Edgar Wallace - The Joker

He pursed his thick lips and then said, apropos of nothing: ‘She is really a very nice girl indeed!…And she has a sense of humour. How rare a quality in a woman!’

‘Of whom are you talking?’ asked the bearded man, a little bewildered.

‘The might-have-been,’ was the flippant reply. ‘Even the wicked cannot be denied their dreams. Would you call me a sentimentalist, Marling?’ Marling shook his head, and Mr Harlow laughed not unkindly. ‘You’re the most appallingly honest man I’ve ever met,’ he said, in admiration; ‘and I think you’re the only human being in the world for whom I have a genuine affection.’

His companion stared at him with wide-open eyes. And Mr Harlow met the gaze without faltering. He was speaking the truth. His one nightmare in the past twenty years was that this simple soul should fall ill; for if that catastrophe had occurred, Stratford Harlow would have risked ruin and suffering to win him back to health. Marling was the only joke in life that he took seriously.

Every morning for three years, two newspapers had been thrust under the door of Harlow’s flat and had been disposed of by the hired servant who came to keep the place in order. Every morning a large bottle of milk had been deposited on the mat and had been similarly cleared away by the servant, who would come no more, for she had received a letter dispensing with her services on the morning Harlow and his companion arrived. The letter was not signed ‘Stratford Harlow,’ but bore the name by which she knew her employer.

The first day was a dull one. Harlow had nothing to do and inactivity exasperated him. He was down early the next morning to take in milk and newspapers; and for a long time sat at his ease, a thin cigar between his teeth, a cup of cooling coffee by his side, reading of his disappearance. The ports were watched; detectives were on duty at the termini of all airways. The flying squad was scouring London. The phrase seemed familiar. The flying squad from police headquarters spend their lives scouring London, and London seems none the cleaner for it.

There was his portrait across three columns, headed ‘The Splendid Harlow,’ and only hinting at the charge which would be laid against him. He learnt, without regret or sorrow, of the arrest of Mrs Edwins—he had a lifelong grudge against Mrs Edwins, who had a lifelong grudge against him. She was wholly incapable of understanding his attitude to life. She had wondered why he did not live abroad in the most luxurious and exotic atmosphere. She would have excused a seraglio; she could not forgive his industry and continence.

She had made no statement, the newspapers said, and he suspected her of making many of a vituperative character.

There was a hint of Marling in the paragraph:

‘The police are particularly desirous of getting into touch with the man who left the Park Lane house at the same time as Harlow. He is described as tall, rather pale, with a long yellow beard. None of the servants of the house has ever seen him. It may be explained that Mr Harlow’s domestic arrangements were of an unusual character. All the servants slept out in a house which Harlow had hired…’

Mr Harlow turned over the page to see the sporting cartoon. The humour of Tom Webster never failed to amuse him. Then he turned back to the Stock Exchange news.

Markets were recovering rapidly. He made a calculation on the margin of the paper and purred at his profits.

He could feel a glow of satisfaction though he was a fugitive from justice; though all sorts of horrid possibilities were looming before him; though it seemed nothing could prevent his going the dreary way-Brixton Prison, Pentonville, Wormwood Scrubs, Dartmoor…if not worse. If not worse.

He took out his cigar and looked at it complacently. Mrs Gibbins had died a natural death, though that would take some proving. It was a most amazingly simple accident. Her muddy shoes had slipped on the polished floor of his library; and when he had picked her up she was dead. That was the truth and nothing but the truth. And Miss Mercy Harlow had died naturally; and the little green bottle that Marling had seen had contained nothing more noxious than the restorative with which the doctor had entrusted him against the heart attack from which she succumbed.

He rose and stretched himself, drank the cold coffee with a wry face, and shuffled along leisurely in his slippered feet to call Saul Marling. He knocked at the door, but there was no answer. Turning the handle, he went in. The room was empty. So, too, was the bathroom.

Mr Harlow walked along the passage to the door leading down to the street. It was open. So also was the street door. He stood for a while at the head of the stairs, his hands in his pockets, the dead cigar between his teeth. Then he descended, closed the door and, walking back to the sitting-room, threw the cigar into the fireplace, lit another and sat down to consider matters; his forehead wrinkled painfully.

Presently he gave utterance to die thought which filled his mind.

‘I do hope that poor fellow is careful how he crosses the road—he isn’t used to traffic!’

But there were policemen who would help a timid, bearded man across the busy streets, and it was rather early for heavy traffic.

That thought comforted him. He took up the newspaper and in a second was absorbed in the Welbury divorce case which occupied the greater part of the page.

CHAPTER 25

AILEEN RIVERS might well have excused herself from attending her office, but she hated the fuss which her absence would occasion; and she felt remarkably well when she woke at noon.

Mr Stebbings greeted her as though she had not been absent until lunch-time, to his great inconvenience; and one might not imagine, from his matter-of-fact attitude, that he had been badgered by telephone messages and police visitations during the twelve hours which preceded her arrival.

He made no reference to her adventure until late in the afternoon, when she brought in some letters for him to sign. He put his careful signature to each sheet and then looked up. ‘James Carlton comes of a very good family. I knew his father rather well.’

She went suddenly red at this and was for the moment so thrown off her balance that she could not ask him what James Carlton’s parentage had to do with a prosaic and involved letter on the subject of leases.

‘He was most anxious about you, naturally,’ Mr Stebbings rambled on aimlessly. ‘I was in bed when he called me up—I have never heard a man who sounded so worried. It is curious that one does not associate the police force with those human emotions which are common in us all, and I confess it was a great surprise—in a sense a gratifying surprise! I have seen him once; quite a good looking young man; and although the emoluments of his office are not great, he appeals to me as one who has the capacity of making any woman happy.’ He paused. ‘If women can be made happy,’ he added, the misogynist in him coming to the surface.

‘I really don’t know what you mean, Mr Stebbings,’ she said, very hot, a little incoherent, but not altogether distressed.

‘Will you take this letter?’ said Mr Stebbings, dismissing distracted detectives and hot-faced girls from his mind; and immediately she was plunged into the technology of an obscure trusteeship which the firm of Stebbings was engaged in contesting.

As Aileen grew calmer, the shock of the discovery grew in poignancy. A girl who finds herself to be in love experiences a queer sense of desolation and loneliness. It is an emotion which seems unshareable; and the more she thought of Jim Carlton, the more she was satisfied that the affection was one-sided; that she was wasting her time and thought on a man who did not care for her any more than he cared for every other girl he met; and that love was a disease which was best cured by fasting and self-repression.