The Orator listened and yet did not listen. He was thinking of M. Theodor Louis Hazeborn Dissel and of M. Heinrich Frederick Dinehem Dissel.
Going back to his suburban home that night, the Orator suddenly said:
“It is crazy!”
“Who is crazy?” asked his startled fellow passenger — for Mr. Rater had made his cryptic pronouncement in a railway carriage.
“Everybody,” said the Orator with great calmness.
His companion drew back to a corner seat and located the alarm cord.
But it was crazy — this theory which was beginning to shape in the Orator’s mind. The craziest notion that any man could conceive.
Patiently he began a fresh enquiry, exploring new avenues that radiated from old crimes. For three weeks he sought interviews with jewel thieves who were behind bars. A dozen prisons were visited, and at the end of his investigations he uncovered a skilfully hidden path that led from London to Belgium. Along this path furtive intermediaries had passed, carrying the proceeds of a score of robberies big and little. Not always did it lead to Brussels; sometimes it branched off to Liége, sometimes it stopped short at Ostend, but always at the end of it was a mysterious somebody to be found in a café or a beer-hall or place less reputable, and always the rendezvous was designated in London.
“This was how it was done, Mr. Rater” (the speaker was a fence serving out his sentence in Maidstone Gaol). “When the boys got a good haul it was as certain as anything one of the big fences would be called up on the ’phone and told where the stuff could be sold. I don’t know where this bird got his information, but he got it. And then one of our runners would take it over the water. The money was always good. I’ve taken stuff over myself.”
“You never saw the foreign fence?”
“Never. You’d get to the café and then somebody would come in and say ‘The boss is outside.’ He’d be waiting round the corner in a cab. He’d go through the swag like lightning with an electric lamp, name the price and pay it on the spot.”
The Orator did not ask how the London agent of the fence came to know who held the stolen property. He knew the underworld well enough to know that in certain sets such matters are common knowledge. He knew too that most receivers and the bigger of the thieves had houses of call to which they might be telephoned. The crazy idea was no longer crazy.
Two days after this he had a whole day to himself and he took a busman’s holiday — he called on the brother of the volatile Heinrich.
Heinrich’s office in Brussels had been one miserable room, untidily furnished. The office of the industrious Theodor was a place of polished mahogany and shining brass. On the ground-glass panel of the door was a neatly painted announcement:
He was a tall, carefully dressed man, clean-shaven, rather exquisite, thought the Orator. His hair was brushed carefully back from his high forehead, he wore a monocle, his linen (in contrast to his brother’s) was immaculate. His English was faultless.
A girl secretary showed Mr. Rater into the private office where Theodor sat at a desk so amazingly neat and orderly that it seemed impossible that it could have been used. Theodor bowed from his hips, a little ceremoniously — it was the only suggestion of his foreign origin.
“I have an uncomfortable feeling that you have come to see me about my brother,” he said with a rueful smile. “It isn’t exactly a premonition, because I happen to know that you interviewed him a few days ago — in fact he wrote and told me, and although he did not tell me the object of your call, I am just a little uneasy.”
“Why?” asked the Orator bluntly.
M. Theodor Dissel paced up and down the room, his hands in the pockets of his well-creased trousers.
“Well...” he hesitated, “you will not expect me to say anything disparaging of Heinrich — that would be unnatural. He is a wild sort of fellow, absolutely unstable, but I do not think bad at heart. When a man is as careless with money as he is, there is always a likelihood that he might get himself into serious trouble. Is it some trading transaction — some debt he has contracted which he has not paid? I am certain he would do nothing fraudulent—”
His manner betrayed a natural anxiety. It was exactly the attitude the Orator would have expected in a worried brother.
“If it is money...” Theodor shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “I can do little. I have already helped him to the extent of fifteen thousand pounds. That money I shall never receive in his lifetime.”
“There is no question of fraud” — the Orator spoke slowly — “not the kind of fraud you mean. Your brother is a Belgian national, isn’t he?” and, when Theodor nodded: “And you are British — naturalized?”
“Yes,” said Theodor quietly. “I am married in England since the war. If my brother is married I do not know.” He shrugged again. “He is the kind of man who is likely to contract alliances of a less permanent character. I will be frank with you — he is a great trouble to me.”
The Orator said nothing. He stroked his face, and in his large, pathetic, doglike eyes seemed to be reflected something of the other’s care.
“Whatever you told me of Heinrich I should, alas! believe. He has certain friends who are not—” His gesture expressed the limits of disparagement.
“Ever heard of his being engaged in the jewellery business?”
Theodor frowned.
“Jewellery business?” He spoke slowly. “I did not know that he was in that trade. And yet, when he was in London last, he hinted that he had some dealings with a man in London — a Mr. Devereux. I met Devereux once, a rather unpleasant looking man — not the kind one would imagine was a jeweller. In fact I disliked his appearance so much that when he called on me after my brother’s return to Belgium I sent a message to him that I was busy and could not see him.”
The Orator thought for a long time.
“Quite right,” he said at last. “Devereux is a pretty bad man. I know him.”
He went home to his lodgings and puzzled things out.
“Crazy idea!” was the sum of his conclusions.
It was a problem that could be marked Shelved for development. The Orator accordingly laid his mystery in a handy place.
It was a fortnight later that Heinrich Dissel stepped gingerly out of the Brussels train at Ostend station. It was a warm and heavy September day and a white mist lay upon a glassy sea. He engaged a cabin aft, a “cabin of luxury,” where he deposited his one piece of luggage, a small valise, and ordered lunch to be served. He was, apparently, a little lame, for he walked painfully with the aid of a stick when he made an appearance upon the deck.
The mist held to Dover, growing thicker as the English coast was approached. The boat, guided by the guns and siren of Dover Harbor, came slowly towards the harbor’s mouth, an hour late.
It was when she was turning — for mail boats go into harbor stern first — that a second-class passenger heard a cry for help. Heinrich Dissel had been seen hobbling towards the stern of the ship; had also been seen (and warned by a quartermaster) sitting perilously on the rail over the stern.
The cry was followed by a splash, and rushing to the side, a steward saw Heinrich’s walking stick floating out of sight, but saw nothing of the man. A boat was instantly lowered, but though the sailors recovered his hat, Heinrich had disappeared from sight.