that wound upward to the gigantic mid-air safe.

Not quite alone, for with him was the contractor, awed to silence by the immensity of his creation.

“Finished!” said the contractor, and his voice came echoing back from the dim spaces of the building.

The solicitor did not answer.

“Your client may commence business to-morrow if he wishes.”

The solicitor turned from the pedestal.

“He is not ready yet,” he said softly, as though afraid of the echoes.

He walked to where the big steel doors of the hall stood ajar, the contractor following.

In the vestibule he took two keys from his pocket. The heavy doors swung noiselessly across the entrance, and Mr. Spedding locked them. Through the vestibule and out into the[9] busy street the two men walked, and the solicitor fastened behind him the outer doors.

“My client asks me to convey his thanks to you for your expedition,” the lawyer said.

The builder rubbed his hands with some satisfaction.

“You have taken two days less than we expected,” Mr. Spedding went on.

The builder was a man of few ideas outside his trade. He said again—

“Yes, your client may start business to-morrow.”

The solicitor smiled.

“My client, Mr. Potham, may not—er—start business—for ten years,” he said. “In fact, until—well, until he dies, Mr. Potham.”

CHAPTER II THE HOUSE IN TERRINGTON SQUARE

A man turned into Terrington Square from Seymour Street and walked leisurely past the policeman on point duty, bidding him a curt “good night.” The officer subsequently described the passer, as a foreign-looking gentleman with a short pointed beard. Under the light overcoat he was apparently in evening dress, for the officer observed the shoes with the plain black bow, and the white silk muffler and the crush hat supported that view. The man crossed the road, and disappeared round the corner of the railed garden that forms the center of the square. A belated hansom came jingling past, and an early newspaper cart, taking a short cut to Paddington, followed; then the square was deserted save for the man and the policeman.

The grim, oppressive houses of the square were[11] wrapped in sleep—drawn blinds and shuttered windows and silence.

The man continued his stroll until he came abreast of No. 43. Here he stopped for a second, gave one swift glance up and down the thoroughfare, and mounted the three steps of the house. He fumbled a little with the key, turned it, and entered. Inside he stood for a moment, then taking a small electric lamp from his pocket he switched on the current.

He did not trouble to survey the wide entrance hall, but flashed the tiny beam of light on the inside face of the door. Two thin wires and a small coil fastened to the lintel called forth no comment. One of the wires had been snapped by the opening of the door.

“Burglar-alarm, of course,” he murmured approvingly. “All the windows similarly treated, and goodness knows what pitfalls waiting for the unwary.”

He flashed the lamp round the hall. A heavy Turkish rug at the foot of the winding staircase[12] secured his attention. He took from his pocket a telescopic stick, extended it, and fixed it rigid. Then he walked carefully towards the rug. With his stick he lifted the corner, and what he saw evidently satisfied him, for he returned to the door, where in a recess stood a small marble statue. All his strength was required to lift this, but he staggered back with it, and rolling it on its circular base, as railway porters roll milk churns, he brought it to the edge of the rug. With a quick push he planted it square in the center of the carpet. For a second only it stood, oscillating, then like a flash it disappeared, and where the carpet had lain was a black, gaping hole. He waited. Somewhere from the depths came a crash, and the carpet came slowly up again and filled the space. The unperturbed visitor nodded his head, as though again approving the householder’s caution.

“I don’t suppose he has learnt any new ones,” he murmured regretfully, “he is getting very old.” He took stock of the walls. They were[13] covered with paintings and engravings. “He could not have fixed the cross fire in a modern house,” he continued, and taking a little run, leapt the rug and rested for a moment on the bottom stair. A suit of half armor on the first landing held him in thoughtful attention for a moment. “Elizabethan body, with a Spanish bayonet,” he said regretfully; “that doesn’t look like a collector’s masterpiece.” He flashed the lamp up and down the silent figure that stood in menacing attitude with a raised battle-ax. “I don’t like that ax,” he murmured, and measured the distance.

Then he saw the fine wire that stretched across the landing. He stepped across carefully, and ranged himself alongside the steel knight. Slipping off his coat, he reached up and caught the figure by the wrist. Then with a quick jerk of his foot he snapped the wire.

He had been prepared for the mechanical downfall of the ax; but as the wire broke the figure turned to the right, and swish! came the[14] ax in a semicircular cut. He had thought to hold the arm as it descended, but he might as well have tried to hold the piston-rod of an engine. His hand was wrenched away, and the razor-like blade of the ax missed his head by the fraction of a second. Then with a whir the arm rose stiffly again to its original position and remained rigid.

The visitor moistened his lips and sighed.

“That’s a new one, a very new one,” he said under his breath, and the admiration in his tone was evident. He picked up his overcoat, flung it over his arm, and mounted half a dozen steps to the next landing. The inspection of the Chinese cabinet was satisfactory.

The white beam of his lamp flashed into corners and crevices and showed nothing. He shook the curtain of a window and listened, holding his breath.

“Not here,” he muttered decisively, “the old man wouldn’t try that game. Snakes turned loose in a house in London, S.W., take a deal of collecting in the morning.”

[15]He looked round. From the landing access was gained to three rooms. That which from its position he surmised faced the street he did not attempt to enter. The second, covered by a heavy curtain, he looked at for a time in thought. To the third he walked, and carefully swathing the door-handle with his silk muffler, he turned it. The door yielded. He hesitated another moment, and jerking the door wide open, sprang backward.

The interior of the room was for a second only in pitch darkness, save for the flicker of light that told of an open fireplace. Then the visitor heard a click, and the room was flooded with light. In the darkness on the landing the man waited; then a voice, a cracked old voice, said grumblingly—

“Come in.”

Still the man on the landing waited.

“Oh, come in, Jimmy—I know ye.”

Cautiously the man outside stepped through the entry into the light and faced the old man, who, arrayed in a wadded dressing-gown, sat in a big[16] chair by the fire—an old man, with white face and a sneering grin, who sat with his lap full of papers.

The visitor nodded a friendly greeting.

“As far as I can gather,” he said deliberately, “we are just above your dressing-room, and if you dropped me through one of your patent traps, Reale, I should fetch up amongst your priceless china.”

Save for a momentary look of alarm on the old man’s face at the mention of the china, he preserved an imperturbable calm, never moving his eyes from his visitor’s face. Then his grin returned, and he motioned the other to a chair on the other side of the fireplace.

Jimmy turned the cushion over with the point of his stick and sat down.

“Suspicious?”—the grin broadened—“suspicious of your old friend, Jimmy? The old governor, eh?”

Jimmy made no reply for a moment, then—

“You’re a wonder, governor, upon my word[17] you are a wonder. That man in armor—your idea?”

The old man shook his head regretfully.

“Not mine entirely, Jimmy. Ye see, there’s electricity in it, and I don’t know much about electricity. I never did, except——”

“Except?” suggested the visitor.

“Oh, that roulette board, that was my own idea; but that was magnetism, which is different to electricity, by my way of looking.”

Jimmy nodded.

“Ye got past the trap?” The old man had just a glint of admiration in his eye.

“Yes, jumped it.”

The old man nodded approvingly.

“You always was a one for thinkin’ things out. I’ve known lots of ’em who would never have thought of jumping it. Connor, and that pig Massey, they’d have walked right on to it. You didn’t damage anything?” he demanded suddenly and fiercely. “I heard somethin’ break, an’ I was hoping that it was you.”

[18]Jimmy thought of the marble statue, and remembered that it had looked valuable.

“Nothing at all,” he lied easily, and the old man’s tense look relaxed.

The pair sat on opposite sides of the fireplace, neither speaking for fully ten minutes; then Jimmy leant forward.

“Reale,” he said quietly, “how much are you worth?”

In no manner disturbed by this leading question, but rather indicating a lively satisfaction, the other replied instantly—

“Two millions an’ a bit over, Jimmy. I’ve got the figures in my head. Reckonin’ furniture and the things in this house at their proper value, two millions, and forty-seven thousand and forty-three pounds—floatin’, Jimmy, absolute cash, the same as you might put your hand in your pocket an’ spend—a million an’ three-quarters exact.”

He leant back in his chair with a triumphant grin and watched his visitor.

Jimmy had taken a cigarette from his pocket[19] and was lighting it, looking at the slowly burning match reflectively.

“A million and three-quarters,” he repeated calmly, “is a lot of money.”

Old Reale chuckled softly.

“All made out of the confiding public, with the aid of me—and Connor and Massey——”

“Massey is a pig!” the old man interjected spitefully.

Jimmy puffed a cloud of tobacco smoke.

“Wrung with sweat and sorrow from foolish young men who backed the tiger and played high at Reale’s Unrivaled Temple of Chance, Cairo, Egypt—with branches at Alexandria, Port Said, and Suez.”

The figure in the wadded gown writhed in a paroxysm of silent merriment.

“How many men have you ruined, Reale?” asked Jimmy.

“The Lord knows!” the old man answered cheerfully; “only three as I knows of—two of ’em’s dead, one of ’em’s dying. The two that’s[20] dead left neither chick nor child; the dying one’s got a daughter.”

Jimmy eyed him through narrowed lids.

“Why this solicitude for the relatives—you’re not going——?”

As he spoke, as if anticipating a question, the old man was nodding his head with feverish energy, and all the while his grin broadened.