Dope

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

One night, on leaving a theatre, Rita suggested to Pyne that they
should proceed to a supper club for an hour. "It will be like old
times," she said.

"But your husband is expecting you," protested Sir Lucien.

"Let's ring him up and ask him to join us. He won't, but he cannot
very well object then."

As a result they presently found themselves descending a broad
carpeted stairway. From the rooms below arose the strains of an
American melody. Dancing was in progress, or, rather, one of those
orgiastic ceremonies which passed for dancing during this pagan
period. Just by the foot of the stairs they paused and surveyed the
scene.

"Why," said Rita, "there is Quentin--glaring insanely, silly boy."

"Do you see whom he is with?" asked Sir Lucien.

"Mollie Gretna."

"But I mean the woman sitting down."

Rita stood on tiptoe, trying to obtain a view, and suddenly:

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "Mrs. Sin!"

The dance at that moment concluding, they crossed the floor and joined
the party. Mrs. Sin greeted them with one of her rapid, mirthless
smiles. She was wearing a gown noticeable, but not for quantity, even
in that semi-draped assembly. Mollie Gretna giggled rapturously. But
Gray's swiftly changing color betrayed a mood which he tried in vain
to conceal by his manner. Having exchanged a few words with the new
arrivals, he evidently realized that he could not trust himself to
remain longer, and:

"Now I must be off," he said awkwardly. "I have an appointment--
important business. Good night, everybody."

He turned away and hurried from the room. Rita flushed slightly and
exchanged a glance with Sir Lucien. Mrs. Sin, who had been watching
the three intently, did not fail to perceive this glance. Mollie
Gretna characteristically said a silly thing.

"Oh!" she cried. "I wonder whatever is the matter with him! He looks
as though he had gone mad!"

"It is perhaps his heart," said Mrs. Sin harshly, and she raised her
bold dark eyes to Sir Lucien's face.

"Oh, please don't talk about hearts," cried Rita, willfully
misunderstanding. "Monte has a weak heart, and it frightens me."

"So?" murmured Mrs. Sin. "Poor fellow."

"I think a weak heart is most romantic," declared Mollie Gretna.

But Gray's behavior had cast a shadow upon the party which even
Mollie's empty light-hearted chatter was powerless to dispel, and
when, shortly after midnight, Sir Lucien drove Rita home to Prince's
Gate, they were very silent throughout the journey. Just before the
car reached the house:

"Where does Mrs. Sin live?" asked Rita, although it was not of Mrs.
Sin that she had been thinking.

"In Limehouse, I believe," replied Sir Lucien; "at The House. But I
fancy she has rooms somewhere in town also."

He stayed only a few minutes at Prince's Gate, and as the car returned
along Piccadilly, Sir Lucien, glancing upward towards the windows of a
tall block of chambers facing the Green Park, observed a light in one
of them. Acting upon a sudden impulse, he raised the speaking-tube.

"Pull up, Fraser," he directed.

The chauffeur stopped the car and Sir Lucien alighted, glancing at the
clock inside as he did so, and smiling at his own quixotic behavior.
He entered an imposing doorway and rang one of the bells. There was an
interval of two minutes or so, when the door opened and a man looked
out.

"Is that you, Willis?" asked Pyne.

"Oh, I beg pardon, Sir Lucien. I didn't know you in the dark."

"Has Mr. Gray retired yet?"

"Not yet. Will you please follow me, Sir Lucien. The stairway lights
are off."

A few moments later Sir Lucien was shown into the apartment of Gray's
which oddly combined the atmosphere of a gymnasium with that of a
study. Gray, wearing a dressing-gown and having a pipe in his mouth,
was standing up to receive his visitor, his face rather pale and the
expression of his lips at variance with that in his eyes. But:

"Hello, Pyne," he said quietly. "Anything wrong--or have you just
looked in for a smoke?"

Sir Lucien smiled a trifle sadly.

"I wanted a chat, Gray," he replied. "I'm leaving town tomorrow, or I
should not have intruded at such an unearthly hour."

"No intrusion," muttered Gray; "try the armchair, no, the big one.
It's more comfortable." He raised his voice: "Willis, bring some
fluid!"

Sir Lucien sat down, and from the pocket of his dinner jacket took out
a plain brown packet of cigarettes and selected one.

"Here," said Gray, "have a cigar!"

"No, thanks," replied Pyne. "I rarely smoke anything but these."

"Never seen that kind of packet before," declared Gray. "What brand
are they?"

"No particular brand. They are imported from Buenos Ayres, I believe."

Willis having brought in a tray of refreshments and departed again,
Sir Lucien came at once to the point.

"I really called, Gray," he said, "to clear up any misunderstanding
there may be in regard to Rita Irvin."

Quentin Gray looked up suddenly when he heard Rita's name, and:

"What misunderstanding?" he asked.

"Regarding the nature of my friendship with her," answered Sir Lucien
coolly. "Now, I am going to speak quite bluntly, Gray, because I like
Rita and I respect her. I also like and respect Monte Irvin; and I
don't want you, or anybody else, to think that Rita and I are, or ever
have been, anything more than pals. I have known her long enough to
have learned that she sails straight, and has always sailed straight.
Now--listen, Gray, please. You embarrassed me tonight, old chap, and
you embarrassed Rita. It was unnecessary." He paused, and then added
slowly: "She is as sacred to me, Gray, as she is to you--and we are
both friends of Monte Irvin."

For a moment Quentin Gray's fiery temper flickered up, as his
heightened color showed, but the coolness of the older and cleverer
man prevailed. Gray laughed, stood up, and held out his hand.

"You're right, Pyne!" he said. "But she's damn pretty!" He uttered a
loud sigh. "If only she were not married!"

Sir Lucien gripped the outstretched hand, but his answering smile had
much pathos in it.

"If only she were not, Gray," he echoed.

He took his departure shortly afterwards, absently leaving a brown
packet of cigarettes upon the table. It was an accident. Yet there
were few, when the truth respecting Sir Lucien Pyne became known, who
did not believe it to have been a deliberate act, designed to lure
Quentin Gray into the path of the poppy.

CHAPTER XXII

THE STRANGLE-HOLD

Less than a month later Rita was in a state of desperation again.
Kazmah's prices had soared above anything that he had hitherto
extorted. Her bank account, as usual, was greatly overdrawn, and
creditors of all kinds were beginning to press for payment. Then,
crowning catastrophe, Monte Irvin, for the first time during their
married life, began to take an interest in Rita's reckless
expenditure. By a combination of adverse circumstances, she, the wife
of one of the wealthiest aldermen of the City of London, awakened to
the fact that literally she had no money.

She pawned as much of her jewellery as she could safely dispose of,
and temporarily silenced the more threatening tradespeople; but Kazmah
declined to give credit, and cheques had never been acceptable at the
establishment in old Bond Street.

Rita feverishly renewed her old quest, seeking in all directions for
some less extortionate purveyor. But none was to be found. The
selfishness and secretiveness of the drug slave made it difficult for
her to learn on what terms others obtained Kazmah's precious goods;
but although his prices undoubtedly varied, she was convinced that no
one of all his clients was so cruelly victimized as she.

Mollie Gretna endeavored to obtain an extra supply to help Rita, but
Kazmah evidently saw through the device, and the endeavor proved a
failure.

She demanded to see Kazmah, but Rashid, the Egyptian, blandly assured
her that "the Sheikh-el-Kazmah" was away. She cast discretion to the
winds and wrote to him, protesting that it was utterly impossible for
her to raise so much ready money as he demanded, and begging him to
grant her a small supply or to accept the letter as a promissory note
to be redeemed in three months. No answer was received, but when Rita
again called at old Bond Street, Rashid proposed one of the few
compromises which the frenzied woman found herself unwilling to
accept.

"The Sheikh-el-Kazmah say, my lady, your friend Mr. Gray never come to
him. If you bring him it will be all right."

Rita found herself stricken dumb by this cool proposal. The
degradation which awaits the drug slave had never been more succinctly
expounded to her. She was to employ Gray's foolish devotion for the
commercial advantage of Kazmah. Of course Gray might any day become
one of the three wealthiest peers in the realm. She divined the
meaning of Kazmah's hitherto incomprehensible harshness (or believed
that she did); she saw what was expected of her. "My God!" she
whispered. "I have not come to that yet."

Rashid she knew to be incorruptible or powerless, and she turned away,
trembling, and left the place, whose faint perfume of frankincense had
latterly become hateful to her.

She was at this time bordering upon a state of collapse. Insomnia,
which latterly had defied dangerously increased doses of veronal, was
telling upon nerve and brain. Now, her head aching so that she often
wondered how long she could retain sanity, she found herself deprived
not only of cocaine, but also of malourea. Margaret Halley was her
last hope, and to Margaret she hastened on the day before the tragedy
which was destined to bring to light the sinister operations of the
Kazmah group.

Although, perhaps mercifully, she was unaware of the fact,
representatives of Spinker's Agency had been following her during the
whole of the preceding fortnight. That Rita was in desperate trouble
of some kind her husband had not failed to perceive, and her reticence
had quite naturally led him to a certain conclusion. He had sought to
win her confidence by every conceivable means and had failed. At last
had come doubt--and the hateful interview with Spinker.

As Rita turned in at the doorway below Margaret's flat, then, Brisley
was lighting a cigarette in the shelter of a porch nearly opposite,
and Gunn was not far away.

Margaret immediately perceived that her friend's condition was
alarming. But she realized that whatever the cause to which it might
be due, it gave her the opportunity for which she had been waiting.
She wrote a prescription containing one grain of cocaine, but declined
firmly to issue others unless Rita authorized her, in writing, to
undertake a cure of the drug habit.

Rita's disjointed statements pointed to a conspiracy of some kind on
the part of those who had been supplying her with drugs, but Margaret
knew from experience that to exhibit curiosity in regard to the matter
would be merely to provoke evasions.

A hopeless day and a pain-racked, sleepless night found Kazmah's
unhappy victim in the mood for any measure, however desperate, which
should promise even temporary relief. Monte Irvin went out very early,
and at about eleven o'clock Rita rang up Kazmah's, but only to be
informed by Rashid, who replied, that Kazmah was still away. "This
evening he tell me that he see your friend if he come, my lady." As if
the Fates sought to test her endurance to the utmost, Quentin Gray
called shortly afterwards and invited her to dine with him and go to a
theatre that evening.

For five age-long seconds Rita hesitated. If no plan offered itself by
nightfall she knew that her last scruple would be conquered. "After
all," whispered a voice within her brain, "Quentin is a man. Even if I
took him to Kazmah's and he was in some way induced to try opium, or
even cocaine, he would probably never become addicted to drug-taking.
But I should have done my part--"

"Very well, Quentin," she heard herself saying aloud. "Will you call
for me?"

But when he had gone Rita sat for more than half an hour, quite still,
her hands clenched and her face a tragic mask. (Gunn, of Spinker's
Agency, reported telephonically to Monte Irvin in the City that the
Hon. Quentin Gray had called and had remained about twenty-five
minutes; that he had proceeded to the Prince's Restaurant, and from
there to Mudie's, where he had booked a box at the Gaiety Theatre.)

Towards the fall of dusk the more dreadful symptoms which attend upon
a sudden cessation of the use of cocaine by a victim of cocainophagia
began to assert themselves again. Rita searched wildly in the lining
of her jewel-case to discover if even a milligram of the drug had by
chance fallen there from the little gold box. But the quest was in
vain.

As a final resort she determined to go to Margaret Halley again.

She hurried to Dover Street, and her last hope was shattered. Margaret
was out, and Janet had no idea when she was likely to return. Rita had
much ado to prevent herself from bursting into tears. She scribbled a
few lines, without quite knowing what she was writing, sealed the
paper in an envelope, and left it on Margaret's table.

Of returning to Prince's Gate and dressing for the evening she had
only a hazy impression. The hammer-beats in her head were depriving
her of reasoning power, and she felt cold, numbed, although a big fire
blazed in her room. Then as she sat before her mirror, drearily
wondering if her face really looked as drawn and haggard as the image
in the glass, or if definite delusions were beginning, Nina came in
and spoke to her. Some moments elapsed before Rita could grasp the
meaning of the girl's words.

"Sir Lucien Pyne has rung up, Madam, and wishes to speak to you."

Sir Lucien! Sir Lucien had come back? Rita experienced a swift return
of feverish energy. Half dressed as she was, and without pausing to
take a wrap, she ran out to the telephone.

Never had a man's voice sounded so sweet as that of Sir Lucien when he
spoke across the wires. He was at Albemarle Street, and Rita, wasting
no time in explanations, begged him to await her there. In another ten
minutes she had completed her toilette and had sent Nina to 'phone for
a cab. (One of the minor details of his wife's behavior which latterly
had aroused Irvin's distrust was her frequent employment of public
vehicles in preference to either of the cars.)

Quentin Gray she had quite forgotten, until, as she was about to
leave:

"Is there any message for Mr. Gray, Madam?" inquired Nina naively.

"Oh!" cried Rita. "Of course! Quick! Give me some paper and a pencil."

She wrote a hasty note, merely asking Gray to proceed to the
restaurant, where she promised to join him, left it in charge of the
maid, and hurried off to Albemarle Street.

Mareno, the silent, yellow-faced servant who had driven the car on the
night of Rita's first visit to Limehouse, admitted her. He showed her
immediately into the lofty study, where Sir Lucien awaited.

"Oh, Lucy--Lucy!" she cried, almost before the door had closed behind
Mareno. "I am desperate--desperate!"

Sir Lucien placed a chair for her. His face looked very drawn and
grim. But Rita was in too highly strung a condition to observe this
fact, or indeed to observe anything.

"Tell me," he said gently.

And in a torrent of disconnected, barely coherent language, the
tortured woman told him of Kazmah's attempt to force her to lure
Quentin Gray into the drug coterie. Sir Lucien stood behind her chair,
and the icy reserve which habitually rendered his face an impenetrable
mask deserted him as the story of Rita's treatment at the hands of the
Egyptian of Bond Street was unfolded in all its sordid hideousness.
Rita's soft, musical voice, for which of old she had been famous,
shook and wavered; her pose, her twitching gestures, all told of a
nervous agony bordering on prostration or worse. Finally:

"He dare not refuse you!" she cried. "Ring him up and insist upon him
seeing me tonight!"

"I will see him, Rita."

She turned to him, wild-eyed.

"You shall not! You shall not!" she said. "I am going to speak to that
man face to face, and if he is human he must listen to me. Oh! I have
realized the hold he has upon me, Lucy! I know what it means, this
disappearance of all the others who used to sell what Kazmah sells. If
I am to suffer, he shall not escape! I swear it. Either he listens to
me tonight or I go straight to the police!"

"Be calm, little girl," whispered Sir Lucien, and he laid his hand
upon her shoulder.

But she leapt up, her pupils suddenly dilating and her delicate
nostrils twitching in a manner which unmistakably pointed to the
impossibility of thwarting her if sanity were to be retained.

"Ring him up, Lucy," she repeated in a low voice. "He is there. Now
that I have someone behind me I see my way at last!"

"There may, nevertheless, be a better way," said Sir Lucien; but he
added quickly: "Very well, dear, I will do as you wish. I have a
little cocaine, which I will give you."

He went out to the telephone, carefully closing the study door.

That he had counted upon the influence of the drug to reduce Rita to a
more reasonable frame of mind was undoubtedly the fact, for presently
as they proceeded on foot towards old Bond Street he reverted to
something like his old ironical manner. But Rita's determination was
curiously fixed. Unmoved by every kind of appeal, she proceeded to the
appointment which Sir Lucien had made--ignorant of that which Fate
held in store for her--and Sir Lucien, also humanly blind, walked on
to meet his death.

PART THIRD

THE MAN FROM WHITEHALL

CHAPTER XXIII

CHIEF INSPECTOR KERRY RESIGNS

"Come in," said the Assistant Commissioner. The door opened and Chief
Inspector Kerry entered. His face was as fresh-looking, his attire as
spruce and his eyes were as bright, as though he had slept well,
enjoyed his bath and partaken of an excellent breakfast. Whereas he
had not been to bed during the preceding twenty-four hours, had
breakfasted upon biscuits and coffee, and had spent the night and
early morning in ceaseless toil. Nevertheless he had found time to
visit a hairdressing saloon, for he prided himself upon the nicety of
his personal appearance.

He laid his hat, cane and overall upon a chair, and from a pocket of
his reefer jacket took out a big notebook.

"Good morning, sir," he said.

"Good morning, Chief Inspector," replied the Assistant Commissioner.
"Pray be seated. No doubt"--he suppressed a weary sigh--"you have a
long report to make. I observe that some of the papers have the news
of Sir Lucien Pyne's death."

Chief Inspector Kerry smiled savagely.

"Twenty pressmen are sitting downstairs," he said "waiting for
particulars. One of them got into my room." He opened his notebook.
"He didn't stay long."

The Assistant Commissioner gazed wearily at his blotting-pad, striking
imaginary chords upon the table-edge with his large widely extended
fingers. He cleared his throat.

"Er--Chief Inspector," he said, "I fully recognize the difficulties
which--you follow me? But the Press is the Press. Neither you nor I
could hope to battle against such an institution even if we desired to
do so. Where active resistance is useless, a little tact--you quite
understand?"

"Quite, sir. Rely upon me," replied Kerry. "But I didn't mean to open
my mouth until I had reported to you. Now, sir, here is a precis of
evidence, nearly complete, written out clearly by Sergeant Coombes.
You would probably prefer to read it?"

"Yes, yes, I will read it. But has Sergeant Coombes been on duty all
night?"

"He has, sir, and so have I. Sergeant Coombes went home an hour ago."

"Ah," murmured the Assistant Commissioner

He took the notebook from Kerry, and resting his head upon his hand
began to read. Kerry sat very upright in his chair, chewing slowly and
watching the profile of the reader with his unwavering steel-blue
eyes. The reading was twice punctuated by telephone messages, but the
Assistant Commissioner apparently possessed the Napoleonic faculty of
doing two things at once, for his gaze travelled uninterruptedly along
the lines of the report throughout the time that he issued telephonic
instructions.

When he had arrived at the final page of Coombes' neat, schoolboy
writing, he did not look up for a minute or more, continuing to rest
his head in the palm of his hand. Then:

"So far you have not succeeded in establishing the identity of the
missing man, Kazmah?" he said.

"Not so far, sir," replied Kerry, enunciating the words with
characteristic swift precision, each syllable distinct as the rap of a
typewriter. "Inspector Whiteleaf, of Vine Street, has questioned all
constables in the Piccadilly area, and we have seen members of the
staffs of many shops and offices in the neighborhood, but no one is
familiar with the appearance of the missing man."

"Ah--now, the Egyptian servant?"

Inspector Kerry moved his shoulders restlessly.

"Rashid is his name. Many of the people in the neighborhood knew him
by sight, and at five o'clock this morning one of my assistants had
the good luck to find out, from an Arab coffee-house keeper named
Abdulla, where Rashid lived. He paid a visit to the place--it's off
the West India Dock Road--half an hour later. But Rashid had gone. I
regret to report that all traces of him have been lost."

"Ah--considering this circumstance side by side with the facts that no
scrap of evidence has come to light in the Kazmah premises and that
the late Sir Lucien's private books and papers cannot be found, what
do you deduce, Chief Inspector?"

"My report indicates what I deduce, sir! An accomplice of Kazmah's
must have been in Sir Lucien's household! Kazmah and Mrs. Irvin can
only have left the premises by going up to the roof and across the
leads to Sir Lucien's flat in Albemarle Street. I shall charge the man
Juan Mareno."

"What has he to say?" murmured the Assistant Commissioner, absently
turning over the pages of the notebook. "Ah, yes. 'Claims to be a
citizen of the United States but has produced no papers. Engaged by
Sir Lucien Pyne in San Francisco. Professes to have no evidence to
offer. Admitted Mrs. Monte Irvin to Sir Lucien's flat on night of
murder. Sir Lucien and Mrs. Irvin went out together shortly
afterwards, and Sir Lucien ordered him (Mareno) to go for the car to
garage in South Audley Street and drive to club, where Sir Lucien
proposed to dine. Mareno claims to have followed instructions. After
waiting near club for an hour, learned from hall porter that Sir
Lucien had not been there that evening. Drove car back to garage and
returned to Albemarle Street shortly after eight o'clock.' H'm. Is
this confirmed in any way?"

Kerry's teeth snapped together viciously.

"Up to a point it is, sir. The club porter remembers Mareno inquiring
about Sir Lucien, and the people at the garage testify that he took
out the car and returned it as stated."

"No one has come forward who actually saw him waiting outside the
club?"

"No one. But unfortunately it was a dark, misty night, and cars
waiting for club members stand in a narrow side turning. Mareno is a
surly brute, and he might have waited an hour without speaking to a
soul. Unless another chauffeur happened to notice and recognize the
car nobody would be any wiser."

The Assistant Commissioner sighed, glancing up for the first time.

"You don't think he waited outside the club at all?" he said.

"I don't, sir!" rapped Kerry.

The Assistant Commissioner rested his head upon his hand again.

"It doesn't seem to be germane to your case, Chief Inspector, in any
event. There is no question of an alibi. Sir Lucien's wrist-watch was
broken at seven-fifteen--evidently at the time of his death; and this
man Mareno does not claim to have left the flat until after that
hour."

"I know it, sir," said Kerry. "He took out the car at half-past seven.
What I want to know is where he went to!"

The Assistant Commissioner glanced rapidly into the speaker's fierce
eyes.

"From what you have gathered respecting the appearance of Kazmah, does
it seem possible that Mareno may be Kazmah?"

"It does not, sir. Kazmah has been described to me, at first hand and
at second hand. All descriptions tally in one respect: Kazmah has
remarkably large eyes. In Miss Halley's evidence you will note that
she refers to them as 'larger than any human eyes I have ever seen.'
Now, Mareno has eyes like a pig!"

"Then I take it you are charging him as accessory?"

"Exactly, sir. Somebody got Kazmah and Mrs. Irvin away, and it can
only have been Mareno. Sir Lucien had no other resident servant; he
was a man who lived almost entirely at restaurants and clubs. Again,
somebody cleaned up his papers, and it was somebody who knew where to
look for them."

"Quite so--quite so," murmured the Assistant Commissioner. "Of course,
we shall learn today something of his affairs from his banker. He must
have banked somewhere. But surely, Chief Inspector, there is a safe or
private bureau in his flat?"

"There is, sir," said Kerry grimly; "a safe. I had it opened at six
o'clock this morning. It had been hastily cleaned out; not a doubt of
it. I expect Sir Lucien carried the keys on his person. You will
remember, sir, that his pockets had been emptied?"

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21