Elated by a win at poker, I dropped in at the Café Royal to treat myself to a champagne supper. Though it was almost one o’clock, I found the fashionable after-theatre resort more than usually crowded.
Taken aback by the din and dazzle of the spacious dining-room, I paused between the curtains of crimson velvet that draped the lofty doorway, where the head waiter, who knew me, greeted me with a look of concern.
“Why, Mr. Manders,” he said, “are you unaware that Signora Luisa Tetrazzini, the great soprano, made her long-awaited London debut tonight? She sang the Violetta role in Signor Verdi’s La Traviata so brilliantly, I’m told, that she had endless curtain calls. In consequence, all the socially-important people who’ve come on here, for supper after the opera, are exceptionally late — and, as you see, I’m afraid I’ve no table to offer you. However,” he added, with a hint of hesitation, “your friend Mr. A. J. Raffles is here.”
“Then there’s no problem,” I said. “Mr. Raffles will naturally wish me to join him.”
“With respect, Mr. Manders, are you quite sure he will?” demurred the head waiter, and with a cryptic glance he directed my attention to a table adjacent to one of the huge, gilt-framed wall-mirrors that, on the far side of the dining-room, reflected the crystal glitter of the chandeliers and the animation of the throng.
I at once understood the head waiter’s doubt. For Raffles was not alone. His evening-dress immaculate, his dark hair crisp, his keen face tanned, he was tête-à-tête with a lady unknown to me.
In our sports-mad country, the captaincy of its representative cricket team, the England XI, involved so many social duties that only some gentleman of independent means who played cricket with skill, from pure love of the game and not for payment, was ever considered suitable for the coveted appointment.
Currently, it was held by A. J. Raffles, who as a result was very well-known, was elected to all the best clubs, was received in the best society — and inevitably, as an agreeable bachelor, was acquainted with many beautiful women.
I often saw him, about town or at the racecourses or at Lord’s Cricket Ground, escorting some notable beauty. But his present supper companion, with her raven hair, perfect profile, and necklace of lustrous rubies, seemed especially to his taste. They were the best-matched couple in the Café Royal dining-room. Smiling warmly into each other’s eyes, they tinkled their champagne glasses together in what was evidently a toast of mutual esteem.
Where women were concerned, Raffles and I respected each other’s right to privacy. To intrude, if one of us happened to see the other in feminine company, was not a thing we did.
“On second thoughts,” I said to the head waiter, “I shall not be joining Mr. Raffles at table. I shall sup elsewhere.”
Bowing his approval of my tact, the head waiter left me. And, myself about to turn and go, I cast a last glance in the direction of Raffles’ table — with the result that, by sheer chance, I saw something that startled me.
I saw, in that big wall-mirror adjacent to Raffles’ table, that he and the lady with him were being watched.
I drew back into partial concealment by the portière curtains and, round the edge of their crimson velvet, had a sharper look across the dining-room at that mirror. It reflected Raffles’ table and several others, including one at which a man sitting alone, his back to Raffles’ table, was smoking a cigar. He was also, it seemed to me, keeping on Raffles’ table, as reflected in the mirror, an intent scrutiny.
Ramrod-backed in evening-dress, he was of military appearance, ruddy of face, a hint of grey in his close-clipped moustache and in the black hair brushed back thickly over his ears. His eyes were a piercing blue. He took from his pocket a notebook and a gold pencil. He jotted down something, pocketed the notebook, took up his coffee-cup and, over its rim, resumed by way of the mirror his unmistakable surveillance of Raffles’ table.
I withdrew to the red-carpeted, chandelier-bright foyer. My heart thumped, my mind raced. What to do? Raffles’ “independent means” were in fact dependent on ventures, when opportunity offered, into crime. In such ventures I was his confederate, and the only other person who knew of them — as far as we were aware — was Raffles’ friend and highly skilful “fence,” Ivor Kern. But now Raffles, in the company of a lady with rubies, was under surveillance. The implications made my blood freeze.
I had to find out who the watcher was.
I reclaimed my topper from the cloakroom. Outside the Café Royal a four-wheeler cab had just dropped a fare. I told the cabbie to drive me fifty yards or so up Regent Street, then wait for my further instructions.
This he did. The streetlamps, brightly gaslit, shone in the clear night, but the interior of the cab was dark. I lowered the window on its strap and kept a sharp eye on the Café Royal. Cabs came to it and went from it. After ten long minutes or thereabouts, I saw Raffles come out, the lady with him. Ignoring a waiting hansom hopeful of hire, they strolled away arm-in-arm toward nearby Piccadilly Circus. Almost at once, the man who worried me emerged from the Café Royal.
Tall, tophatted, he stood lighting a fresh cigar as he watched the receding figures of Raffles and the lady. Then he got into the hansom, which set off in my direction, jingled past my stationary cab, and continued north up Regent Street. I told my cabbie to keep the hansom in sight.
“I’m acting,” I said, to explain my request, “on behalf of a lady.”
“Good on yer, guv’,” said the cabbie.
There was little traffic in the streets as the hansom led us, by way of Bloomsbury, into respectable Southampton Row. Here the hansom turned to the right, into a narrow opening. Fortunately, my cabbie had his wits about him — for, as we reached the opening, he saw what I saw: that the opening was the entry to a cul-de-sac where, before the house at the dead end, the hansom had stopped and my quarry was paying off the driver.
My cabbie drove straight on past the cul-de-sac entry for twenty yards or so before he reined-in. I tipped him liberally and, wishing me luck, he drove off. The hansom reappeared, minus passenger, and jingled away along Southampton Row. I walked to the cul-de-sac entry. It bore a wall-plate, dimly discernible: Finch Court. I entered it.
On the left were three small but dignified houses with shallow porches and iron-barred ground-floor windows. On the right were three more houses. All the houses were identical, as was the house that closed the dead end — the house which, I was sure, the man who worried me had entered.
I approached the house with circumspection. Directly in front of it was Finch Court’s only streetlamp. The gaslight of the lampstandard made the windows of the house shine blankly. On the front door, in the porch, gleamed the polished brass of a numeral, a letter-slot — and a nameplate. I stole up the two whitewashed steps to the porch. The numeral on the door of the house was 5, the name engraved on the plate was: George H. Jay.
I pushed up the flap of the letter-slot, peered through it. Within, all was dark, all silent.
I visited the porches of the other six houses. Striking matches, I examined the nameplates on the doors. I found that here in Finch Court were the premises of two doctors, one dental surgeon, three lawyers, and Mr. George H. Jay — profession unspecified.
Deeply thoughtful, I left Finch Court.
“George H. Jay?” said Raffles, when I reported to him, some hours later. “I’ve never heard of him, Bunny.”