THE ENTERPRISING BURGLAR

BY HEARNDEN BALFOUR

Author of 'A Gentleman from Texas'

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1928

COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

TO ALL THE SHAREHOLDERS IN NEW BELLS, UNLIMITED

CHAPTER I

'A POLICEMAN'S LOT ...'

It was a bitter November night. Spike Moseley, trudging along the Embankment, shivered, and cursed under his breath. He was far from happy. He was cold and tired, and, worst of all, desperately nervous. As he stumbled along he suddenly checked, listening. Was that a step behind him? He swung round, his pulses thumping, and stared through the mist that drifted up from the river. Was it a trick of the darkness, or had he seen a dark figure take cover in the shadow of that shelter? Spike waited a moment, his heart in his mouth, and then trudged on.

He was afraid, and fear was a rare emotion in him. Spike had been a crook all his life, but he had always prided himself on the steadiness of his nerves. He had been in a score of tight places, and had extricated himself ably, but this was a different matter. Again he checked, every nerve taut. He knew, as a wild animal knows, that he was being followed, and his mouth dried as he listened. But he could hear nothing, except the far-off wail of a ship's siren, down river.

Spike set his teeth and went on again. Maybe it was only his imagination; the fancies that come to a sick man. For Spike felt very sick that night. His head was heavy, and he could hardly drag his feet along. It had come upon him suddenly. He had been all right an hour ago. Then, after that pint he'd had in the Four Feathers, he'd begun to feel queer. He wanted to lie down and sleep, but that was impossible. He had made up his mind to see this thing through. He had decided to tell Mr. Strickland what he knew. It was a poor thing to turn copper's nark, but it seemed the lesser of two evils. Spike turned up his coat collar and struggled on.

The policeman at the door of Scotland Yard eyed him with disfavour.

'Mr. Strickland about?'

His voice sounded queer. It was oddly difficult to get the words out. The policeman told him curtly that Mr. Strickland was busy. Spike fumbled in his pocket, and produced a grimy piece of paper and a stump of pencil. Laboriously he wrote a few words, folded the note, and gave it to the policeman.

'For Mr. Strickland,' he explained. 'Tell'm I'll wait by the bridge. 'S important.' He turned and shambled across the road.

Detective-Inspector Strickland was not in the best of tempers when he received Spike's communication. He had just been given marching orders, which meant throwing up a case that was absorbing all his interest. He knew it to be important—even urgent—but Authority had smiled, and had given him to understand that he was shying at a mare's nest. Just when proof seemed to be within his grasp, his Chief had seen fit to send him abroad.

Spike's note gave him a flash of hope. He had long believed that Spike could give him the information he wanted. He had tried to get it before, but without success. If Spike really intended to make a clean breast of it this time, there was a chance that he might be able to convince the Chief. He flung on his hat and coat and went out to find Spike.

The mist had thickened, and as he hurried towards Westminster Bridge he failed to see a man who was waiting in the shadow of the Embankment wall. The man saw Strickland, though, and smiled as he crouched below the balustrade. Then he followed, moving very softly for so big a man.

Spike Moseley was sitting on the steps, his head in his hands, and did not look up as Strickland approached.

'Well, Spike?'

Moseley raised his head, and stared at Strickland vacantly.

'You wanted to see me?'

A flicker of intelligence lit in his eyes.

'Thash right. Want see yer. Got suthing ... tell yer.'

'Go ahead.'

'Thishyer gang you're after ... preachin' bloody war, they are ... do it, too. 'S Gawd's truth. Won' stop't anythin'....'

His speech was blurred and indistinct.

'You know 'em?' asked Strickland.

'Know'm a sight too well. But t'-night ... foun' out ... bloke's name....'

His breath came in gasps.

'Who is he, Spike?' asked Strickland urgently.

'Nev' guess ... kill me, 'e would, 'f 'e knew wot I 'eard ... watch out, er e'll get you ... an' no jury'd convic' ... man like 'im....'

Spike's head sagged forward into his hands. The words were clotting on his tongue.

'What's his name?' asked Strickland desperately.

Spike tried to lift his head, but failed. His lips moved, but no words came. Then he swayed over drunkenly, and Strickland caught him as he fell.

Spike lay very still. Strickland laid a hand on his heart, and then straightened himself, his face very grave. For a moment he stood still, staring down at the huddled body. That message would never be delivered.

The man who had been crouching in the shadow noted the abrupt silence. He moved away, soft-footed as a cat, and then made his way back again, tramping heavily along the pavement. When he reached the top of the steps he checked, and allowed himself to catch sight of Detective-Inspector Strickland.

'Could y' spare us 'arf a dollar, sir?' he asked huskily. 'It's an awful night, sir, an' I ain't 'ad no work fer months.'

Strickland looked up sharply. It was hard to see the man clearly in the mist and the dark. He was a tall chap, a navvy, by the look of him.

'Yes, you can take a message for me,' he said. 'Here's half a crown. Go over to Scotland Yard'—he pointed across the road—'and ask Inspector Barrett to come here. Tell him to bring a constable with him, and say I sent you—Strickland. Hurry!'

'Inspector Barrett. Right y'are, sir,' said the navvy, and set off at a lumbering trot.

Strickland waited, shivering a little in the bitter wind. He was very angry; a cold fury that included the Commissioner, and Spike, and the men Spike had intended to betray. If only Spike had lived to tell him that name ... if only the Chief could be induced to take this matter seriously ... if only he himself had not received orders to go abroad.... Jack Strickland felt it to be a deliberate insult on the part of the gods.

The arrival of a policeman and a burly man in plain clothes interrupted his thoughts. In a few words he explained to Inspector Barrett what had happened.

'Sounds as if he'd been doped,' said Barrett at the conclusion. 'Well, I'll deal with this if you like. You were on your way home, weren't you?'

'Yes. If I'm wanted, let me know. By the way, I'm off next week.'

'So you couldn't convince the Chief?'

'No.'

'I'm sorry. I think he's wrong.'

'So do I,' said Strickland, 'but there it is. If only that poor devil'—he nodded towards Spike—'had been able to tell his story I might have made 'em believe me. As it is ... oh, hell! Good-night, Barrett. By the way, where's that navvy I sent to fetch you?'

'He pushed off as soon as he'd delivered your message,' said Barrett. 'At any rate, he wasn't there when I came out. Good-night, Strickland.'

But Inspector Barrett was wrong. The navvy had only just gone, and was at that moment standing by the statue of Boadicea trying to light a stumpy cigarette-end and sheltering the flickering match with his cupped hands. Strickland passed him, unnoticing. The navvy grinned, and then began to whistle a gay and lilting tune.

Strickland heard it as he made his way home. It was a familiar air, and as he listened the words suddenly clicked into place.

For a second Strickland checked in surprise, and swung round. But there was no one in sight, and with a grin he dismissed the matter and continued his journey.

CHAPTER II

'VIVE LE SPORT'

Detective-Inspector Strickland was a busy man. On the evening of the day after the affair of Spike Moseley he did not get back to his flat in Buckingham Gate until after ten. As he struggled out of his dripping overcoat, his twin sister appeared at the door of the sitting-room and surveyed him gravely.

'Hallo, Jill. Filthy weather. I'm drowned.'

'Better change,' advised Jill.

'I hope there's a decent fire,' pursued Jack Strickland, ignoring the advice.

Jill smiled, a swift, flickering smile that lit up her small, delicate features.

'Fed?' she inquired.

'Mentally or physically?'

'Physically. The other thing's fairly obvious.'

Jack grinned.

'As a matter of fact, I could do with some food; but Kate's gone to bed, hasn't she? I saw a light in her window.'

'Trained observer,' said Jill, in a soft, abstracted voice. 'Nothing escapes the eye of the great detective. I can cook, though. What will you have?'

'Angel! Eggs, very much in the plural, and gallons of hot coffee, and possibly bread and cheese. Can do?'

'Can do,' said Jill with a nod, and without more words went off to the kitchen.

Jack, shivering, made for the sitting-room and pulled up a chair to the fire with a sigh of relief. For a minute or two he sat in drowsy contemplation of the blazing coals, and then he reached up to the mantelpiece for his evening's mail. There were three letters there, all with typewritten addresses. Two of them had halfpenny stamps, and these he threw unopened into the waste-paper basket with an accuracy suggestive of long practice. The third he opened without much interest, and then sat up with a jerk. It contained only a visiting-card; a small piece of pasteboard on which were printed the words: 'Vive le Sport.' Jack turned it over, and on the back was written, in a small, neat hand:

I propose to call upon you between eleven and twelve to-night, and hope to find you enjoying an hour's holiday. In other words (one can't make oneself too clear on this point), I am relying on you not to arrest me.

Nick

Strickland grinned. 'Thoroughly characteristic!' he murmured. Then his eyes shifted from the card in his hand to the fire, and the smile faded. When his sister entered the room some minutes later, she noticed his worried frown, but refrained from comment. Instead, she laid a place at the table and set down a large dish of eggs and bacon.

'Supper's ready,' she mentioned.

Jack rose slowly to his feet.

'I'm expecting an old friend to turn up to-night, Jill,' he said.

His sister stared at him with wide grey eyes.

'Not—not Nick?' she said.

'Guessed it in one,' said Jack, with the sudden surprise that her intuitions always awoke in him, even though he almost expected them.

'But, Jack, how splendid! Aren't you longing to see him again?'

'Of course I am. But I wish to goodness I were a bank clerk or a bus-driver, or anything but a blinking cop. Here's the best friend I've got in the world, and he must needs turn burglar. It's so damned difficult.'

The exasperated twinkle in his eyes woke a response in Jill's.

'You're off duty now,' she suggested.

'Woman, you have no more conscience than—than Nick himself! Here's his communication.' He held out the card to her.

'Oh, that's all right,' said Jill when she had read it. 'I believe he's going to reform or something.'

'Something, perhaps,' conceded Jack, hungrily attacking his eggs and bacon.

'Don't you believe he'll ever give up his burgling?'

'My dear, the man took up crime because he found life so dull after he came out of the Army. He wanted excitement, and, by Jove, he got it! He's had eleven narrow escapes from being quodded to my certain knowledge.'

'He'll get tired of excitement soon,' said Jill.

'Didn't look like it last time I saw him,' said Jack, with his mouth full.

'When was that?'

'Two years ago. Over that Fairleigh case. I begged him then to chuck it, and he only laughed and said he was enjoying life enormously. Since then he's pulled off two really big hauls, and got away by the skin of his teeth the last time. That was about a year ago.'

'He'll give it up when he falls in love,' said Jill gravely.

Jack chuckled profanely.

'That gives him plenty of time,' he observed. 'Nick's a jolly sight too popular with women to apply his mind seriously to any one of them.'

'When he marries——' began Jill, unruffled.

'For Heaven's sake!' protested Jack. 'Give the man a chance, old lady. We don't know what his trouble is yet, but there's no need to assume it's impending matrimony.'

Jill smiled tolerantly, and held her peace until her brother had finished his meal and settled himself once more by the fire. Then she looked up from her knitting to ask:

'Have you any idea at all why he wants to see you?'

'Nick? Not the slightest. I hope it's just a friendly call.'

'That's not likely,' said Jill, with serious decision.

'Aren't you a little unflattering?'

Jill blinked, and then smiled.

'Owl! You know what I mean. Jack, you've often talked about Nick, but you've never told me very much about him. Why did he start burgling?'

'Sheer desire for excitement. Nick's half Irish, you know; and I believe it's that strain that gives him his light-hearted love of danger. I first met him in France, at the beginning of the war. He was the best subaltern I ever had. An absolutely first-rate man.'

'I should have thought he lacked discipline,' said Jill, who knew how to get information out of her brother.

'So he did, but it didn't matter. Nick was always sneaking off by himself to explore, but no one seemed to realise he'd gone until he returned; and not then, unless he brought something with him—a wounded man, or a prisoner, or some valuable information. I've never met anyone who took so many risks, and yet, unlike most of these reckless devils, he never ran his men into unnecessary danger. They adored him, and would have followed him to blazes if he'd asked them to. I tell you, the man was wasted in the Line; he ought to have been in the Secret Service, but the powers that be had a positive genius for using razors to cut grindstones. I tried to get him shifted when they transferred me to the Intelligence, but it was no use. Nick would have been far better at the game than I.'

'And then?' asked Jill.

'Oh, I lost sight of him after that, and didn't see or hear from him again until 1919, when he turned up at the Yard and we had lunch together. I told you about that, and how he said he was going to be a burglar because everything else was so tame in comparison to the war. I laughed at him. Never dreamt he meant it. He went off saying: "Henceforth we meet as foes, worthy, I hope, of each other's steel. Vive le Sport!" It wasn't till we found his card in the safe, over that jewel robbery, that I believed it.'

'Did he laugh too?'

'Yes, like anything. But Nick always seems amused, whether he's serious or not. Oh, confound the man! I wish he'd chuck it. And yet ... his motive for burgling does call for one's sympathy.'

'I know he always robs profiteers,' said Jill.

'Yes; and practically all the money he gets goes into anti-Bolshevik propaganda. He's jolly well-off, you know; he doesn't have to earn his living, either honestly or dishonestly, now; but the curse of it is that I am paid to catch him, and every failure I make is a smack in the eye to my reputation, even if it's a relief to me personally.'

Jill shook her head.

'It's stupid to try to catch him,' she said. 'He's like a rook; he does more good than harm.'

Jack laughed outright.

'What a gloriously unflattering simile!'

'Nick wouldn't mind,' said Jill.

Jack looked at her. 'How do you know? You've never met him.'

''Deed I have. You brought him here once when you were both on leave. He stayed for three days.'

'By Jove, I'd clean forgotten! So he did. That was twelve years ago. And you remember him?'

'Rather!'

A shade of anxiety crossed Jack Strickland's face. He glanced at his sister, and then quickly transferred his gaze to the fire. Jill watched him with quiet amusement.

'Don't worry, old man,' she said soothingly.

'What d'you mean?'

'I mean'—she spoke slowly, with soft deliberation—'that although I am very fond of him, I'm not the woman Nick's going to marry; nor do I want to be.'

Jack grinned rather sheepishly.

'You're a dashed sight too quick,' he said. 'It's positively indecent. Anyway, I shouldn't mind if you were. Nick's the best——'

He was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell and leapt to his feet. Jill rose, and shifted the débris of his supper to the side-table. As she removed the last crumbs, Jack returned, ushering in a tall man, whose steady eyes and friendly smile seemed as familiar to her as if she had seen them only yesterday.

'You remember my sister?' said Jack.

'Of course I do! How are you, Jill? It's a long time since we met, but you don't look a day older.'

Jill put her hand in his, and studied his face with her odd, searching regard.

Nick smiled down at her. 'Well, what's happened to me?' he asked.

Jill twinkled. 'I believe you've grown bigger,' she said.

'Heaven forbid! It's an awful curse being such a size. Apart from the expense of clothing oneself, it makes one so conspicuous, which is a terrific drawback in my profession. I wish I were a little chap like Jack. For instance, I have to escape him in the guise of a Robert or a coal-heaver; but he can pursue me as anything, from a Chinaman to a smart young lady. It's much easier for him.'

'Less of that,' advised Jack, grinning. 'Will you have a drink?'

'An admirable suggestion. Thanks awfully. Jill, I look towards you.'

Jill smiled her thanks and gathering up her knitting, made her way to the door.

'Don't go,' protested Nick.

'Don't you want to talk to Jack?'

'Yes, but it isn't private to you. Come back.'

With a flush of pleasure Jill returned, and curled herself up in a chair by the fire. Nick, sitting on the wide club fender, smiled at her. Jack came to anchor on the other side of the fire and pulled at his pipe contentedly, watching Nick's face. The man looked older, he thought. There was something behind those eyes that was new.

'How's life, Nick?' he asked.

'Getting more interesting every day,' said Nick, striking a match for Jill's cigarette.

'I'm afraid I was hoping that you'd had enough excitement.'

'It's not exactly that,' said Nick slowly, 'but, as a matter of fact, I rather want to return from South America, where I have been since the war, and I thought I'd better hear what you've got to say about it.'

Jack grinned.

'Let's be a little more explicit,' he suggested. 'Are you proposing to come back as a dual personality, so to speak: burglar by night, and man-about-town by day? Or do you mean Vive le Sport to die, while you rise, phœnix-like, from the ashes?'

'Again, not exactly. Vive le Sport, the burglar, has been dead for more than a year. Hadn't you realised that?'

'I realised his inactivity, and was devoutly thankful for it, but I hadn't been optimistic enough to assume him dead.'

Nick chuckled.

'We mustn't be ungrateful. He has provided you with a great deal of beneficial exercise, both mental and physical, and has bequeathed me a very nice income. I owe the burglar a great deal, for besides that, he's shown me a game really worth playing. The only difficulty is that it definitely requires the coöperation of a man-about-town, as you put it.'

'What is this game?'

'I'll tell you in a minute. Am I right in thinking that you've been investigating a case on your own lately?'

Jack Strickland stared.

'You are,' he said at last. 'Do you know anything about it?'

'A little. I've been interested in that crowd for the last year. Do your superiors take it seriously?'

'No. I wish to God they did. I know there'll be big trouble sooner or later.'

'I think you're right, but it's a queer business. What have you made of it?'

'Enough to give one to think. It's a revolutionary movement that has got a firm foothold in every industrial centre in the country, and it's more confident and yet restrained than anything I've so far come up against. I know these secret societies come and go, but there's one point about this show that's new. As far as I can discover no foreigner is on their list of supporters.'

Nick nodded slowly.

'That's what makes me think, too,' he said. 'It's quite true. We don't like aliens, as a nation, you know, but a revolutionary movement that is exclusively British is a little unusual. Jack, do you know who's at the head of the show?'