“I think I shall,” Crawshay told him. “I want to hear how you got on. I gathered from your first telegram that you were on the track. Where did you mean to stay?”
“I’ve no choice.”
“The Savoy, then,” Crawshay decided. “Jocelyn Thew is staying there, and you may be able to keep an eye on him. Here we are. Taxi? — Savoy! — Now, Brightman.”
“You don’t want me to make a long story of it, sir,” Brightman observed, as they drove off.
“Just the things that count, that’s all.”
“Well, we got on the track of the car all right,” the detective began, “and traced it to a small village called Frisby, the other side of Chester, and to the house of a Mrs. Phillips, a woman in poor circumstances who had just removed from Liverpool. She was the widow, all right. She showed us letters, and plenty of them, from her husband in New York. It appears that Gant alone had brought the coffin, which was left at the cemetery, and the funeral will have taken place t his afternoon. Mrs. Phillips was full of his praises, and it seems that he had paid her over the whole of the money you spoke about — five thousand dollars.”
“There was no chicanery so far, then,” Crawshay observed. “The man was dead, of course?”
“Absolutely,” Brightman declared, “and his death seems to have taken place exactly according to the certificate. Here comes the point, however. With the aid of the local police and the doctor whom we called in, the bandage around the wound was removed. We found in its place a perfectly fresh one, bought in Liverpool, not in the least resembling the silk-lined fragment which the ship’s doctor brought into the cabin.”
Crawshay looked gloomily out of the window.
“Well, I imagine that that settles the question of how the papers got into England,” he sighed.
“Our job, I suppose,” the detective reminded him, “is to see that they don’t get out again.”
“Precisely!”
“In a sense,” Brightman continued, “that is a toughish job, isn’t it, because whoever has them now can make as many copies as he chooses, and one set would be certain to get through.”
“As against that,” Crawshay explained, “some of the most valuable documents are signed letters, of which only the originals would be worth anything. There are also some exceedingly complicated diagrams of New York harbours, a plan of all the battleships in existence and projected, a wonderful submarine destroyer, and a new heavy gun. These things are very complicated, and to carry conviction must be in the original. Besides that,” he added, dropping his voice, “there is the one most important thing of all, but of which as yet no one has spoken, and of which I dare scarcely speak even to you.”
“Is it in the shape of a drawing?” Brightman asked.
“It is not,” was the whispered reply. “It is a letter, written by the greatest man in one of the greatest countries in the world, to the greatest personage in Europe. There is a secret reward offered of half a million dollars for the return of that letter alone.”
“The affair seems worth looking into,” Brightman remarked, stroking his little black moustache.
“I can promise you that the governments on both sides will pay handsomely,” Crawshay assured him. “I have had my chance but let it slip. You know I had my training at Scotland Yard, but out in the States I found that I simply had to forget all that I knew. Their methods are entirely different from ours, and you see what a failure I have made of it. I have let them get away with the papers under my very nose.”
“I can’t see that you were very much to blame, Mr. Crawshay,” the detective observed. “It was a unique trick, and very cleverly worked out.”
They had turned off the main thoroughfare and were now brought to a standstill in the courtyard leading to the Savoy. Suddenly Crawshay gripped his companion by the arm and directed his attention to a man who was buying some roses in the florist’s shop.
“You see that man?” he said. “Watch him carefully. I’ll tell you why when we get inside.”
The eyes of Mr. Brightman and Jocelyn Thew met over the gorgeous cluster of red roses which the girl was in the act of removing from the window, and from that moment the struggle which was to come assumed a different character. Brightman’s thin mouth seemed to have tightened until the line of red had almost disappeared. There was a flush upon his sallow cheeks. The hand which was gripping his walking stick went white about the knickles. But in Jocelyn Thew there was no change save a little added glitter in the eyes. There was nothing else to indicate that the recognition was mutual.
“Well, what about him?” Brightman asked, as their taxicab moved on. “What does he call himself?”
“Mr. Jocelyn Thew is his name,” Crawshay replied. “He was on the steamer. It is he, and not Gant, whom we have to make for. The plot which we have to unravel, which Gant and Phillips, and, unwittingly, Miss Beverley carried through, was of his scheming.”
“Mr. Jocelyn Thew,” the detective repeated as they passed through the swing doors. “So that is how he calls himself now!”
“You know him?”
“Know him!” Brightman repeated bitterly. “The last time I saw him I could have sworn that I had him booked for Sing Sing prison. He got out of it, as he always has done. Some one else paid. It was the greatest failure I had when I was in the States. So he is in this thing, is he?”
“He is not only very much in it,” Crawshay replied, “but he is the brains of the whole expedition. He is the man to whom Gant delivered those documents some time last night.”
They found two easy-chairs in the smoking room and ordered cocktails. Mr. Brightman sat forward in his chair. He was one of those men whose individuality seems to rise to any call made upon it. He was indifferently dressed, by no means good-looking, and he had started life as a policeman. Just now, however, he seemed to sink quite naturally into his surroundings. Nothing about his appearance seemed worthy of note except the determination of his very dogged mouth.
“I accepted your commission a short time ago, Mr. Crawshay,” he said, “with the interest which one always feels in Government business of a remunerative character. I tell you now that I would have taken it on eagerly if there had not been a penny hanging to it. I can’t tell you exactly why I feel so bitterly about him, but if I can really get my hands on to the man who calls himself Jocelyn Thew, it will be one of the happiest days of my life.”
“You really know something about him, then? He really is a bad lot?” Crawshay asked eagerly.
“The worst that ever breathed,” Brightman declared, “the bravest, coolest, best-bred scoundrel who ever mocked the guardians of the law. Mind you, I am not saying that he hasn’t done other things. He has travelled and fought in many countries, but when he comes back to civilisation he can’t rest. The world has to hear of him. Things move in New York underground. The moment he takes rooms at the Carlton-Ritz, things happen in a way that they have never happened before, and we know that there’s genius at the back of it all, and Jocelyn Thew smiles in our faces. I tell you that if anything could have kept me in America, although I very much prefer Liverpool, the chance of laying my hands on this man would have done it.”
Through the swing doors, almost as Brightman had concluded his speech, came Jocelyn Thew. He was dressed in light tweeds, carefully fashioned by an English tailor. His tie and collar, his grey Homburg hat with its black band, his beautifully polished and not too new brown shoes, were exactly according to the decrees of Bond Street. He seemed to be making his way to the bar, but at the sight of them he paused and strolled across the room towards them.
“Getting your land legs, Mr. Crawshay?” he enquired.
“Pretty well, thank you. You finished your business in Liverpool quickly, I see.”