Edgar Wallace - The Joker

But they showed no inclination to move, and stood there for a time discussing the thing which Harlow had knocked from the stone coping.

‘It’s very curious’—the big man was talking—‘I don’t remember there was anything when we came here this morning. Let us go down again.’

The opportunity was lost. Even as Jim stood there listening he heard the feet of the men descending the stairs, the crash of the door as it was closed. He was left on the roof without any means of making his way to solid earth.

To communicate with Elk was impossible without inviting discovery. He took a notebook from his pocket, wrote a hurried message and, tearing out the sheet, wrapped in it a copper coin. He dropped it as near as he could guess in the vicinity of the place where Elk would be, for he heard the tinkle of the copper as it struck the ground. A quarter of an hour he waited, but there was no sign from below. He tried the door again, without even hoping that it would afford him an exit. To his amazement, when he turned the handle the door opened. Had Harlow, in his hurried departure, forgotten to lock it? That was not like Harlow.

Jim pushed the door farther open and looked down. A dim light was burning in the room below, and he had a glimpse of a corner of the secretaire and a stretch of red carpet. Noiselessly he descended the stout stairs, which did not creak under his weight, and after a while, coming to the bottom, he peered round the lintel.

The room was apparently empty. A big desk stood near the curtained window; there was an empty lacquer bed in one corner, and, before him, a door which was ajar. The only light in the apartment came from the reading lamp on the desk—he crossed the room and, pressing the lamp switch, put the room in darkness.

A light on the landing outside was now visible round the edge of the door. He peeped out and could see no sign of life. Before him was a stairway which led down to the lower floors of the house. Something told him that his presence in the house was known. On the left of the landing was another door, and the first thing he noticed was that the key was in the lock. Whoever had opened and entered that loom had gone in such haste that the key had not been removed. Jim saw his opportunity and in a flash, he leant over, gripped the key and snapped the lock tight. As he did so he heard a smothered exclamation from the room and grinned as he tiptoed down the stairs.

The lower landing was in darkness, and he could guide himself by his torch, testing every step he took, until he came into the dimly lighted vestibule, which, only a few days before, had been crowded with men and women, whose names were household words. He could heat nothing, and, walking swiftly to the door, grasped the handle. In another second he was flung back as though he had been struck by some huge invisible force.

He lay on the ground, breathless, paralysed with the shock. Then he heard the opening of a door upstairs, and somebody whispering. To touch that door handle, heavily charged with electric current, might mean death. The power which made the door a death trap for any burglar who succeeded in entering Harlow’s house, must come off an existing connection, he thought. He saw the two white buttons jutting out of the wall, though only one light was visible in the hall. He pressed the top button back, but the hall light was not extinguished. This must be the connection.

He tried the door handle again, touching it gingerly with his finger-tip. The current was off. In the briefest time he was in the street; and he advertised his escape by closing the door with a crash that shook the house.

Hurrying back to his car, he found Elk astride of the wall, in earnest parley with the police sergeant.

‘I was just going round to the back to see what had happened to you,’ said Elk, vaulting on to the sidewalk.

‘Did you get my message?’

‘What was it? I heard something fall, and thought you must have dropped the ladder. I couldn’t locate it anyway.’

It was long past midnight when the driver stepped on his brake before the entrance to Scotland Yard. And the first man Jim saw as he walked into the hall was Brown and his heart sank.

‘Anything wrong?’ he asked.

‘Miss Rivers has not returned to the house,’ said the detective. ‘I’ve been on the phone to Stebbings. He tells me that she left at six o’clock to deliver two letters, one to Ellenbury and the other to Harlow. I got through to Ellenbury; he said his letter was handed to him by Miss Rivers soon after six and that he hadn’t seen her since.’

Jim Carlton thought quickly.

‘Just before eleven!’ exclaimed Elk. ‘Gosh! I’d forgotten that!’

‘What?’

‘That’s the time he passed us and went into his garage—I could see the car from the top of the library—it wasn’t his own and I didn’t know it was Harlow until he turned into the gate at the end of the courtyard. And he was a long time in the garage too! I’ll bet—’

It needed this clue, slight as it was, to spur Jim Carlton into instant action. At two o’clock in the morning, when Mr Harlow was finishing his last cigar, Jim Carlton and Elk arrived with the backing of a search warrant…

‘How amusing!’ said Mr Harlow sombrely, as he rose from the table and handed back the warrant to Jim. ‘Do you mind letting me have a copy of that interesting document one of these days. I should like it for my autobiography!’

‘You can save your breath, Harlow,’ said Jim roughly. ‘The present visit is nothing more than a little inconvenience for you. I’m not arresting you for the outrage on Sir Joseph Layton; I am not taking you for the murder of Mrs Gibbins!’

‘Merciful as you are strong!’ murmured Harlow. ‘Murder is an unpleasant word.’

His face was rather pale and seemed to have developed new lines and furrows since Jim saw him last.

‘What’s this talk of murder?’

At the sound of the harsh voice the inspector spun round. Standing in the doorway was the hard-faced Mrs Edwins. It was the first time he had seen her, but he could recognise instantly from Aileen’s description. Stiffly erect, her arms folded before her, she stood waiting, her hard black eyes blazing with malignity. She was a more menacing figure then Harlow himself.

‘What is this talk of murder? Who has been murdered, I should like to know?’ she demanded.

But Harlow pointed past her.

‘“Murder” was not your cue, Lucy Edwins,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Your sense of the dramatic will be your ruin!’

For a moment it seemed that the woman would disobey that imperious gesture. She blinked at him resentfully, almost with hate, and then turned, stiff as a ramrod, and disappeared.

‘Now, Mr Carlton, let us be our calm selves. What do you expect to find in this house? I imagine it is something very important.’

‘Imagine!’ said Jim sternly. ‘Harlow, I’m going to put my cards on the table and tell you just what I want to find. First and foremost, I want Aileen Rivers, who came here earlier in the evening with a letter from her employer. She has not been seen since.’

Mr Harlow did not smile.

‘Really? Not been seen by you, I suppose you mean—’

‘Wait, I haven’t finished. A car was seen to drive away from Ellenbury’s office in Theobald’s Road at half-past five. Miss Rivers was in that car—where is she now?’

Harlow looked at him steadily. ‘I will not say that I don’t know—unnecessary lies are stupid.’

He opened a drawer of his desk with great deliberation, and, taking out a bunch of keys, dropped them on his blotting-pad.

‘You may search every room in the house,’ he said. ‘And then tell me if you are as wise as I!’

The library itself needed no prolonged inspection. Jim went up the stairs, followed by Elk, and came at last to the top floor, to find Harlow waiting for him at the door of the little elevator.