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Smiler Bunn—Crook, George Newnes Ltd., London, 1929,
with "The Adventure of the Lost Rajah" ("A Study in Black)"
THE obviously artificial coon in the mortar-board who had haunted Hanover Square all the morning repeated for the fourth time his melancholy invitation to the inhabitants of that select quarter to
Come up in my balloon
(The fare is half a croon),
Sit and hold tight
And you'll go up all right,
But I won't promise how you'll come doon,
without any acceptances of the aerial offer, and then, apparently recognising that his hospitality was wasted in this part of the town, abruptly turned his back on the Turkish Ambassador's house and lit a tough-looking cigar.
"Ah, well, that's done! And now for a bit of lunch somewhere," he said thoughtfully between puffs.
Latterly Mr. Smiler Bunn had got rather into the habit of using disguises—there were quite a number of people about London who would have liked to meet and recognise him, provided a constable was within reach—and he had found that a suit of old clothes, a mortar-board, and a coat of burnt cork put, as it were, quite a different complexion upon things. No one could have identified the stout but bankrupt-looking nigger minstrel as the deft and flourishing "crook" who recently had come so unostentatiously and unprominently to the fore in shady circles.
Smiler had been having a look at the residence of the Turkish Ambassador. His daily paper that morning had contained half a column about the priceless precious stones which the Ambassador possessed, and Mr. Bunn in the ordinary course of his routine work had just been running his eye over the Embassy in order to get an idea of the kind of locks used on the outer doors, and to make a few mental notes concerning the window fastenings, and so forth.
He had now finished his survey, and was about to leave the square, when his attention was attracted by a person walking slowly towards him. This individual was a man of colour also; but whereas Smiler's complexion was of the kind which, if caught out in the rain, would probably "run," the oncoming "coon" was undoubtedly of a fast colour.
In London, which appears to be largely populated by human freaks, the newcomer was not the sort of person to attract unusual attention, at any rate from the average Londoner. But Mr. Smiler Bunn had long since ceased to be an average Londoner. He had become a fat, quick-witted, eagle-eyed "wrong-'un," with the placid good temper of a cow and the appetite of a healthy wolf, and the demeanour of the new coon struck him at once. He stood still on the kerb with his back to the pavement, waiting for the man to pass him. The person was tall, lean, and be-whiskered, correctly enough turned out in the frock-coat, silk hat style, as black as a stick of liquorice, and —he appeared to have something on his mind. He ambled slowly past the listening Smiler, muttering to himself, and staring vacantly at the pavement.
"One lac of rupees—two lacs of rupees—rupees to the number of grains at the grain-seller's. Ho, Mama Sulang, make me a charm to find the beautiful white face with the straight brows! Sell me a charm for—one lac of rupees—two lacs of rupees—rupees to the number of grains at——"
The rest of it died away in a mumble as the man moved on past Smiler Bunn, who turned his head, staring.
"Well," he muttered, "it's a case of bats in the belfry with that sport, anyhow! Why, he's nutty from post to finish."
He stepped after the foreigner and tapped him mi the shoulder.
"Excuse me, friend," he said, "I couldn't help hearing your conversation. Were you wanting a charm?"
Smiler was not quite sure what a charm was, or, rather, what this particular individual meant by a charm, but nevertheless he was quite prepared to sell him one.
The man stopped and looked at Smiler. His vacant eyes cleared a little, and he gave the kind of smile that a homeless cat might be expected to use if it had occasion to smile.
Then he spoke rapidly in a perfectly incomprehensible tongue. Smiler shook his head.
"Non parley français here," he said humorously. "You'll have to put it into English before we do business."
The other smiled that worn-out, far-away smile of his again, and in very precise English said:
"I shall be much obliged if you will have the kindness to tell me who I am."
Smiler stared.
"Why?" he asked rather weakly.
"Because I have forgotten," said the other.
He looked like an Indian of some standing. He was wearing a diamond ring that, if genuine, was cheap at five hundred pounds.
"Oh, I see!" Smiler took a puff or two at his cigar. Then he leaned forward, and with the air of a man imparting a grave confidence, said, "Well, to tell you the truth, I don't know. But—I'm a detective, and it is my job to find out things. You come and have a bit of lunch with me, and I'll think your case over. I don't anticipate I shall have much trouble with you!"
"It is very kind of you," said the Indian. "Ah ! Come on, then. We'll have a taxi back to my place and I'll just change. Then we'll slip along to Massinelli's and have a word or two with his table d'hôte."
"Yes," said the other simply. "That is a good plan," and Smiler hailed a cab.
"Oh, before I forget it, friend, what's a lac of rupees in English money?" asked Mr. Bunn casually, as they took their seats.
"About six thousand five hundred pounds, I believe," said the Indian.
"Oh—ah—is it now?" gasped Smiler. There was a momentary pause, then Mr. Bunn spoke again.
"About this charm we were speaking of," he remarked, very offhandedly. "I know a man who's got a first-class one, as good as new. I think I could get it from him—-with a bit of trouble."
The Indian passed his hand across his brow perplexedly.
"Charm? Charm? I do not remember speaking of a charm. What charm?"
Smiler looked narrowly at him.
"Yes," he said sadly; "there's something wrong with your memory somewhere. You've got one of those revolving memories that flicks on and off like a blooming biograph. Still, we'll do what we can with it. Don't you worry. I'll look after you all right. My name's Huish—Coomber Huish—Honest Huish, they call me—and it's a lucky thing we met. You'll be astonished how lucky. Have you got such a thing as money on you?"
"Money? Oh, yes, I have money," replied the Indian.
The man pulled out a liberal fistful of mixed gold and silver.
"That's all right," Smiler said. "It's only your memory that's gone, anyhow. You'll be all right with me. Have you been in London long?"
The other shook his head.
"I do not remember—I cannot remember anything. It is as if my memory is frozen."
"But you can remember where you got that money. You can't forget money. Nobody ever forgets that. S'posing you wanted some more—and you might—where'd you go to get it?"
The Indian shook his head indifferently.
"I do not know," he said in his precise English.
"Um—ah!" commented Smiler doubtfully, and lapsed into thought. "What's your idea about lunch?" he asked presently. "I've been thinking Massinelli's is a bit busy at lunch. They've got a big lunch trade, and the waiters haven't got time to be really attentive. How about looking in at Bailey's place and trying the old-fashioned steak-pudding? You've heard of the pudding there, I expect. They get a basin as big as a bath and line it with crust. Then they put a layer of steak and then a layer of kidney and then a layer of mushrooms and then another layer of steak, and on the top of that a layer of oysters, and then a layer of boned hare, some more mushrooms, and then the top crust. Then they boil it slow—more of a simmer, really. That's the secret of steak-pudding—slow boiling. Boil it quick, and the hare gets stringy, and the steak gets tough, and it eats dry. But simmer it slow and it eats like—like fruit. I was the man who advised Bailey to add hare to the pudding—and it was the making of it. Well, I thought a go at the pudding to start with, and a tankard of old ale with it, then a morsel of genuine old-fashioned treacle-roll, finishing up with a taste of Bailey's Stilton, would about do us for lunch. What's your idea?"
"I agree," said the man without a memory carelessly.
Smiler noted the tone, and a shadow passed over his face.
"You oughtn't to be careless about food, you know," he said severely. "That's the ruin of a lot of men. They go about boltin' their lunches instead of thinking about 'em and appreciating 'em. However, wait till you taste this pudding—then you'll understand."
The taxi pulled up at the house where Mr. Bunn rented a small room in which he occasionally changed his disguises, and the two went inside.
Shortly after they were sitting over a generous plate of the famous pudding. Bailey's place was fairly crowded—as it usually was on the days when the pudding was on the menu—but Smiler was well known there, and was able to get a table to themselves.
Mr. Bunn—now well dressed and white—was really pleased to see that although the Indian's memory was weak, there was nothing at all wrong with his appetite. He abolished his pudding, ate the genuine old-fashioned treacle-roll, and finished off the Stilton and old ale like an English countryman.
"Very well done," said Smiler approvingly, and gave him a cigar.
They sat smoking peacefully for a few moments.
Neither of them would have won a prize for high jumping just then.
There was the usual restaurant hum of talk behind and around them, but it seemed to soothe Mr. Bunn rather than to disturb him, till suddenly a voice cut harshly across the murmur that stiffened him in his chair.
"Well, say, dis puddin' sure ain't no charity dope. Dis puddin's de limit. Youse never know what youse gona butt up against in dis burg, but dis puddin's got 'em all whipped good and easy. Say, boy, beat it back to de cook and tell him dere's a guy out here'll be hollerin' for another shovelful in about thoity seconds," said the voice, and subsided—doubtless into the pudding.
Smiler knew the voice—it was that of one "Michael," a certain "plug-ugly" from Chicago, with whom he had come into collision before. Michael had been one of the members of the gang of a dangerous American adventuress, whose path Mr. Bunn had frequently crossed. She was known m the best international criminal circles as Kate the Gun, and one of her ambitions was to have Mr. Smiler Bunn neatly but effectually sandbagged. For she disliked him exceedingly. She had considered him half a fool when she had first met him, and Smiler, in his placid way, had shown that he was rather less than half that. So she wished to get him comfortably and finally sandbagged, and it was Michael whom she had expected to do the sand-bagging. Smiler was aware that on one occasion Michael had deserted the standard of Kate the Gun, but he was shortly to learn that the plug-ugly was once more friends with Kate, and active on her behalf.
Smiler leaned sideways a little and glanced into the mirror facing him. Yes, the man across the room who was scooping up the pudding so realistically was Michael, and his companion was another member of the gang whom Smiler knew as the "Bishop." That is what Michael and Kate the Gun had called him, although his features were quite as liable to remind one of a chimpanzee as of a bishop.
Mr. Bunn beckoned his waiter and paid him.
"There's half a dollar for you, John," he said. "D'you see a couple of Americans over in the corner there? Well, stand between them and me as much as you can when I go out. That's what the half-dollar's for—see?"
The waiter did so, and Smiler was half through the door, his new friend at his heels, when suddenly Michael lifted his eyes from his plate. Idly enough they fell upon the Indian, and his jaw dropped.
"Gee!" he said. "It's de Rajah! Say, Rajah "
Then the waiter swung the door to. But Smiler had heard the exclamation. Half instinctively he turned to the left and drew his companion through a door marked "Private," instead of going to the right, which was the way to the exit of the restaurant. He had hardly closed the door before he heard Michael in the passage.
"I didn't rubber de guy with de Rajah, but de coon was de Rajah all right. An' we gotta git him. He's cut loose somehow," the plug-ugly was saying excitedly as the two rushed towards the entrance to the restaurant.
Smiler quietly turned the key in the lock.
"Easy does it, my lad," he remarked to the Indian, who stood like a lamb while Smiler applied his eye to the keyhole.
Presently he stood up again and unlocked the door.
"All right now," he said. "Step quietly. They've come back to finish their lunch."
The two stepped softly out into the passage and moved towards the street door. But just as they were passing the door of the dining-room the two Americans came out again. For a second the four were face to face. It would be difficult to say which were the most astonished—except the Indian, whom it seemed nothing could astonish—for a few seconds.
Smiler recovered first. He leaned forward to the two plug-uglies.
"Say one word, my lad, or lay one finger on my friend, and I'll give you in charge for the attempted murder of Colonel Amberfold," he said softly, referring to an affair in which he knew Michael to have been implicated.
Michael opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, snarled, and shut it again.
Smiler pushed the Indian past them, and went quickly out. A taxi-cab was crawling down the street just opposite. Smiler hailed it, and with his companion drove away. But the plug-uglies had got a taxi also, and before Smiler's cab had travelled a hundred yards the second taxi was up to them. Smiler pondered things for a moment, then shouted another address to his driver. He had an idea.
"It seems to me, friend, that these blackguards want us both. I know why they want me, but what have they got to do with you?"
The Indian shook his head.
"I do not know—I have forgotten everything." he replied imperturbably.
"One of 'em called you Rajah. Are you a Rajah?"
"I cannot remember. Am I?"
"How the devil do I know?" snapped Mr. Bunn, realising afresh the difficulty of dealing with a man who has no memory.
Presently the taxi pulled up at the house where Smiler rented his disguise-room.
"Go down the street, take first turning to the left, then first to the left again, and wait about fifty yards up that street. You'll be at the back entrance of this house then," he instructed the driver, and, just as the pursuing taxi came to a standstill, he opened the door with his latchkey, and, his arm through the Indian's, disappeared into the house. The taxi slid away down the street, and the plug-uglies, after a quick, whispered conference, settled down to wait. Smiler, peering through the letter slit, chuckled, and took the Indian through the house to the back door. The taxi was already there, and in two seconds it was bound for Ridgemount Mansions. Smiler looked behind once, but there were no signs of any pursuit. He gave a sigh of relief.
"It's a bad plan to hurry so after your lunch," he said to the Indian sadly. "I'm damned if I wouldn't just as soon have no lunch at all as have a good one and then go and turn somersaults! However, we've shaken 'em off!"
But Smiler overlooked the fact that one taxi-driver can find another of his brotherhood without much difficulty—if it is made worth his while. And he was so concerned about the ill-treatment of his digestion that it did not occur to him that the plug-uglies might think it worth while to get their driver to look up his driver.
Just as Smiler and his friend left their taxi and were crossing the pavement into the building in which was Smiler's flat, a newsboy came along dangling a poster before him.
Smiler's vulturine eye took in the contents of the bill at a glance. It was:
RAJAH LOST.
INDIA'S RICHEST RULER MISSING.
Smiler drew in his breath with a hiss.
He snatched a paper, threw the boy a penny, and as rapidly as he decently could hustled the man who had lost his memory along to the safety of his flat.
"You're safe here, whoever you are," he said, as the Indian took an easy-chair of the easiest description at Smiler's invitation. "We'll just have a Benedictine and a thimbleful of coffee apiece, and then we'll talk business."
Having attended to the Benedictines himself, and desired his Chinese valet and cook to "fix up" the coffee, Smiler took a chair near his "guest," and fell to work.
"Now, about your memory," he began. "How far back does your mind carry you—back as far as lunch at Bailey's?"
"Lunch at Bailey's," repeated the other mechanically. "I do not remember lunch at Bailey's."
Smiler tried again.
"Have you forgotten the taxis?"
"Taxis?" said the Indian, obviously puzzled.
"Well, then, d'ye remember coming into this flat five minutes ago?"
Still the man shook his head.
"D'ye remember my offering you a cigar a minute ago?"
"No, I cannot remember."
Smiler stared, amazed.
"Why, damn it all, your mind's living from hand to mouth. Everything that ain't under your very eyes is nothing—blank, frozen."
Smiler grew dizzy trying to realise what such a mental condition meant to a man. For instance, if he struck a match to light a cigar, and happened to take his eyes off it, he would not remember or know he was holding it until the creeping flame burnt him or until his eye chanced to fall on it again; it was in everything, in every little detail of daily, even hourly, life a complete case of "out of sight out of mind." If he were to give a man a diamond ring, for instance, he would never remember to whom he had given it. In two seconds' time the giving would be forgotten absolutely.
"Um—" said Mr. Bunn, "you'd be safer without a valuable ring like that on you. Perhaps you don't know it, but London's full of sharps and thieves of all descriptions—men who wouldn't hesitate to pinch that ring like a flash—absolutely dishonest men. You'd better let me take care of the ring for you. See what I mean? You'd better let me have it now—then you won't forget it."
The Indian drew off the ring with his homeless smile and handed it to Smiler, who put it in his pocket and waited in silence about thirty seconds. Then, speaking briskly, he said:
"You remember that ring you gave me just now for looking after you?"
The other shook his head. Smiler was satisfied.
"Now," he went on, "about who you are. Let's look at your papers."
The Indian, prompted occasionally by Mr. Bunn, turned out his pockets one by one; but with the exception of about seventeen pounds in mixed money, he had nothing—not even a handkerchief.
Mr. Bunn decided to cross-question his queer guest.
"How about the beautiful white face and the level brows?" he asked suddenly—"that you were muttering about when we met?"
The stare of the Indian was perfectly blank.
"I cannot remember," he muttered. He seemed to be growing dazed.
"How about Mama Sulang?"
No answer.
"Well, then, how much in English money is a lac of rupees?"
The Indian shook his head slowly.
"Why, you're worse, my lad!" said Smiler sharply, and stood up just in time to catch the man as, inert, limp and unconscious, he slipped softly from his chair to the floor.
Mr. Bunn swore anxiously. He was not a crook of violent methods, and he had no desire to be mixed up in this man's death—if he was going to die. He lifted him—in spite of his stoutness he was enormously strong—carried him into his bedroom, and laid him on the bed. Then he took off the man's collar, loosened his neckband, and put his ear to his lips. He was breathing steadily. Smiler felt his pulse. It was beating regularly without noticeable weakness. Indeed, the man simply seemed to be deep in profound and healthy sleep. As Smiler watched him his lips opened and a second later a slight snore vibrated through the stillness. The hard lines smoothed out from Smiler's face and he grinned.
"Man's all right," he said. "Man's just tired. I like a bit of a snooze after lunch myself—particularly after pudding at Bailey's."
He put a rug over the sleeping man, left the room, and straightway helped himself to a stiffish whisky. It had startled him a little. No "crook" can afford to have a strange man dying suddenly in his rooms. Then he sat down with a cigar and thought things over.
"If the poor devil is really a Rajah, there'll be a deuce of a reward offered," he concluded. "If he ain't, there won't be. So if he's all right when he wakes up, I'll offer him a home for a few days—until I see what offers are going."
Just as he came to this satisfactory decision the bell of the entrance-door whirred, and in a moment Sing Song came in noiselessly.
"Two men—velly angly—asking seeing you!" he said, with a smile that looked as though it had been painted across his face by a pretty poor artist. "You coming out," he added. It was his method of hinting that the callers were of a kind that Smiler would do better to interview at the door rather than in his flat.
"All right, Sing Song."
Smiler rose, and, instinctively taking a police whistle from the mantel, went out. The Chinaman —like all his race a perfect judge of physiognomy—had left the door on the chain.
As Mr. Bunn half expected, his visitors were Michael, the "plug-ugly," and his confrère, the Bishop. Each of them had his right hand in his pocket.
Smiler looked at them through the foot-wide opening.
"Ah!" he said with a chuckle, "I was expecting you two along!" He had not been, but he suddenly remembered that they must have seen the number of his taxi, and he guessed that they had followed up that doubtful clue.
"Yes, youse fat skate," said Michael politely; "and what are youse gona do about it?"
Smiler smiled blandly.
"Porter, Sing," he said over his shoulder to his Chinaman, who promptly retired to the kitchen, whence in a moment sounded the whistle of a speaking-tube.
"We want de coon wid de whiskers," said Michael, "an' we gotta git 'im—see?"
"Aw, wait a minute, Mike," interposed the Bishop, and peered at Smiler; "let me talk at him."
But just then there was the clash of lift gates behind them, and one of the door porters of the big block of flats stepped out.
Smiler addressed him through the door opening.
"Wilson, I have reason to believe these are two thieves. Will you fetch a couple of policemen and have them cleared out?" he said.
"Certainly, sir," replied Wilson, a burly six-foot ex-sergeant. "I'll chuck 'em out myself—me and the lift-man. Here a minute, Bill!"
Bill—the lift-man—came out from his cage, he was an ex-prize-fighter, and was bigger even than the porter; also hairier and uglier, so that in the dimness of the corridor, in which the lights had not yet been switched on, he rather resembled a well-set-up and capable gorilla. They both knew Mr. Bunn as one of the most generous "tippers" in the building, and, further, they both loved what they were accustomed to term a "scrap" for its own sake.
"Nah, then, are ye gown quiet, or will ye be chucked aht?" asked the lift-man ferociously.
The "plug-uglies" went without words. They were by no means physically afraid—indeed, with their scorn and contempt for fighting fairly, they would probably have given the flat attendants a distinctly unpleasant shock had they wished to—but they had everything to lose by attracting the attention of the police, and certainly nothing to gain by fighting with the two servants. So they went, sullenly, like two hyenas quitting an overripe carcase.
Smiler handed out two half-crowns and returned to his cogitations. Presently he took a look at his guest. That absent-minded individual was sleeping with the tranquillity of a child.
Mr. Bunn smiled and ordered tea and toast for one, took up a shilling paper-covered volume with the cheering title, Thirty-two Years in Sixteen Prisons, by "Falsely Accused," and, reading and eating, gradually glided into a sound and refreshing slumber on his own account. In the bedroom the Indian slept like a log.
It may have been an hour later when Smiler woke suddenly to find his Chinaman standing at his elbow.
"Well, Sing, my son, what's up?"
"Lady asking seeing you—velly plitty—I telling lady you sleeping, lady laugh velly plitty. She say, 'Wake 'im!' I waking," explained Sing Song with his usual bland smile.
"Show her in then," said Smiler, sliding a chair round so that the table stood between the chair the lady would occupy and that of Smiler. He slipped over and locked the door of the bedroom and returned to his chair.
Sing Song ushered in a lady.
It was Kate the Gun—even as Smiler expected. She was dressed to the last, ultimate, final limit of fashion, and by a man who does not mind a certain amount of hardness in a face she would no doubt have been considered "plitty." But Mr. Bunn knew better. Her face may have been of a reasonably presentable shape, but she was no siren as far as he was concerned.
He indicated a chair, and she sat down.
"How do?" he said. "Excuse me a moment before we begin to flirt."
He touched the bell, and the Chinaman appeared.
"I say, Sing Song, tell Wilson the porter to stand on the landing outside the flat, and say nobody is to leave the flat unless I'm with them, got that?"
"Nobody going if you not going," said Sing Song, summing up. Smiler nodded, and the man went out noiselessly.
Kate the Gun sneered.
"You're the wily bird all right," she said sarcastically. "But don't get palpitation of the heart. I'm not going to do anything to you."
"No," said Smiler simply, "you're not. What do you want?"
"I want the nigger."
"It's hard luck," said Mr. Bunn, "to want anything you can't have."
"That nigger's mine," said Kate, a cold light in her eyes. "I wonder you've got the nerve to butt in and pinch my nigger."
He smiled.
"Oh, I'm not worrying," he said. "There was a time when I was scared to death of you, but, bless you, my girl, I'm only interested in you kind of fatherly now. I've got used to you. I look on you like a father looks on an interestin' little girl "
He took an automatic pistol from his pocket as he spoke, and toyed with it. "You're pretty dangerous, so they tell me, but I don't notice no danger myself."
Kate the Gun stood up suddenly, her face white with rage. If ever a woman looked dangerous she did then. The muzzle of Smiler's pistol swung round in an accidental, casual sort of way, so that it covered her. She looked at it, then controlled herself and sat down.
"Now, see here," she said. "I'll make you an offer. Give me the nigger and I call it square. I've got a good bit to wipe out—you've been in my way all the year, and I've been too busy to take any real trouble to get you put out of business for fair. But when I start in on a proposition for keeps I get the goods there! Well, now, give me my nigger and I'll shake hands-—keep the nigger and I'll sure put you out. I'll have you slugged so you'll never care about anything else. You'll be dead."
"I'll keep the nigger," said Smiler.
"You mean that?"
She saw that he did, and rose. Smiler showed her out. Upon his return to the sitting-room Smiler noticed that she had dropped her bag. It lay on the floor near the chair she had occupied. Mr. Bunn picked it up. As he raised it he had a queer fancy that the soft leather moved slightly between his finger and thumb—a little, scarcely perceptible movement that only one with the sensitive, delicate fingers of a trained pickpocket would feel. He dropped the bag on the table suddenly, white-faced.
"Good God!" he said, and, stooping, took up the tongs from the fireplace. With these and a thin walking-cane, from which he cut the ferrule and sharpened to a point, he opened the purse, out of which wriggled a little, yellowish snake not more than six inches long. He saw that the whole of the inside of the bag had been cut away to make room for it. He felt a little sick as he watched the tiny reptile writhe round the table. It had a flat evil head, hardly larger than a sixpence, and just about its lidless, expressionless eyes were two tiny protuberances like small warts. It was by these that Smiler recognised it. He had seen one at the Zoo. The snake was a young horned cerastes—the deadly little beast of Egypt whose bite from the instant of its birth is fatal.
Smiler, very white, smashed it flat as a cigarette paper with the coal shovel, and took a whisky undiluted.
"If this is her true form I wish I'd given her the nigger," he said. "That beastly thing would have got me if I'd opened the purse! Why, it'd have been murder!"
He shook his head gravely.
"This won't do!" he said.
He thought for a moment.
"Kate ain't far away," he soliloquised. "She'll be waiting to hear if I'm bit. I'll shadow her home and give her up. That'll put the cops on her. It'll come to that sooner or later. Either I'm going to give her away, or she'll give me away, and it's the early bird catches the cops. Then, perhaps, I shall be allowed to eat a meal in peace."
He went quietly into a dressing-room next to the bedroom.
Ten minutes later there emerged from a side door of the mansions a stout individual who looked as though he might be a ship's fireman from the docks. He was as black as an African of the deepest dye, was clothed in shabby blue, with a coloured muffler round his neck and a worn shiny-peaked cap of very nautical appearance upon his head.
Smiler Bunn kept disguises at home as well as elsewhere. A good disguise, in his opinion, was more valuable than the best emergency exit in the world.
He lounged down to the corner whence he could see the front door of the mansions, and, leaning against a lamp-post, lighted a pipe and waited, ostensibly reading an evening paper in the lamplight.
Two men, whispering, passed and repassed him several times. He recognised them as the plug-uglies. They seemed to be waiting for somebody or something. They shot a keen, rapid glance at the negro fireman leaning against the lamp-post, but obviously failed to recognise him. Once as they passed him Smiler caught a low sinister mutter:
"De worm'll git him, sure."
It was Michael who muttered it to his companion, and he muttered it gladly, as though it were good news.
Then, some twenty minutes or so later, Smiler saw Kate the Gun walking quickly down the street towards the mansions. He put away his paper, and just as she passed him he struck a match and lighted his pipe. The glow of the match flickered upon his black face, and Kate gave him no more than a casual glance. It was plain that she did not associate him with the man for whose benefit she had left her bag and its contents in the flat. On her heels came the third man of her gang—he who had been originally a detective, but had enlisted under her banner. He was the only one of the gang who had not entered the mansions during the evening.
Almost opposite the entrance to the block the four drew together, as it were by chance, paused for a scarcely perceptible fraction of time, and moved away from each other. But, as well as though he had heard them, Mr. Bunn knew that the plug-uglies had reported to Kate the Gun that nothing unusual had happened since she left, and had received further instructions. The two came slowly on towards him, Kate continued her walk past the mansions, and the third man entered the block.
Three minutes later the man came out again—just as Kate and her "toughs," having turned, met abreast of the main door. In his hand the ex-detective bore a scrap of white paper.
Smiler, too, had lounged up and was passing the group just as the man with the paper spoke.
"He got wise to the snake act, somehow," said the man in an excited whisper. "He's gone out, so the Chink says, but he left this note:
I had to squash your pet, Katie, but you can have your bag back any time you apply to Scotland Yard for it.—
Your loving Smiler.
"Gee!" muttered the Bishop. "The fat guy got the grey stuff in his coco on the swirl all right. Try again, Kate."
"Aw!" said the woman, "he's caught four aces this time, but it'll be a pair of deuces next. Now we'll beat it home. Guess he won't eat the nigger to-night, anyway—and he won't lose him, neither. You'd better take turns watching the block in case he tries to smuggle the nigger out!"
They separated, each going alone. Smiler smiled and followed the ex-detective—he seemed the least likely to take a cab.
When, half an hour later, Mr. Bunn once more let himself into his flat he knew that the headquarters of Kate the Gun were, for the time being at any rate, in a certain first-floor flat in Charing Cross Road.
His laudable intention now was to change into pyjamas and dressing-gown, and having mixed himself a whisky hot, sit before the fire and cheerfully think out a plan to land the whole gang comfortably into the hands of the police without risk to himself from the same.
But things had moved in his absence.
The Indian he had left asleep on his bed was now lying on a couch in the sitting-room. He was asleep, but on the table lay a sheet of paper covered with writing.
Mr. Bunn picked it up and read as follows:
"To my Host,
"I am the Rajah of Jolapore. I am in residence at the Southern Grand Hotel. Go there and ask privately for my French valet, Lucien Santoin, and bring him to me. One word will suffice to bring him. The room in which you have given me shelter I will fill with gold. Let none other of my attendants know of this. I have been drugged by the lady with whom I dined on the evening of Monday, the eighth of October. This drug has affected my memory. I feel it leaving me as I write. The name of the lady...."
Here the precise English writing trailed off into a confused blur of straggling Hindustani characters, which, in turn, degenerated into a meaningless, futile scrawl ending in a long irregular blot such as is made by a wet pen when it falls from one's fingers and rolls across the page.
Evidently the man had awoke with his memory fresh, but the mental effort of writing the note and explaining the situation had been too much for him.
Mr. Bunn re-read it and then looked at the Indian.
"Yes," he said. "Fill my room with gold—I don't think! Funny way these foreigners got of talking. Still—there may be a quid or two in it. Kate wants him back bad enough, anyhow. I think I'll go and fetch Lucy."
He pondered a moment, following the scheme.
"I suppose Kate marked him down and made his acquaintance somehow. He gets gone on her, poor fathead, and goes to dine with her—wonder what sort of a dinner she gave him!—and when it comes to the coffee, she gives him half coffee and half drug, which lays him out stiff, Kate meaning to hold him tucked away in some place until big rewards are out for his discovery, when she lets two of her gang bring him back to where he belongs with a yarn about finding him wandering around without a memory. They draw the reward, and the gang cuts it up. Very good idea, too."
Smiler nodded his head appreciatively.
"Only when they'd got him they didn't keep a clutch on to him. I s'pose they'd left him alone for a bit, and he'd woke up, and only half knowing what he was doing he'd walked quietly out into the street. That's it, Smiler, my lad. These Indian sports all eat opium, I've heard, and naturally a drug wouldn't affect them as much as a white man's body, whatever it would do to their memory. While Kate and her crowd reckoned the drug was keeping him quiet for the next few hours, he was just walking straight into my arms!"
He instructed his Chinaman to stun any one who called rather than allow them to enter the flat in his absence. Then he took a taxi to the Southern Grand Hotel.
Lucien Santoin—an elderly man of discreet manner—was there, and the reception Mr. Bunn received when he told his news made him blink. As he soliloquised afterwards, it was not till then that he realised what it meant to get his hooks on to a real Rajah, and certainly not until it was too late and he was rushing in an extravagantly luxurious car to his flat did he appreciate that he might have made a fortune out of the potentate by holding him a little longer.
The Rajah was still sleeping when they reached the flat, but between them, M. Santoin, Smiler, and the night porter, under the direction of a doctor the valet had picked up on the way, carried him down, to his car.
"Call at the hotel to-morrow," said Santoin as he left.
"I'll try to remember to look in," replied Mr. Bunn humorously. He thrust a paper into the valet's hand. "When you've got him fixed up at his hotel, send for some one from Scotland Yard. At the address on this paper the 'tecs'll find a woman, and very likely two or three men."
He hastily described Kate the Gun and her gang. "That's the bunch who drugged His Highness. You get them and you've done yourself—and me—a bit of real good—see?"
The discreet one nodded, and the car swung away down the street. It was very late, and the street was deserted. But as Smiler looked after the disappearing car a man ran out from the shadow of a doorway across the street, raising his arm. Smiler saw the movement and stepped swiftly aside. And it was well he did, for even as he swung the door to, something flashed white under the light of the street lamp, and a heavy knife, hissed past, an inch from his neck, and struck quivering in the woodwork of the lift behind. The door closed with a bang, and Smiler and the night porter stared at each other.
Mr. Bunn pulled out the knife and ran his thumb along the blade.
"Nearly got it in the neck that time," he said. "Thrown by a man I'm not popular with. I knew he could shoot and was handy with a sandbag, but I never heard he was a bit of a juggler before. Man named Michael—one of the pair you turned out a bit back. Oh, he's gone by now—still running, I expect. Michael don't take many risks. Here's half a jimmy for you—there's no need to make a song about all this. Good night!"
And Smiler departed in quest of supper and bed.
But there was still another shock on the way to him, and it arrived on the following morning when he interviewed the discreet Santoin in a small anteroom at the Southern Grand Hotel.
"His Highness is dangerously ill," said the valet, "and the police are waiting to see you. They visited the place you spoke of last night, but the gang had gone."
Mr. Bunn nodded.
"Yes, one of 'em was watching the flat. He saw the Rajah took away. He nearly got me in the neck."
"The police say that they wish to examine you," went on the valet. "I do not know who you are or whether you desire to talk with the police. But I know that it was you who restored His Highness, and I say to you that when he is well you will be wise to come here again and remind him of that. You can very well understand that we desire no talk, no police, no reporters, that we desire only to be discreet and to say nothing and to have nothing said. So if you wish to add to the debt of gratitude which His Highness already owes you, then you will leave this room by that door with me, and I will conduct you from the hotel." He indicated a door on the left.
"If you insist, however, you are at liberty to leave by the door on the right, on the outside of which a detective is waiting. But His Highness would regret it if he were well. Which door do you choose?"
Mr. Bunn smiled.
"Choose?" he said. "Choose? Good Lord—the left!"
Santoin bowed—and they made it the left.
Ten minutes later Mr. Bunn, strolling homewards, summed up.
"Well, I daresay the Rajah'll come down handsome when he recovers, but meantime it's no more than a credit transaction." He took a furtive peep at a valuable diamond ring he half drew from his waistcoat. "Although," he continued, apparently addressing the gem, "you're certainly a trifle on account!"
He lighted a cigar.
"It's a pity Kate and her crowd got away, though," he said. "I'll have to keep a mighty sharp look-out for them now. I must get another flat somewhere." He shook his head gravely. Then he looked at his watch and brightened up astonishingly. "And now," he concluded, "now for a bit of lunch."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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