Chapter Fourteen. The Key to a Fortune.

“Here’s five pounds now—and fifteen more when you give it back to me, my dear little girl. Only be sure it’s the right one you take!”

“But I—I really can’t—I—”

“Don’t be a silly fool, Lily. I only want to play a practical joke on your master. I knew him a long time ago, and it will greatly surprise him. No harm will be done, I assure you. Surely you can trust me?”

The girl Lily, well and neatly dressed, was a parlour-maid, while the man, also quite decently dressed, was somewhat older. The pair were at the moment standing at the corner of the street near Richmond Station, and it was already nearly ten o’clock at night, at which hour the girl had to be indoors.

Three weeks before she had first met Mr Henry Elton. He had sat next to her in the cinema and had spoken to her. The result had been that he had taken her to tea on several evenings, and on her “day out,” which had been the previous Friday, he had taken her on a char-à-banc to Bognor. He was not at all bad-looking, a solicitor’s managing clerk, he told her, and she rather liked him for his quiet, subtle manner.

But what he had asked her to do had greatly surprised her. He had promised her twenty pounds if she would press her master’s little safe key into the tin matchbox filled with soft wax, and thus take an impression of it. Naturally she asked why. In reply he had explained that he and her master had, for years, been intimate friends, and that once in the club they had had a sharp discussion about safes and keys. Her master had declared that safe-makers made no two keys alike. And now he wanted to play a joke upon him and prove to him that they did.

They had been chatting it over all that evening. The plea was certainly a thin one, but to Lily Lawson in her frame of mind, and with a gentleman as her sweetheart, it sounded quite plausible.

“Of course, I rely upon you, Lily, never to give me away,” he laughed. “I want to win the bet, and I’ll give you half?”

“Of course I won’t,” she answered, as they still stood there, the clock striking ten. “But I really ought not to do it?”

“It isn’t difficult. You say that he often leaves his keys on his dressing-table, and you know the little one which unlocks the safe in the basement.”

“Yes. It’s quite a tiny key with the maker’s name along the barrel of it.”

“Then all you have to do is to press it well into the wax, and there’s fifteen pounds for you if you give the little box back to me to-morrow night. It’s so easy—and twenty pounds will certainly be of use to you, now that your poor mother is so ill.”

The girl wavered. The man saw it and cleverly put further pressure upon her, by suggesting that with the money she could send her mother away for a change.

“But is it really right?” she queried, raising her dark eyes to his.

“Of course it is. It’s only a joke, dear,” he laughed.

Again she was silent.

“Well,” she said at last. “I really must fly now.”

“And you’ll do it, won’t you?” he urged.

“Well, if it’s only a joke, yes. I’ll—I’ll try to do it.”

“At the usual place at nine to-morrow night—eh?”

“All right,” she replied, and hurried away, while the man lit a cigarette, well satisfied, and then turned into a bar to get a drink.

The man was the blackmailer Richard Allen.

During Andrew Barclay’s journey home Allen and his woman accomplice had made a daring attempt to possess themselves of the valuable plan which had been given him by His Excellency. Barclay had broken his journey for a day in Paris, and had gone to the Grand Hôtel. During his absence Allen had applied at the bureau for the key of the room—explaining that he was Mr Barclay’s secretary—and had been given it.

Instantly he went up and ransacked the Englishman’s bags. But to his chagrin and annoyance the plan was not there.

As a matter of fact Barclay had placed it in his pocket-book and carried it with him. Again, next day, as he disembarked from the Channel steamer at Folkestone, Freda stumbled against him and apologised, and while his attention was thus attracted Allen made an attempt to possess himself of his wallet. But in that he was unsuccessful.

Therefore the pair, annoyed at their failure, had watched him enter the train for Victoria and for the moment gave up any further attempt. Thus it was that the man had contrived to get on friendly terms with Barclay’s parlour-maid, who had told him that in the house her master had a safe built in the wall in the basement near the kitchen. In it the silver and other valuables were kept, together with a quantity of papers.

No doubt the precious map was held there in safety, and for that reason they were endeavouring to obtain a cast of the key.

It was after all a dangerous job, for the girl might very easily tell her master of the kind gentleman who had offered twenty pounds for the wherewithal to play a practical joke. And if so, then the police would no doubt be informed and watch would be kept.

With that in view, Freda was next night idling near the spot arranged, close to where one buys “Maids of Honour,” and though Allen was in the vicinity, he did not appear.

At last the girl came and waited leisurely at the corner, whereupon after a few moments Freda approached her and said pleasantly:

“You are waiting for Mr Elton, I believe?”

“Yes, I am,” replied the girl, much surprised. “He is sorry he can’t be here. He had to go to the north this afternoon. He’ll be back in a day or two. He gave me fifteen pounds to give to you for something. Have you got it?”

“Yes,” replied the girl. “Come along, madam, where it’s dark and I’ll give it to you.”

So they moved along together around a corner where they would not be observed, and in exchange for the three five-pound notes the girl handed the woman the little tin matchbox with the impression of a key in the wax.

“You’ll say nothing, of course,” said Freda. “You’ve promised Mr Elton to say nothing.”

“Of course I won’t say anything,” laughed the girl. “The fact is, I’ve had a row with the housekeeper and have given in my notice. I leave this day week.”

This news was to the woman very reassuring. “You’re quite certain you took the right key?” she asked.

“Quite. I looked at the maker’s name before I pressed it into the wax,” she answered. “But I’d like to see Mr Elton again before I leave Richmond.”

“He’ll be back in a couple of days, and then he will write to you. I’ll tell him. Good-night, and thanks.”

And the woman with the little box in her muff moved away well satisfied.

A quarter of an hour later she met Allen outside Richmond Station, and placing the little box in his hands, explained that the girl was leaving her place the following week.

“Excellent! We’ll delay our action until she’s gone. I suppose I’d better see her before she goes, so as to allay any suspicion.” Then, opening the box, his keen eye saw that the impression was undoubtedly one of a safe key.

Indeed, next morning, he took it to a man in Clerkenwell who for years had made a speciality of cutting keys and asking no questions, and by the following night the means of opening the safe at Underhill Road was in Allen’s hands.

The man who lived by the blackmailing of those whom he entrapped—mostly women, by the way—was nothing if not wary, as was shown by the fact that he had sent Freda to act as his messenger. If the girl had told the police the woman could have at once declared that she had never seen the girl before, though if the little box had been found upon her, explanation would have been somewhat difficult. But the gang of which the exquisite adventurer Gordon Gray was the alert head always acted with forethought and circumspection; the real criminal keeping out of the way and lying “doggo” proof was always rendered as difficult as possible.

Gray had gone over to Brussels, which accounted for Willowden being closed. He had a little piece of rather irritating business on hand there. Awkward inquiries by the police had led to the arrest of a man who had sent word in secret that if his wife were not paid two thousand pounds as hush-money, he would tell what he knew. And the wife being a low-class Belgian woman from Namur, Gray had gone over to see her and to appease her husband by paying the sum demanded.

Crooks are not always straight towards each other. Sometimes thieves fall out, and when in difficulties or peril they blackmail each other—often to the advantage of the police.

Roddy and Barclay had met, the latter having told his young friend of the arrangements he had made with His Excellency and the Kaid, and also shown him the map which had been given to him.

At sight of this the young fellow grew very excited.

“Why, it gives us the exact location of the workings,” he cried. “With this, a compass and measuring instruments I can discover the point straight away. The old man is no fool, evidently!”

“No, the Moors are a clever and cultivated race, my dear Roddy,” the elder man replied. “As soon as the Kaid brings over the necessary permits and the concession you can go ahead. I will keep the map in my safe till then, when I will hand all the documents over to you.”

This good news Roddy had told Elma one evening when they had met clandestinely—as they now so often met—at a spot not far from the lodge gates at Farncombe Towers.

“How jolly lucky!” the girl cried. “Now you’re only waiting for the proper permits to come. It’s really most good of Mr Barclay to help you. He must be an awfully nice man.”

“Yes, he’s a topper—one of the best,” Roddy declared. “Out in South America he did me a good turn, and I tried to repay it. So we became friends. He’s one of the few Englishmen who know the Moors and has their confidence. He’s a bachelor, and a great traveller, but just now he’s rented a furnished house in Richmond. He’s one of those rolling stones one meets all over the world.”

The young man waxed enthusiastic. He loved Elma with all his heart, yet he wondered if his affection were reciprocated. She had mentioned to him the close friendship which had sprung up between her father and Mr Rex Rutherford, and how he had dined at Park Lane. But at the moment he never dreamed that her grace and beauty had attracted her father’s newly-made friend.

As for Roddy’s father, he remained calm and reflective, as was his wont, visiting his parishioners, delivering his sermons on Sundays, and going the weary round of the village each day with a cheery face and kindly word for everybody. Nothing had been done concerning his property in Totnes as the woman Crisp had threatened. It was curious, he thought, and it was evident that the ultimatum he had given Gray had caused him to stay his hand.

Yet as he sat alone he often wondered why Gray and that serpent woman should have so suddenly descended upon him, and upon Roddy, to wreak a vengeance that, after all, seemed mysterious and quite without motive.

The hot blazing summer days were passing, when late one balmy breathless night—indeed it was two o’clock in the morning—a man dressed as a railway signalman, who had been on night duty, passed along Underhill Road, in Richmond, and halted near the pillar-box. Underhill Road was one of the quieter and more select thoroughfares of that picturesque suburb, for from the windows of the houses glorious views could be obtained across the sloping Terrace Gardens and the wide valley of the Thames towards Teddington and Kingston.

A constable had, with slow tread, passed along a few moments before, but the signalman, who wore rubber-soled black tennis shoes, had followed without noise.

The watcher, who was Dick Allen, saw the man in uniform turn the corner under the lamplight and disappear. Then slipping swiftly along to a good-sized detached house which stood back from the road in its small garden, he entered the gate and dived quickly down to the basement—which, by the way, he had already well surveyed in the daytime.

Before a window he halted, and turning upon it a small flash-lamp, inserted a knife into the sash and pressed back the latch in a manner that was certainly professional. Having lifted the sash he sprang inside and, guided by the particulars he had learnt from the maid Lily, he soon discovered the door of the safe, which was let into the wall in a stone passage leading from the kitchen to the coal-cellar.

He halted to listen. There was no sound. The little round zone of bright light fell upon the brass flap over the keyhole of the dark-green painted door of the safe, wherein reposed the secret of the rich emerald mine in the great Sahara Desert.

He took the bright little false key, which was already well oiled, and lifting the flap inserted it. It turned easily.

Then he turned the brass handle, which also yielded. He drew the heavy door towards him and the safe stood open! The little light revealed three steel drawers. The first which he opened in eager haste contained a number of little canvas bags, each sealed up. They contained specimens of ore from various mines in Peru and Ecuador. Each bore a tab with its contents described.

In the next were several pieces of valuable old silver, while the third contained papers—a quantity of documents secured by elastic bands.

These he turned over hurriedly, and yet with care so as not to allow the owner to suspect that they had been disturbed. For some time he searched, until suddenly he came upon an envelope bearing upon its flap the address of the Hôtel du Parc at Marseilles. It was not stuck down. He opened it—and there he found the precious map which showed the exact position of the ancient Wad Sus mine!

For a few seconds he held it in his hands in supreme delight. Then, taking from his pocket a blank piece of folded paper he put it into the envelope, and replacing it among the other documents which he arranged just as he had found them, he closed the safe and relocked it.

A second later he stole noiselessly out by the way he had come, the only evidence of his presence being the fact that the window was left unfastened, a fact which his friend Lily’s successor would, he felt sure, never notice.

But as, having slowly drawn down the window, he turned to ascend the steps a very strange and disconcerting incident occurred.