E. Phillips Oppenheim

Slane’s Long Shots

Warsaw 2018

Contents

I. WHO KILLED MONTAGUE BREST?

II. THE LITTLE MARQUIS

III. MARIOTE’S HOUR OF AGONY

IV. THE THIRTEENTH CARD

V. THE MAN WITHOUT A TIE

VI. NEAP-TIDE MADNESS

VII. NOT SLANE’S STAR TURN

VIII. GENTLEMAN BILL

IX. THE TROUBLESOME KINGDOM OF SELM

X. THE GOLDEN BIRD OF MALLORY

I. WHO KILLED MONTAGUE BREST?

MONTAGUE BREST–Monty to all his friends, and they were many– laid down his cigarette, leaned back in his chair, and swore.

“Ruth,” he exclaimed, “I’m done! I’m a fraud! I can’t make head or tail of it. Tomorrow I’ll have to resign, and then God knows what we shall do. Curse that yellow-skinned, slobbering Manchu, or whoever sat down and wrote this farrago of rubbish to His Majesty’s Government. I’m beat, Ruth! I can’t make a word of sense of it.”

She had crossed the room, and was already leaning over him, her arm around his neck. She looked at the long, stiff sheet of paper, covered with what seemed to be cabalistic signs, and she laughed outright.

“Monty, my dear,” she remonstrated, “how could anyone in the world expect you to make sense of such a medley.”

“Well, the Foreign Office does, for one,” he assured her gloomily. “It looks like the outside of a Chinese teapot to us, but it’s Tibetan all right. I daren’t say I cannot do, it. I’ve had too many failures lately. I thought I might be able to make something of it, but I can’t. I can’t make sense of the opening paragraph, even.”

She patted his cheek soothingly. She was a very pretty girl and her voice would have been enough to make most men forget their troubles.

“I shouldn’t worry, dear,” she advised. “The F.O. would never seriously complain of a man for not being able to make sense of that.”

He rose to his feet, and nervously lit another cigarette. The small sitting-room was already thick with tobacco smoke.

“But that’s just what they will do, Ruth,” he complained. “You see, I made a mess of the Afghan cable. They made use of a word I never heard of, and if I confess to another failure here, they’ll think I’m a fraud so far as the Asiatic languages are concerned.”

“Let’s telephone to Mr. Odane,” she suggested. “He offered to help you at any time.”

The young man’s face lighted.

“It’s an idea, Ruth,” he admitted. “He’s not so good at the Indian dialects as I am, but he’s a marvel at Chinese. This certainly seems a good deal more like his touch than mine.”

“I’ll ring him up,” she decided. “Don’t you worry.”

She threw open the door of the little sitting-room, and made her way to the telephone instrument at the end of the narrow passage. She was back again in less than two minutes.

“He’s coming, Monty,” she announced triumphantly. “He seemed only too pleased. The idea of a manuscript you couldn’t make anything of intrigued him immensely. Let’s have another look at the beastly thing.”

They pored over it together–an official-looking document, covered with curious characters, scratched on a home-made paper which was half yellow, and half white. Ruth’s finger lingered at the middle of one sentence.

“There’s an Englishman’s name,” she pointed out. “The only thing anyone could make any sense of–printed in English characters too–BRETTON. I’ve heard it before somewhere.”

“There’s a Colonel Le Bretton, a great explorer,” her brother reflected. “By Jove, I should wonder if it were he. He started off a year ago for Mount Everest, or somewhere around there. The man who went through Abyssinia a few years ago, you know. I–”

He broke off in his sentence.

His sister was not a nervous person, but the sound of her shriek filled the little room. He started to his feet. She was staring at the bay window, across which the curtain was only half drawn. Her eyes were filled with a very definite terror.

“For God’s sake, what’s the matter, Ruth?” he exclaimed. She pointed to the narrow slit of exposed window-pane.

“There was a man there, looking in,” she cried. “I saw his face distinctly.”

Brest hastened from the room, along the few feet of passage, and threw open the front door. He looked up and down in vain. Their house was the last but four in a long row of seven-roomed villas near Barnes Commons and the space opposite was still unbuilt upon. There was not a soul to be seen except a man and a girl strolling arm in arm, passing from under a lamp-post into invisibility. He closed the door, and returned to the sitting-room.

“Ruth, my dear, you’re fancying things,” he told her. “There isn’t a human being in sight.”

“A man looked in at the window,” she insisted.

“Then he climbed up the side of the house on to the roof. There was no other means of getting away.”

She lit a cigarette, and laughed nervously.

“I hope I’m not beginning to see things’.”

“There was nobody there,” he assured her. “Look here, Ruth, there’s one thing you’ve got to promise me. Whatever happens, in no case–not under any circumstances–must you ever let a soul know that I consulted Odane about this manuscript. I should get the sack straightaway.”

“Am I a gossip?” she scoffed. “Did you ever know me to talk?”

“Never,” he acknowledged. “The new regulations are very strict, though. It is ridiculous that you shouldn’t be able to ask help of a man in Odane’s position, but it would cost me my job if they knew I’d done it.”

“Then they never shall, dear,” she promised. “I’ll get the whisky and soda out for Mr. Odane.”

She patted his cheek. He looked at her in surprise.

“Why, Ruth,” he exclaimed, “your hands are as cold as ice, and you’re trembling. What’s the matter?”

“I’m not used to visions,” she confided with a little shiver.

*     *

*

TWO hours later, Mark Odane, Professor of Oriental Languages and a scholar of some repute, confessed himself partially beaten.

“I’ll have to take the thing home, Monty,” he announced finally. “I’ve got some dictionaries there that will help, and a phrase book in manuscript. I’ll do it for you–word for word, too– but you’ll have to give me a few hours. I can’t stay any longer now. I’ve got a committee meeting of the Royal Geographical Society. Lend me your dispatch box.”

“You must take it away, I suppose?” the young man asked wistfully. “It’s against the regulations.”

“I can do nothing here,” Odane admitted. “Besides, who cares about those regulations? They are broken every day. You know that. Say good-by to your sister for me, there’s a good fellow.”

The Professor hurried out to his taxicab. The young man saw him off, and watched the vehicle turn the corner. There were a few promenading couples on the waste piece of common opposite –not another person in sight. He closed the front door, and called up the stairs to his sister: “Gone to bed, Ruth?”

“Long ago,” came the sleepy reply. “Good-night, and don’t forget to lock up.”

He made his way back to the sitting-room, mixed himself a whisky and soda, and settled himself in an easy-chair, with the evening paper. The cricket scores failed to interest him. The Stock Exchange news left him unmoved. The illness of a great statesman did not affect him in the least. He was conscious of a curious tingling of the nerves. There was something– what was it that had happened that evening? He remembered suddenly Ruth’s moment of panic, and smiled. Then, conscious of what seemed to be a draft, he turned his head. The newspaper slid from his nerveless fingers. Before he could call out, there was a hand upon his throat, and the glitter of steel before his eyes. Almost immediately the room was plunged into darkness. He could see nothing but the dim shadow of the man leaning over him, in whose grasp he was like an infant.

“I want the paper you brought home this evening from the Foreign Office. Will you give it to me? Decide quickly. If you refuse you have less than ten seconds to live.”

The grasp upon his throat relaxed a little. He was able to mumble.

“It isn’t here. I have had to pass it on to someone else.”

There was a brutal, choking sound, a short laugh of contempt.

“Usual thing to part with manuscripts from the Foreign Office, isn’t it? Five seconds left. Will you give it to me?”

“I swear that it isn’t here.”

In the darkness, the thread of steel was like an electric shaft. Then that one, long-drawn-out moment of hideous pain, and blackness greater than the gloom of the room. The young man lay a crumpled-up heap upon his easy-chair, and his visitor proceeded with his task.

*     *

*

DETECTIVE Inspector Stimpson suddenly abandoned the attitude of casual caller which he had assumed during the first few minutes of his visit to Sir Jasper Slane, his acquaintance and occasional fellow worker. He drew his chair nearer to the desk. He was a small, sandy man, neatly dressed, with a freckled face and a mass of unruly hair. His queer, shrewd little eyes were studying Slane speculatively.

“Sir Jasper,” he acknowledged, “we are in some slight trouble down at the Yard.”

“The Montague Brest affair?”

“It isn’t only that. Let me explain. If you’ll believe me. Sir Jasper, there is scarcely a job done in London that we don’t know who’s behind it, even when we can’t get the evidence to make an arrest. There are plenty of people walking down Piccadilly and Bond Street at this moment whom we know to be guilty of certain offenses. We can’t touch them, but we don’t worry. Their time will come.

“Just now, we’re up against a different proposition. There’s a new body of criminals at work, and they’ve got us guessing. They don’t link up anywhere with any of the old gangs. My conviction is that this new crowd comes from a different class of society altogether. I’ll give you one example: There’s an amazing packet of precious stones–mostly rubies–being discreetly offered amongst the high-class fences, and the curious part of it is that they don’t correspond in the least with any missing jewelry we have on our list. They are far more magnificent, and unique.

“Where did they come from, Sir Jasper? Certainly they are not being handled by any one of the known jewel thieves in Europe. That’s why I’m pretty well convinced that there’s a new organization at work with whom we have not yet clicked.”

Slane, from the depths of his easy-chair, smiled in tolerant and comprehending assent. He was a cheery-looking person, with humorous eyes and mouth, the complexion of a Devonshire farmer, and with scarcely a line upon his face. There was nothing whatever in his appearance to suggest any abnormal intelligence. Only every now and then, at odd moments, there was a quick flash of his blue eyes, a tightening of the lips, an incisive word, the subtleties of a partially concealed personality.

“I shouldn’t be at all surprised. A very intelligent assumption of yours as a matter of fact. We’ve too many amateur bookmakers, wine merchants, stockbrokers’ representatives, motor car agents, and all that sort of thing. Why not a course in crime for the indigent aristocrat? Your idea appeals to me, Stimpson!”

“Then perhaps you will help me to find out who killed Montague Brest.” Sir Jasper leaned back a little in his chair.

“I am not a detective,” he observed.

“What else are you, Sir Jasper?” his visitor asked him bluntly.

“I am interested in research,” was the indulgent reply. “It amuses me to attempt to solve any social problem which is baffling my friends. Criminology attracts me. The science of detection excites my admiration, but I am not a detective, Stimpson. You will never find me in competition with Scotland Yard.”

“That may be so, but it was you who discovered, and returned to her, Lady Darnwell’s jewels after we’d been months trying in vain. It was owing to your influence that Maurice Grayson left the country at a moment’s notice, and–”

“That will do,” Slane interrupted. “Precisely what do you want of me this afternoon? You haven’t traveled all the way up to Hampstead for the sake of a friendly little chat?”

“You have this immense advantage over us,” the detective continued thoughtfully, avoiding for the moment a direct reply. “You are able to penetrate easily and naturally into a class of society from which we are debarred. It isn’t that we can’t go there, but when we do we are noticeable, and our quarry is on guard all the time. Club life, too, is unfortunately barred to us. Now you are a member, I believe, Sir Jasper, of the Lavender Club.”

“No place in London where I am happier,” was the enthusiastic admission. “A very delightful gathering of cultured cosmopolitans, Stimpson. You must dine with me there one night.”

The detective shook his head.

“No place for me, sir,” he acknowledged frankly, “but we have come now to the object of my visit. We were talking a few minutes ago about the murder of Montague Brest. I should like you to go to the Lavender Club as often as you can during the next few days with this idea always in your brain– that one of those with whom you are lunching or dining, or playing bridge, or drinking a cocktail, killed, or knows who killed, Montague Brest. You are something of a psychologist. I will leave it at that. At the end of a day or two, ask yourself which of the men with whom you have conversed could possibly have been the murderer? Tell me their names. A little tactful and harmless espionage will hurt no one.”

“Anything to go on?” Slane inquired, with a sudden gravity.

“A trifle, sir. No more than that.”

The other considered for a few moments.

“What you ask is, after all, not a difficult matter,” he decided, “and commits me to nothing. I will do as you wish.”

*     *

*

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