Jack O' Judgment Part 15

"She's an active worker and she's working against us. Now, I'm going to settle with Miss White," he said gratingly. "I'm going to settle with her for good and all. I don't care what she knows, but she probably knows too much. She's hand in glove with the police and maybe she's working with her father. You'll get Phillopolis here to-morrow morning----"

The other's eyes opened.

"Phillopolis?" he almost gasped. "Good heavens! You're not going to----"

The colonel faced him squarely.

"You've had your chance with the girl and you've missed it," he said.

"You've tried your fancy method of courting and you've fallen down."

"But I'm not going to stand for Phillopolis," said the other, with tense face. "I tell you I like the girl. There's going to be none of that----"

"Oh, there isn't, isn't there?" said the colonel in his silkiest tone.

Then suddenly he leaned forward across the table and his face was the face of a devil.

"There's only one Boundary Gang, Pinto, and this is it," he said between his clenched white teeth, "and there's only one Dan Boundary and that's me. Do you get me, Pinto? You can go a long way with me if I happen to be going that way. But you stand in the road and you're going to get what's coming. I've been good to you, Pinto. I've stood your interference because it amused me. But you come up against me, really up against me, and by the Lord Harry! you'll know it. Did you get that?"

"I've got it" said Pinto sullenly.

CHAPTER X

THE GREEK PHILLOPOLIS

The upbuilding of the Boundary gang had neither been an accident, nor was it exactly designed on the lines which it ultimately followed.

The main structure was Boundary himself, with his extraordinary financial genius, his plausibility, his lightning exploitation of every advantage which offered. Outwardly he was the head of three trading corporations which complied with the laws, paid small but respectable dividends and cloaked other operations which never appeared in the official records of the companies.

The sidelines of the gang came through force of circ.u.mstances.

Men--good, bad and indifferent--were drawn into the orbit of its activities, as extraordinary circ.u.mstances arose or dire necessities dictated. Throughout the length and breadth of Britain, through France, Italy, and in the days before the war, and even during the war, in Germany, in Russia and in the United States, were men who, if they could not be described as agents, were at least ready tools.

He had a finger in every unsavoury pie. The bank robber discharged from gaol did not ask Colonel Boundary to finance him in the purchase of a new kit of tools--an up-to date burglar's kit costs something over two hundred pounds--but there were people who would lend the money, which eventually came out of the colonel's pocket. Some of the businesses he financed were on the border line of respectability. Some into which his money was sunk were frankly infamous. But it was a popular fiction that he knew nothing of these. Or, if he did know, that he was financing or at the back of a scoundrel, it was insisted that that scoundrel was engaged in (so far as the colonel knew) legitimate enterprise.

Paul Phillopolis was a small Greek merchant, who had an office in Mincing Court--a tiny room at the top of four flights of stairs. On the gla.s.s panel of its door was the announcement: "General Exporter."

Mr. Phillopolis spent three or four hours at his office daily and for the rest of the time, particularly towards the evening, was to be found in a _bra.s.serie_ in Soho. He was a dark little man, with fierce moustachios and a set of perfect white teeth which he displayed readily, for he was easily amused. His most intimate acquaintances knew him to be an exporter of Greek produce to South America, and he was, in the large sense of the word, eminently respectable.

Occasionally he would be seen away from his customary haunt, discussing with a compatriot some very urgent business, which few knew about. For there were s.h.i.+ps which cleared from the Greek ports, carrying cargoes to the order of Mr. Phillopolis, which did not appear in any bill of lading. Dazed-looking Armenian girls, girls from South Russia, from Greece, from Smyrna, en route to a promised land, looked forward to the realisation of those wonderful visions which the Greek agent had so carefully sketched.

In half a dozen South American towns the proprietors of as many dance halls would look over the new importations approvingly and remit their bank drafts to the merchant of Mincing Court. It was a profitable business, particularly in pre-war days.

The colonel departed from his usual practice and met the Greek himself, the place of meeting being a small hotel in Aldgate. Whatever other pretences the colonel made, he did not attempt to continue the fiction that he was ignorant of the Greek's trade.

"Paul," he said after the first greetings were over, "I've been a good friend to you."

"You have indeed, colonel," said the man gratefully.

He spoke English with a very slight accent, for he had been born and educated in London.

"If ever I can render you a service----"

"You can," said the colonel, "but it is not going to be easy."

The Greek eyed him curiously.

"Easy or hard," he said, "I'll go through with it."

The colonel nodded.

"How is the business in South America?" he asked suddenly.

The Greek spread out his hands in deprecation.

"The war!" he said tragically, "you can imagine what it has been like.

All those girls waiting for music-hall engagements and impossible to s.h.i.+p them owing to the fleets. I must have lost thousands of pounds."

"The demand hasn't slackened off, eh?" asked the colonel, and the Greek smiled.

"South America is full of money. They have millions--billions. Almost every other man is a millionaire. The music-halls have patrons but no talent."

The colonel smiled grimly.

"There's a girl in London of exceptional ability," he said. "She has appeared in a music-hall here, and she's as beautiful as a dream."

"English?" asked the Greek eagerly.

"Irish, which is better," said the other; "as pretty as a picture, I tell you. The men will rave about her."

The Greek looked puzzled.

"Does she want to go?" he asked.

The colonel snarled round at him:

"Do you think I should come and ask you to book her pa.s.sage if she wanted to go?" he demanded. "Of course she doesn't want to go, and she doesn't know she's going. But I want her out of the way, you understand?"

Mr. Phillopolis pulled a long face.

"To take her from England?"

"From London," said the colonel.

The Greek shook his head.

"It is impossible," he said; "pa.s.sports are required and unless she was willing to go it would be impossible to take her. You can't kidnap a girl and rush her out of the country except in storybooks, colonel."