The Seven Dials Mystery (28 page)

“So it is,” said Bill. “Now that I know you care for me—”

“Stop it,” said Bundle. “Once we begin again any serious conversation will be hopeless. Unless you pull yourself together and become sensible, I shall very likely change my mind.”

“I shan't let you,” said Bill. “You don't think that once having got you I'd be such a fool as to let you go, do you?”

“You would not coerce me against my will, I hope,” said Bundle grandiloquently.

“Wouldn't I?” said Bill. “You just watch me do it, that's all.”

“You really are rather a darling, Bill. I was afraid you might be too meek, but I see there's going to be no danger of that. In another half hour you'd be ordering me about. Oh, dear, we're getting silly again. Now, look here, Bill. We've got to get out of here.”

“I tell you that'll be quite all right. I shall—”

He broke off, obedient to a pressure from Bundle's hand. She was leaning forward, listening intently. Yes, she had not been mistaken. A step was crossing the outer room. The key was thrust into the lock and turned. Bundle held her breath. Was it Jimmy coming to rescue them—or was it someone else?

The door opened and the black-bearded Mr. Mosgorovsky stood on the threshold.

Immediately Bill took a step forward, standing in front of Bundle.

“Look here,” he said, “I want a word with you privately.”

The Russian did not reply for a minute or two. He stood stroking his long, silky black beard and smiling quietly to himself.

“So,” he said at last, “it is like that. Very well. The lady will be pleased to come with me.”

“It's all right, Bundle,” said Bill. “Leave it to me. You go with this chap. Nobody's going to hurt you. I know what I'm doing.”

Bundle rose obediently. That note of authority in Bill's voice was new to her. He seemed absolutely sure of himself and confident of being able to deal with the situation. Bundle wondered vaguely what it was that Bill had—or thought he had—up his sleeve.

She passed out of the room in front of the Russian. He followed her, closing the door behind him and locking it.

“This way, please,” he said.

He indicated the staircase and she mounted obediently to the floor above. Here she was directed to pass into a small frowsy room, which she took to be Alfred's bedroom.

Mosgorovsky said: “You will wait here quietly, please. There must be no noise.”

Then he went out, closing the door behind him and locking her in.

Bundle sat down on a chair. Her head was aching badly still and she felt incapable of sustained thought. Bill seemed to have the sitaution well in hand. Sooner or later, she supposed, someone would come and let her out.

The minutes passed. Bundle's watch had stopped, but she judged that over an hour had passed since the Russian had brought her here. What was happening? What, indeed,
had
happened?

At last she heard footsteps on the stairs. It was Mosgorovsky once more. He spoke very formally to her.

“Lady Eileen Brent, you are wanted at an emergency meeting of the Seven Dials Society. Please follow me.”

He led the way down the stairs and Bundle followed him. He opened the door of the secret chamber and Bundle passed in, catching her breath in surprise as she did so.

She was seeing for the second time what she had only had a glimpse of the first time through her peephole. The masked figures were sitting round the table. As she stood there, taken aback by the suddenness of it, Mosgorovsky slipped into his place, adjusting his clock mask as he did so.

But this time the chair at the head of the table was occupied. No 7 was in his place.

Bundle's heart beat violently. She was standing at the foot of the table directly facing him and she stared and stared at the mocking piece of hanging stuff, with the clock dial on it, that hid his features.

He sat quite immovable and Bundle got an odd sensation of power radiating from him. His inactivity was not the inactivity of weakness—and she wished violently, almost hysterically, that he would speak—that he would make some sign, some gesture—not just sit there like a gigantic spider in the middle of its web waiting remorselessly for its prey.

She shivered and as she did so Mosgorovsky rose. His voice, smooth, silky, persuasive, seemed curiously far away.

“Lady Eileen, you have been present unasked at the secret councils of this society. It is therefore necessary that you should identify yourself with our aims and ambitions. The place 2 o'clock, you may notice, is vacant. It is that place that is offered to you.”

Bundle gasped. The thing was like a fantastic nightmare. Was it possible that she, Bundle Brent, was being asked to join a murderous secret society? Had the same proposition been made to Bill, and had he refused indignantly?

“I can't do that,” she said bluntly.

“Do not answer precipitately.”

She fancied that Mosgorovsky, beneath his clock mask, was smiling significantly into his beard.

“You do not as yet know, Lady Eileen, what it is you are refusing.”

“I can make a pretty good guess,” said Bundle.

“Can you?”

It was the voice of 7 o'clock. It awoke some vague chord of memory in Bundle's brain. Surely she knew that voice?

Very slowly No 7 raised a hand to his head and fumbled with the fastening of the mask.

Bundle held her breath. At last—she was going to
know.

The mask fell.

Bundle found herself looking into the expressionless, wooden face of Superintendent Battle.

Thirty-two

B
UNDLE
IS
D
UMBFOUNDED

“T
hat's right,” said Battle, as Mosgorovsky leapt up and came round to Bundle. “Get a chair for her. It's been a bit of a shock, I can see.”

Bundle sank down on the chair. She felt limp and faint with surprise. Battle went on talking in a quiet, comfortable way wholly characteristic of him.

“You didn't expect to see me, Lady Eileen. No, and no more did some of the others sitting round the table. Mr. Mosgorovsky's been my lieutenant in a manner of speaking. He's been in the know all along. But most of the others have taken their orders blindly from him.”

Still Bundle said no word. She was—a most unusual state of affairs for her—simply incapable of speech.

Battle nodded at her comprehendingly, seeming to understand the state of her feelings.

“You'll have to get rid of one or two preconceived ideas of yours, I'm afraid, Lady Eileen. About this society, for instance—I know it's common enough in books—a secret organization of criminals with a mysterious supercriminal at the head of it whom no one ever sees. That sort of thing may exist in real life, but I can only say that I've never come across anything of the sort, and I've had a good deal of experience one way or another.

“But there's a lot of romance in the world, Lady Eileen. People, especially young people, like reading about such things, and they like still better really
doing
them. I'm going to introduce you now to a very creditable band of amateurs that has done remarkably fine work for my Department, work that nobody else could have done. If they've chosen rather melodramatic trappings, well, why shouldn't they? They've been willing to face real danger—danger of the very worst kind—and they've done it for these reasons: love of danger for its own sake—which to my mind is a very healthy sign in these Safety First days—and an honest wish to serve their country.

“And now, Lady Eileen, I'm going to introduce you. First of all, there's Mr. Mosgorovsky, whom you already know in a manner of speaking. As you're aware, he runs the club and he runs a host of other things too. He's our most valuable Secret Anti-Bolshevist Agent in England. No 5 is Count Andras of the Hungarian Embassy, a very near and dear friend of the late Gerald Wade. No 4 is Mr. Hayward Phelps, an American journalist, whose British sympathies are very keen and whose aptitude for scenting ‘news' is remarkable. No 3—”

He stopped, smiling, and Bundle stared dumbfounded into the sheepish, grinning face of Bill Eversleigh.

“No 2,” went on Battle in a graver voice, “can only show an empty place. It is the place belonging to Mr. Ronald Devereux, a very gallant young gentleman who died for his country if any man ever did. No 1—well, No 1 was Mr. Gerald Wade, another very gallant gentleman who died in the same way. His place was taken—not without some grave misgivings on my part—by a lady—a lady who has proved her fitness to have it and who has been a great help to us.”

The last to do so, No 1, removed her mask, and Bundle looked without surprise into the beautiful, dark face of Countess Radzky.

“I might have known,” said Bundle resentfully, “that you were too completely the beautiful foreign adventuress to be anything of the kind really.”

“But you don't know the real joke,” said Bill. “
Bundle, this is Babe St. Maur
—you remember my telling you about her and what a ripping actress she was—and she's about proved it.”

“That's so,” said Miss Maur in pure transatlantic nasal. “But it's not a terrible lot of credit to me, because Poppa and Momma came from that part of Yurrup—so I got the patter fairly easy. Gee, but I nearly gave myself away once at the Abbey, talking about gardens.”

She paused and then said abruptly:

“It's—it's not been just fun. You see, I was kinder engaged to Ronny, and when he handed in his checks—well, I had to do something to track down the skunk who murdered him. That's all.”

“I'm completely bewildered,” said Bundle. “Nothing is what it seems.”

“It's very simple, Lady Eileen,” said Superintendent Battle. “It began with some of the young people wanting a bit of excitement. It was Mr. Wade who first got on to me. He suggested the formation of a band of what you might call amateur workers to do a bit of secret service work. I warned him that it might be dangerous—but he wasn't the kind to weigh that in the balance. I made it plain to him that anyone who came in must do so on that understanding. But, bless you, that wasn't going to stop any of Mr. Wade's friends. And so the thing began.”

“But what was the object of it all?” asked Bundle.

“We wanted a certain man—wanted him badly. He wasn't an ordinary crook. He worked in Mr. Wade's world, a kind of Raffles, but much more dangerous than any Raffles ever was or could be. He was out for big stuff, international stuff. Twice already valuable secret inventions had been stolen, and clearly stolen by someone who had inside knowledge. The professionals had had a try—and failed. Then the amateurs took on—and succeeded.”

“Succeeded?”

“Yes—but they didn't come out of it unscathed. The man was dangerous. Two lives fell victim to him and he got away with it. But the Seven Dials stuck to it. And as I say they succeeded. Thanks to Mr. Eversleigh, the man was caught at last red-handed.”

“Who was he?” asked Bundle. “Do I know him?”

“You know him very well, Lady Eileen. His name is Mr. Jimmy Thesiger, and he was arrested this afternoon.”

Thirty-three

B
ATTLE
E
XPLAINS

S
uperintendent Battle settled down to explain. He spoke comfortably and cosily.

“I didn't suspect him myself for a long time. The first hint of it I had was when I heard what Mr. Devereux's last words had been. Naturally, you took them to mean that Mr. Devereux was trying to send word to Mr. Thesiger that the Seven Dials had killed him. That's what the words seemed to mean on their face value. But of course I knew that that couldn't be so. It was the Seven Dials that Mr. Devereux wanted told—and what he wanted them told was something about Mr. Jimmy Thesiger.

“The thing seemed incredible, because Mr. Devereux and Mr. Thesiger were close friends. But I remembered something else—that these thefts must have been committed by someone who was absolutely in the know. Someone, who, if not in the Foreign Office himself, was in the way of hearing all its chitchat. And I found it very hard to find out where Mr. Thesiger got his money. The income his father left him was a small one, yet he was able to live at a most expensive rate. Where did the money come from?

“I knew that Mr. Wade had been very excited by something that he had found out. He was quite sure that he was on the right track. He didn't confide in anyone about what he thought that track was, but he did say something to Mr. Devereux about being on the point of making sure. That was just before they both went down to Chimneys for that weekend. As you know, Mr. Wade died there—apparently from an overdose of a sleeping draught. It seemed straightforward enough, but Mr. Devereux did not accept that explanation for a minute. He was convinced that Mr. Wade had been very cleverly put out of the way and that someone in the house must actually be the criminal we were all after. He came, I think, very near confiding in Mr. Thesiger, for he certainly had no suspicions of him at that moment. But something held him back.

“Then he did a rather curious thing. He arranged seven clocks upon the mantelpiece, throwing away the eighth. It was meant as a symbol that the Seven Dials would revenge the death of one of their members—and he watched eagerly to see if anyone betrayed themselves or showed signs of perturbation.”

“And it was Jimmy Thesiger who poisoned Gerry Wade?”

“Yes, he slipped the stuff into a whisky and soda which Mr. Wade had downstairs before retiring to bed. That's why he was already feeling sleepy when he wrote that letter to Miss Wade.”

“Then the footman, Bauer, hadn't anything to do with it?” asked Bundle.

“Bauer was one of our people, Lady Eileen. It was thought likely that our crook would go for Herr Eberhard's invention and Bauer was got into the house to watch events on our behalf. But he wasn't able to do much. As I say, Mr. Thesiger administered the fatal dose easily enough. Later, when everyone was asleep, a bottle, glass and empty chloral bottle were placed by Mr. Wade's bedside by Mr. Thesiger. Mr. Wade was unconscious then, and his fingers were probably pressed round the glass and the bottle so that they should be found there if any questions should arise. I don't know what effect the seven clocks on the mantelpiece made on Mr. Thesiger. He certainly didn't let on anything to Mr. Devereux. All the same, I think he had a bad five minutes now and again thinking of them. And I think he kept a pretty wary eye on Mr. Devereux after that.