The Joker by Edgar Wallace (books to read in your 20s .TXT) đ
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- Author: Edgar Wallace
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thatâs it. Thereâs quite a lot of genuine Reds, but a whole lot of
people who hang on in the hope that one of the comrades will break a
jewellerâs window so that they can get away with the doinâs. Most people
are Red if they only knew it. Take the feller that keeps beehives. He
just waits for the old capitalist bee to pile up his honey reserves and
then he comes down on his bank-roll⊠â
He philosophised thus all the way across the park.
âI am almost at the end of my theoriesâwhat is yours, Elk?â
âBeer,â said Elk absently, as they mounted the steps of the club.
âLooks like heâs gettinâ ready for a quick money stunt,â said Elk, as
they made their way to the coffee-room. âBut, Lord, you can never follow
the minds of people like Ingle!
And heâs an actor tooâthat makes him more skittish. As likely as not
heâs goinâ to give lectures on âMy Five Years of Hellââthey all do it.â
Jim shook his head helplessly.
âI donât know what to make of that film craze of his.â
âDecadence,â said Elk laconically. âAll these birds go wrong some way or
another, I tell you.â
The waiter was hovering at their elbow.
âBeer,â said Elk emphatically.
It was a bitterly cold night, and in spite of the briskness of their walk
Jim had been glad to get into the comfort of his club. He had no
intention of returning to Scotland Yard that night, and was in fact
parting with Elk at the door that looks out upon Pall Mall when the club
porter called him.
There was an urgent message for him and, going into the booth, he spoke
to one of the chief inspectors.
âI have been trying to get you all the evening,â said the officer. âOne
of the park-keepers has found the place where he thinks Mrs Gibbins was
thrown into the canal. Iâm on the phone to him. He suggested you should
meet him outside the Zoological Societyâs office.â
âTell him that Iâll come right along,â said Jim quickly, and returning to
Elk, conveyed the gist of the message.
âCanât these amacher detectives find things in the Lordâs bright
sunlight?â asked Elk bitterly. âHalf-past nine and freezing like the
devil: what a time to go snooping round canals!â
Yet he insisted upon going along with his companion.
âYou might miss something,â he grumbled as the draughty taxi moved
northward. âYou ainât got my power of observation and deduction. Anyway,
Iâll bet weâre wasting our time. Theyâll show us the hole in the water
where she went in most likely.â
âThe canal is frozen,â smiled Jim. âIn fact, itâs been frozen since the
day after the body was found.â
Mr Elk growled something under his breath; whether it was an
uncomplimentary reference to the weather or to the tardiness of
park-keepers, Jim did not gather.
It was not a keeper but an inspector who was waiting for them outside the
Zoological offices. The discovery had been made that afternoon, but the
keeper had not reported the matter until late in the evening. The
inspector took a seat in their taxi and under his direction they drove
back some distance to the place where a bridge crosses the canal to
Avenue Road. Here the Circle roadway is separated from the canal by a
fifty-foot stretch of grassland and trees. This verge, in summer, affords
a playing ground for children, and has, from their point of view, the
attraction of dipping down in a steep slope to the banks of the canal,
which, however, is separated from the park by a row of wooden palings,
wired to form an unclimbable fence. The playground is reached from the
road by a broad iron gate running parallel with the bridge, and this,
explained the park inspector, was locked at nights.
âOccasionally somebody forgets,â he said, âand I remember having it
reported to me on the night after this womanâs disappearance, that the
gates were found open in the morning.â
He led the way cautiously down the steep declivity towards the fence
which runs by the canal bank. Here is a rough path and along this they
trudged over ground frozen hard.
âOne of our keepers had to make an inspection of the fence this
afternoon,â the officer went on, âand we found that the palings had been
wrenched from one of the supporting posts. Afterwards somebody must have
put them up again and did the job so well that we have never noticed the
break.â
They had now reached the spot, and a powerful light thrown along the
fence revealed the extent of the damage.
A wire strand and one of the palings had been broken, and the officer had
only to push lightly at the fence to send it sagging drunkenly towards
the canal. He put his foot upon it and with a creak it lay over so that
he could have walked without any difficulty on to the canal bank.
âOur man thought that the damage had been done by boys, until he saw the
hat.â
âWhich hat?â asked Jim quickly.
âI left it here for you to see, exactly as he found it.â
The superintendentâs light travelled along a bush, and presently focused
upon a crushed brown object, which had been caught between two branches
of the bush. Jim loosened the pitiable relic, a brown felt hat, stained
and cut about the crown. It might easily, he saw, have been dragged off
in a struggle, and against the autumnal colouring of the undergrowth
would have escaped notice.
âHere is another thing,â said the park officer. âDo you see that? It was
the first thing I looked for, but I have no doubt that you gentlemen will
understand better than I what it signifies.â
It was the impress of a heel in the frozen ground. By its side a queer,
flat footmark, criss-crossed with innumerable lines.
âSomebody who wore rubbers,â said Elk, going down on his knees. âThere
has been a struggle here. Look at the sideways thrust of that heel!
Andââ
âWhat is this?â asked Jim sharply.
His lamp was concentrated upon a tiny, frozen puddle, and Elk looked but
could see nothing but its grey-white surface. Kneeling, Jim took out a
knife from his pocket and began to scrape the ice; and now his companion
saw what had attracted his attention: a piece of paper. It was an
envelope which had been crushed into the mud. When he got the frozen
object into the light it was frozen to the shape of the heel that had
trodden upon it. Gently he scraped away the mud and ice until two lines
were legible. The first was at the top left-hand corner and was heavily
underlined.
âBy hand. Urgent.â
Only one line of the address was legible, but the word âHarlowâ was very
distinct.
They carried their find back to the superintendentâs office and before
his fire thawed it out. When the letter had become a limp and steaming
thing, Jim stripped the flap of the envelope and carefully withdrew its
contents.
âDEAR MR HARLOW,
âI am afraid I must disappoint you. I am in such a position, being an
ex-convict, that I cannot afford to take the slightest risk. I will tell
you frankly that what I have in my mind, is that this may be a frame-p up
organised by my friends the police, and I think that it would be, to say
the least, foolish on my part to go any farther until I know your
requirements, or at least have written proof that you have approached me.
âYours sincerely,
âARTHUR INGLE.â
The two men looked at one another.
âThat beats the band,â said Elk. âWhat do you make of it, Carlton?â
Jim stood with his back to the fire, the letter in his hand, his brow
wrinkled in a frown.
âI donât know⊠let me try now⊠Harlow asked Ingle to meet him: I knew
that already. Ingle promised to go, changed his mind and wrote this
letter, which has obviously never been opened by Harlow, and as obviously
could not have been delivered to him before the interview, because, as I
knowâand I had a cold in the head to prove itâthese two fellows met
opposite the Horse Guards Parade and went joy-riding round the park for
the greater part of an hour.
Supposing Harlow is concerned with the slaying of this wretched
womanâand why he should kill her heaven knows!âwould he carry about
this unopened letter and leave it for the first flat-footed policeman to
find?â
He sat down in a chair and held his head in his hands, and presently:
âIâve got it!â he said, his eyes blazing with excitement. At least, if I
havenât got the whole story, I know at least one thingâpoor Mrs Gibbins
was very much in love with William Smith the platelayer!â
Elk stared at him.
âYouâre talking foolish,â he said.
AILEEN RIVERS had made one attempt to see her relative. She called up her
uncle on the telephone and asked if she might call.
âWhy?â was the uncompromising question.
Only a very pressing cause would have induced the girl to make the
attemptâa fact which she conveyed to Ingle in the next sentence.
âIâve had a big bill sent to me for the redecoration of your flat. You
remember that you wished this done. The decorators hold me responsibleââ
âSend the bill to me; Iâll settle it,â he interrupted.
âIâm not sure that all the items are exact,â she began.
âIt doesnât matter,â he broke in again. âSend the bill: Iâll settle it.
Good morning.â
She hung up with a little smile, relieved of the necessity for another
interview.
There were times when Aileen Rivers was extremely grateful that no drop
of Arthur Ingleâs blood ran in her veins.
He had married her motherâs first cousin, and the avuncular relationship
was largely a complimentary one. She felt the need of emphasizing this
fact upon Jim Carlton when he called that nightâa very welcome visit,
though he made it clear to her that the pleasure of seeing her again was
not his sole object.
He had come to make inquiries which were a little inconsequent, she
thought, about Mrs Gibbins. He seemed particularly anxious to know
something about her nature, her qualities as a worker, and her
willingness to undertake tasks which are as a rule outside the duties of
a charwoman.
She answered every question carefully and exactly, and when her
examination had been completed: âI wonât ask you why you want to know all
this,â she said, because I am sure that you must have a very good reason
for asking. But I thought the case was finished?â
He shook his head. âNo murder is finished until the assassin is caught,â
he said simply.
âIt was murder?â
âI think soâElk doesnât. Even the doctors at the inquest disagreed.
There is just a remote possibility that it may have been an accident.â
And then blandly: âHow is your attentive fellow-boarder?â
âOh, Mr Brown?â she said with a smile. âI donât know what has happened,
but since I spoke to you Iâve hardly seen him. Yes, he is still staying
at the house.â
His visit was disappointingly short, though in reality she should not
have been disappointed, because she had brought home a lot of work from
the officeâMr Stebbings was preparing his annual audit, and she had
enough to keep her occupied till midnight. Yet
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