The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation Part 34

He had put a copy of a morning newspaper round the small brown paper parcel, and now took it off and showed the parcel itself to the two wondering men. One of them at any rate uttered a sharp exclamation.

"Brown paper, sealed with black wax!" said Allerd.y.k.e, remembering what Chettle had told him. "Good Lord--what--"

"I don't suppose this is the original brown paper, nor these the original dabs of black wax," remarked the chief as he produced a pocket pen-knife. "But this parcel, gentlemen, was recently confided by Miss Slade to the care of the manageress of the Pompadour, to be put in the hotel safe--from which it was produced to me twenty minutes ago. And--I am now going to see what it contains."

The others sat in absorbed silence while the chief delicately removed the wrappings of the mysterious parcel. A sheet of brown paper, a sheet of cartridge paper beneath it--and within these very ordinary envelopings an old cigar-box, loosely tied about with a bit of knotted string.

"Now for it!" said the chief. "The box contains--"

He raised the lid as the other two leaned nearer. A stray ray of sunlight, filtering through the swaying boughs of the hawthorn, shot down on the box as the chief lifted a wad of soft paper and revealed a glittering ma.s.s of pearls and diamonds.

"The Princess Nastirsevitch's jewels!" said the chief softly. "That's just what I expected ever since the manageress gave me this parcel. This, of course, is the parcel which your cousin sent that night from Hull, Mr.

Allerd.y.k.e. It fell into Mrs. Marlow's hands--alias Miss Slade--and here it is! That's all right."

The other two men stared at the contents of the cigar-box, then at the chief, then at each other. A deep silence had fallen--it was some minutes before Allerd.y.k.e broke it.

"All wrong, I should say!" he muttered. "However, if those are the things--I only say if, mind--I suppose we're a step nearer to something else. But--what?"

The chief, who appeared to both of them to be strangely phlegmatic about the whole affair, proceeded to close the box, re-invest it in its wrappings, and tie it about with the original string.

"We are certainly a step nearer to a good deal," he said, making a neat job of his parcel and patting it affectionately as if he had been a milliner's apprentice doing up a choice confection. "And the next thing we do is to take a walk together into Hyde Park. On the way I will tell you why we are going there--that is, I will tell you what I know of the reason for such an expedition. It isn't much--but it has certain possibilities."

The two North-countrymen listened with great curiosity as they marched across the gra.s.s towards the tea-house. Each possessed the North-country love of the mysterious and the bizarre--this last development tickled their fancy and stirred their imagination.

"What on earth d'ye make out of it all?" asked Allerd.y.k.e. "Gad!--it's more like a children's game of hide-and-seek in an old house of nooks and corners than what I should have imagined police proceedings would be.

What say you, Ambler?"

"I don't know how much romance and adventure there usually are in police proceedings," replied Appleyard cautiously.

"A good answer, Mr. Appleyard," said the chief laughing. "Ah, there's a lot more of both than civilians would think, in addition to all the sordid and dismal details. What do I make out of it, Mr. Appleyard?

Why--I think somebody has all this time been making a special investigation of this mystery for himself, and that at last he's going to wind it up with a sensational revelation to--us! Don't you be surprised if you've an application for that fifty thousand pound reward before to-night!"

"You really think that?" exclaimed Allerd.y.k.e incredulously.

"I shouldn't be surprised," answered the chief, "Something considerable is certainly at hand. Now let us settle our plan of campaign. This tea-garden, I remember, is a biggish place. We will sit down at one of the tables--we will appear to be three quiet gentlemen disposed to take a cup of coffee with our cigars or cigarettes--we will be absorbed in our own conversation and company, but at the same time we will look about us.

Therefore, use your eyes, gentlemen, as much as you like--but don't appear to take any particular interest in anything you see, and don't openly recognize any person you set eyes on."

It was a very warm and summer-like day, and the lawns around the tea-house were filled with people, young and old. Some were drinking tea, some coffee; some were indulging in iced drinks. Nursemaids and children were much in evidence under the surrounding trees; waitresses were flitting about hither and thither: there was nothing to suggest that this eminently London park scene was likely to prove the setting of the last act of a drama.

"You're much more likely to see and to recognize than we are," remarked Allerd.y.k.e, as the three gathered round a table on the edge of the crowd.

"For my part I see nothing but men, women, and children--except that I also see Chettle, sitting across yonder with another man who's no doubt one of your lot."

"Just so," a.s.sented the chief. He gave an order for coffee to a pa.s.sing waitress, lighted a cigar which Allerd.y.k.e offered him, and glanced round as if he were looking at nothing in particular. "Just so. Well, I see my own four men--I also see at least six detectives who belong to the City police, and there may be more. But I know those six personally. They are spread about, all over the place, and I daresay that every man is very much on the stretch, innocent enough as he looks."

"Six!" exclaimed Appleyard. "And four of yours! That looks as if they expected to have to tackle a small army!"

"You never know what you may have to tackle in affairs like this,"

replied the chief. "Nothing like having reserves in hand, you know. Now let me give you a tip. It is almost exactly two o'clock. Never mind the people who are already here, gentlemen. Keep your eyes open on any new-comers. Look out--quietly--for folk who seem to drop in as casually as we do. Look, for example, at those two well-dressed men who are coming across the sward there, swinging their sticks. They--"

Allerd.y.k.e suddenly bent his head towards the table.

"Careful!" he said. "Gad!--I know one of 'em, anyhow. Van Koon, as I live!"

CHAPTER x.x.xII

THE CHILVERTON ANTI-CLIMAX

The chief allowed himself to take a quick searching glance at the two men he had indicated. He had already heard of Van Koon and of his sudden disappearance from the hotel after the chance encounter with Chilverton, and he now regarded him with professional interest.

"The tall man, you mean?" he asked.

"Just so," answered Allerd.y.k.e. "The other man I don't know. But that's Van Koon. What's he here for, now? Is he in this, after all?"

The chief made no reply. He was furtively watching the two men, who had dropped into chairs at a vacant table beneath the shade of the trees and were talking to a waitress. Having taken a good look at Van Koon, he turned his attention to Van Koon's companion, a little, dapper man, smartly dressed in bright blue serge, and finished off with great care in all his appointments. He seemed to be approaching middle age; there were faint traces of grey in his pointed beard and upward-twisted moustaches; he carried his years, however, in very jaunty fas.h.i.+on, and his white Homburg hat, ornamented with a blue ribbon, was set at a rakish angle on the side of his close-cropped head. In his right eye he wore a gold-rimmed monocle; just then he was bringing it to bear an the waitress who stood between himself and his companion.

"You don't know the other man, either of you?" asked the chief suddenly.

Allerd.y.k.e shook his head, but Appleyard nodded.

"I know that chap by sight," he said. "I've seen him in the City--about Threadneedle Street--two or three times of late. He's always very smartly dressed--I took him for a foreigner of some sort."

The chief turned to his coffee.

"Well--never mind him," he said. "Pay no attention--so long as that man is Van Koon, I'll watch him quietly. But you may be sure he has come here on the same business that has brought us here. I--"

Allerd.y.k.e, whose sharp eyes were perpetually moving round the crowded enclosure and the little groups which mingled outside it, suddenly nudged the chief's elbow.

"Miss Slade!" he whispered. "And--Rayner!"

Appleyard had caught sight of his two fellow inmates of the Pompadour at the very moment in which Allerd.y.k.e espied them. He slightly turned away and bent his head; Allerd.y.k.e followed his example.

"You can't mistake them," he said to the chief. "I've described the man to you--a hunchback. They're crossing through the crowd towards the tea-house door."

"And they've gone in there," replied the chief in another minute.

"Um!--this is getting more mysterious than ever. I wish I could get a word with some of our men who really know something! It seems to me--"

But at that moment Blindway came strolling along, his nose in the air, his eyes fixed on the roofs of the houses outside the park, and he quietly dropped a twisted sc.r.a.p of paper at his superior's feet as he pa.s.sed. The chief picked it up, spread it out on the marble-topped table, and read its message aloud to his companions.

"City men say the informant is here and will indicate the men to be arrested in a few minutes."

The chief tore the sc.r.a.p of paper into minute shreds and dropped them on the gra.s.s.

"Things are almost at the crisis," he murmured with a smile. "It seems that we, gentlemen, are to play the part of spectators. The next thing to turn up--"

"Is Fullaway!" suddenly exclaimed Allerd.y.k.e, thrown off his guard and speaking aloud. "And, by Gad!--he's got that man Chilverton with him.