The Joker by Edgar Wallace (books to read in your 20s .TXT) 📖
- Author: Edgar Wallace
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reeling figure been less vocal he might have passed on to his destination
without interference. For drunkenness in itself is not a crime according
to the law; a man must be incapable or create a disturbance, or obstruct
the police in the execution of their duty, before he offends. The
policeman had no intention of arresting the noisy wayfarer.
He walked into the middle of the road to intercept and quieten him; and
then discovered that the reveller was a black-faced comedian with
extravagant white lips, a ridiculous Eton collar and a shell coat. On his
head was a college cap, and this completed his outfit with the exception
of the banjo, with which he was making horrid sounds.
‘Hi, hi!’ said the policeman gently. ‘A little less noise, young fellow!’
Such an admonition would have been sufficient in most cases to have
reduced a midnight song-bird to apology, but this street waif stood
defiantly in the middle of the road, his legs apart, and invited the
officer to go to a warmer climate, and, not satisfied with this, he swung
his banjo, and brought it down with a crash on the policeman’s helmet.
‘You’ve asked for it!’ said the officer of the law and took his lawful
prey in a grip of iron.
By a coincidence, Jim Carlton was at Evory Street Station when the man
was brought in, singing not unmusically, and so obviously drunk that Jim
hardly turned his head or interrupted the conversation he was having with
the inspector on duty, to look at the charge. They made a rapid search of
the man, he resisting violently and at last, when they had extracted a
name (he refused his address) he was hustled between a policeman and a
jailer into the long corridor off which the cells are placed.
The door of Cell No. 7 was opened and into this he was pushed, struggling
to the last to maintain his banjo.
‘And,’ said the jailer when he came back to the charge-room, wiping his
perspiring brow, ‘the language that bud is using would turn a soldier
pale!’
The reason for Jim’s presence was to arrange a local supervision of
Greenhart House and to obtain certain assistance in the execution of a
plan which was running through his mind; and that task would have been
completed when the black-faced man was brought in, but that the officer
he had called to see was away. Jim lingered a little while, talking
police shop, before he paid his last visit to Sir Joseph’s house. He had
the inevitable reply: No News had reached Whitehall Gardens of the
Foreign Minister.
The man he came to see at Evory Street was due to appear at the police
court in the role of prosecutor and Jim strolled down to the court next
morning, arriving soon after the magistrate had taken his seat. There he
met the inspector from Evory Street. Before Jim could broach the subject
which had brought him, the inspector asked:
‘Were you at the station when that black-faced fellow was pulled in last
night?’
‘Yes, I remember the noisy gentleman,’ said Jim. ‘Why?’
The inspector shook his head, puzzled. ‘I can’t understand where he got
it from. The sergeant searched him carefully, but he must have had it
concealed in some place.’
‘What is the matter with him?’ asked Jim, only half interested.
‘Dope,’ said the other. ‘When the jailer went and called him this morning
it was as much as he could do to wake him up. In fact, he thought of
sending for the divisional surgeon. You never saw a sicker-looking man in
your life! Can’t get a word out of him. All he did was to sit on his bed
with his head in his hands, moaning. We had to shake him to get him into
the prison van.’
The first two cases were disposed of rapidly, and then a policeman
called: ‘John Smith,’ and there tottered into court the black-faced
comedian, a miserable object, so weak of knee that he had to be guided up
the steps into the steel-railed dock. Gone was the exhilaration of the
night before, and Jim had an unusual feeling of pity for the poor wretch
in his absurd clothes and black, shining face.
The magistrate looked over his glasses.
‘Why wasn’t this man allowed to wash his face before he came before me?’
he asked.
‘Couldn’t get him to do anything, sir,’ said the jailer, ‘and we haven’t
got the stuff to take off this make-up.’
The magistrate grumbled something, and the assaulted policeman stepped
into the box and took his oath to tell the truth and nothing but the
truth. He gave his stereotyped evidence and again the magistrate looked
at the drooping figure in the dock.
‘What have you to say, Smith?’ he asked.
The man did not raise his head.
‘Is anything known about him? I notice that his address is not on the
charge sheet.’
‘He refused his address, your Worship,’ said the inspector.
‘Remanded for inquiries!’
The jailer touched the prisoner’s arm and he looked up at him suddenly;
stared wildly round the court, and then:
‘May I ask what I am doing here?’ he asked in a husky voice, and Jim’s
jaw dropped.
For the black-faced man was Sir Joseph Layton!
EVEN THE magistrate was startled, though he did not recognise the voice.
He was about to give an order for the removal of the man when Jim pushed
his way to his desk and whispered a few words.
‘Who?’ asked the magistrate. ‘Impossible!’
‘May I ask’—it was the prisoner speaking again—‘what is all this
about—I really do not understand.’
And then he swayed and would have fallen, but the jailer caught him in
his arms.
‘Take him out into my room.’ The magistrate was on his feet. ‘The court
stands adjourned for ten minutes,’ he said; and disappeared behind the
curtains into his office.
A few seconds later they brought in the limp figure of the prisoner and
laid him on a sofa.
‘Are you sure? You must be mistaken, Mr Carlton!’
‘I am perfectly sure—even though his moustache has been shaved off,’
said Jim, looking into the face of the unconscious man. ‘This is Sir
Joseph Layton, the Foreign Minister. I could not make a mistake. I know
him so well.’
The magistrate peered closer.
‘I almost think you are right,’ he said, ‘but how on earth—’
He did not complete his sentence; and soon after he went out to carry on
the business of the court. Jim had sent an officer to a neighbouring
chemist for a pot of cold cream; and by the time the divisional surgeon
arrived all doubt as to the identity of the black-faced man had been
removed with his make-up. His white hair was stained, his moustache
removed, and so far as they could see, not one stitch of his clothing
bore any mark which would have identified him.
The doctor pulled up the sleeve and examined the forearm.
‘He has been doped very considerably,’ he said, pointing to a number of
small punctures. ‘I don’t exactly know what drug was used, but there was
hyoscine in it, I’ll swear.’
Leaving Sir Joseph to the care of the surgeon, Jim hurried out to the
telephone and in a few minutes was in communication with the Prime
Minister.
‘I’ll come along in a few minutes,’ said that astonished gentleman. ‘Be
careful that nothing about this gets into the papers—will you please ask
the magistrate, as a special favour to me, to make no reference in
court?’
Fortunately, only one police-court reporter had been present, he had seen
nothing that aroused his suspicion and his curiosity as to why the
prisoner had been carried to the magistrate’s room was easily satisfied.
Sir Joseph was still unconscious when the Premier arrived. An ambulance
had been summoned and was already in the little courtyard, and after a
vain attempt to get him to speak, the Foreign Secretary was smuggled out
into the yard, wrapped in a blanket and dispatched to a nursing home.
‘I confess I’m floored,’ said the Prime Minister in despair. A nigger
minstrel… assaulting the police! It is incredible! You say you were at
the police station when he was brought in; didn’t you recognise him
then?’
‘No, sir,’ said Jim truthfully, ‘I was not greatly interested—he seemed
just an ordinary drunk to me. But one thing I will swear; he was not
under the influence of any drug when he was brought into the station. The
inspector said he reeked of whisky, and he certainly found no difficulty
in giving expression to his mind!’
The Premier threw out despairing hands.
‘It is beyond me; I cannot understand what has happened. The whole thing
is monstrously incredible. I feel I must be dreaming.’
As soon as the Premier had gone, Jim drove to the nursing home to which
the unfortunate Minister had been taken. The Evory Street inspector had
gone with the ambulance, and had an astonishing story to tell.
‘What do you think we found in his pocket?’ he asked.
‘You can’t startle me,’ said Jim recklessly. ‘What was it—the Treaty of
Versailles?’
The inspector opened his pocket-book and took out a small blank visiting
card, blank, that is, except for a number of scratches, probably made by
some blunt instrument, but the writer had attempted to get too much on so
small a space, for Jim saw that it was writing when he examined the card
carefully. Two words were decipherable, ‘Marling’ and ‘Harlow’ and these
had been printed in capitals. He took a lead pencil, scraped the point
upon the card, and sifted the fine dust over the scratches until they
became more definite.
The writing was still indecipherable even with such an aid to legibility
as the lead powder. Apparently the message had been written with a pin,
for in two places the card was perforated.
‘The first word is “whosoever”,’ said Jim suddenly. ‘“Whosoever… please”
is the fourth word and that seems to be underlined… ‘
He studied the card for a long time and then shook his head.
‘“Harlow” is clear and “Marling” is clear. What do you make of it,
inspector?’
The officer took the card from his hand and examined it with a blank
expression. ‘I don’t know anything about the writing or what it means,’
he said. ‘The thing I am trying to work out is how did that card come in
his pocket—it was not there last night when the sergeant searched
him—he takes his oath on it!’
A BRIEF paragraph appeared in the morning newspapers.
‘Sir Joseph Layton, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, is seriously
ill in a nursing home.’
It would take more than this simple paragraph to restore the markets of
the world to the level they had been when the threat of war had sent them
tumbling like a house of cards. The principal item of news remained this
world panic, which the Foreign Secretary’s speech had initiated. A great
economist computed that the depreciation in gilt-edged securities
represented over �100,000,000 sterling and whilst the downward tendency
at least to some stocks was recovering, a month or more must pass before
the majority reached the pre-scare level. One newspaper, innocent of the
suspicion under which the financier lay in certain quarters, interviewed
Mr Harlow.
‘I think,’ said Mr Stratford Harlow, ‘that the effect of the slump has
been greatly exaggerated. In many ways, such a
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