Edgar Wallace - The Joker

There was an agitated, murmured reply, and then unexpectedly Harlow laughed.

‘Well, well, you’re a foolish fellow; that is all I have to say to you. And you must never do such a thing again. Luckily the police couldn’t read your writing.’

Jim had almost forgotten the existence of the bearded man. He heard the door open and went quickly down the stairs until he was in the vestibule. The hands of the little silver clock over the marble mantelpiece pointed to five.

The lift was coming down again, and crouching back into a recess, Jim saw the big man pass into the library. The door shut behind him. In a second the detective was in the elevator and had pressed the top button.

If Aileen were there, he would find her; he dare not allow himself even to debate the sanity of the little man he had left in the garage.

Was she here?…dead? He closed his eyes to shut out the dreadful picture that the lawyer had drawn…the axe…the pit…

Just as the elevator reached the top floor something happened. For a few seconds Carlton did not grasp the explanation.

The two lights in the roof of the lift went out, and down below something flashed bluely—Jim saw the lightning flicker of it.

He pushed at the grille which, on the top floor alone, reached from ceiling to floor. It did not budge. He kicked at the gates, but they were of hammered steel.

Trapped for a second time in three hours, Jim swore softly through his teeth. He heard the street door close below and silence.

‘Elk!’ From a distance came Elk’s hollow answer. ‘He has cut out a fuse—can you climb to the hall?’

‘I’ll try.’

Facing where he stood, caged and impotent, was the door of Mrs Edwins’ room and as he looked he saw the handle turning slowly…slowly.

Mrs Edwins? She had been left behind then…The door opened a little…a little more, and then Aileen Rivers walked out.

‘Aileen!’ he cried hoarsely.

She looked at him, gripping the gate, his haggard face against the bars. ‘The philandering constable,’ she said, bravely flippant; and then, ‘please—take me home!’

‘Who brought you here?’ he asked, hardly believing the evidence of his senses.

‘I came of my own free will—oh, Jim he’s such a darling!’

‘Oh, God!’ groaned the man in the cage, ‘and I never noticed it!’

CHAPTER 23

NEARLY TWELVE hours before that poignant moment a gum-chewing chauffeur had found himself in an awkward position.

‘A lunatic and a fainting female!’ mused the chauffeur. ‘This is most embarrassing!’

Stooping, he lifted the girl and laid her limply over his shoulder. With his disengaged hand he dragged the dazed old lawyer to his feet.

‘You hit me!’ whimpered Ellenbury.

‘You are alive,’ said the chauffeur loftily, ‘which is proof that I did not hit you.’

‘You choked me!’

The chauffeur uttered a tut of impatience. ‘Go ahead, Bluebeard!’ he said.

Apparently one hundred and forty pounds of femininity was not too great a tax on the chauffeur’s strength, for as he walked behind the weeping little man, one hand on the scruff of his collar, he was whistling softly to himself.

Up the stone steps he walked and into the hall. The ancient maid came peeping round the corner, and almost fell down the kitchen stairs in her excitement, for something was happening at Royalton House—where nothing had happened before.

The chauffeur lowered the girl into a little armchair. Her eyes were open; she was feeling deathly ill.

‘There is nothing in the world like a cup of tea,’ suggested the chauffeur, and called in the maid, so imperiously that she never even glanced at her master. He seemed dwindled in stature. In his hand he still held the wet haft of the axe.

He was rather a pathetic little man.

‘I think you had better put that axe away,’ said the chauffeur gently.

Aileen only then became aware of his presence. He had a funny moustache, walrus-like and black, and as he spoke it waggled up and down. She wanted to laugh, but she knew that laughter was halfway to hysteria. Her eyes wandered to the axe; a cruel-looking axe—the handle was all wet and slippery. With a shiver she returned her attention to the chauffeur; he was holding forth in an oracular manner that reminded her of somebody. She discovered that he was watching her too, and this made her uneasy.

‘You’ve got to help me, young lady,’ said the man gravely.

She nodded. She was quite willing to help him, realising that she would not be alive at that moment but for him.

The chauffeur rolled his eyes round to Ellenbury.

‘O, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!’ he said reproachfully; and stripped his black moustache with a grimace of pain.

‘Thank God that’s gone!’ he said, and pulled up a chair to the fire. ‘I was once very useful to Nova—Nova has this day paid his debt and lost a client. Why don’t you take off your overcoat? It’s steaming.’

He glanced at the axe, its wet haft leaning against the fireplace and then, reaching out his hand, took it on to his knees and felt its edge.

‘Not very sharp, but horribly efficient,’ he said, and laid his hand on the shoulder of the shrinking man. ‘Ellenbury, my man, you’ve been dreaming!’ Ellenbury said nothing. ‘Nasty dreams, eh? My fault. I had you tensed up—I should have let you down months ago.’

Now Ellenbury spoke in a whisper.

‘You’re Harlow?’

‘I’m Harlow, yes.’ He scarcely gave any attention to the two suitcases; one glance, and he did not look at them again. ‘Harlow the Splendid. The Robber Baron of Park Lane. There’s a good title for you if you ever write that biography of mine!’

Mr Harlow glanced round at the girl and smiled; it was a very friendly smile.

Ellenbury offered no resistance when the big man relieved him of his wet coat and held up the dressing-gown invitingly. ‘Take off your shoes.’ The old man obeyed; he always obeyed Harlow. ‘When are you leaving?’

‘Tomorrow,’ The admission was wrung from him. He had no resistance.

‘One suitcase full of money is enough for any man,’ said Harlow. ‘I’ll take a chance—you shall have first pick.’

‘It’s yours!’ Ellenbury almost shouted the words.

‘No—anybody’s. Money belongs to the man who has it. That is my pernicious doctrine-you will go to Switzerland, get as high up the mountains as you can. St Moritz is a good place. Very likely you’re mad. I think you are. But madness cannot be cured by daily association with other madmen. It would be stupid to hide you up in an asylum—stupid and wicked. And if you will not think of killing people any more, Ellenbury. You—are—not—to—think—about—killing!’

‘No!’ The old man was weeping foolishly.

‘Our friend Ingle leaves for the Continent tomorrow—join him. If he starts talking politics, pull the alarm cord and have him arrested. I don’t know where he is going—anywhere but Russia, I guess…’

All the time he was talking, Aileen sensed his anxiety. Just then the maid brought in the tea and the big fellow relaxed.

‘Drink that hot,’ he ordered, and when the servant had gone he moved nearer to the girl and lowered his voice. ‘He doesn’t respond. You noticed that? No reflexes, I’m certain. I dare not try; he’d think I was assaulting him. It was my own fault. I kept him too tense—too keyed up. If I had let him down…umph!’ He shook his head; the thick lips pursed and drooped. Presently he spoke again. ‘I’ll have to bring you both away—you can be very helpful. If you insist upon going to Carlton and telling him about…this’—he nodded to the unconscious man by the fire—‘I shan’t stop you. This is the finish, anyway.’