One wall of the dining-room was hidden by a large bookshelf, and it was beneath this that the telephone flex ran. The butler stooped and pointed: in the shallow space beneath the last shelf was a black wooden box about ten inches long and four inches in height. In its face were two round apertures, and attached to these was a thin wire which ran up the end wall and vanished through a newly-drilled hole in the window-sill.
“What is it?” asked Leggat, suddenly sobered.
“A microphone,” replied Clifford curtly. “Somebody’s been listening to every word of our conversation!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Clifford Lynne opened the window and looked out. The wire had been roughly tacked along the wall which divided his from the next courtyard, and vanished over the roof of the garage into the mews.
“All right, Simmons,” he said, and without a word went from the room and out through the mews into the garage. For a time he could not see the fine wire, but after a search he discovered it running along the wall, and he traced its course almost to the end of the mews, where it turned up through the open window of what was obviously a chauffeur’s flat.
One glance at the window told him that the apartment was not in regular occupation. The panes were grimy; one was broken; and he remembered that farther along the street in which he lived was an empty house; the garage was evidently an appendage to this.
There was a gate which led to the car store and a small door obviously giving to the upstairs flat, and this was ajar. Without hesitation he pushed it open and mounted the steep, untidy stairs to the apartments above. There were two rooms, empty save for the debris which the last occupant had left behind him. The back room was used as a sleeping apartment; an old iron bedstead, innocent of bedding, remained. He turned into the front room, and here he found what he had expected: a replica of the small black box beneath the bookshelf, and a telephone, which was, he discovered, in working order when he called exchange.
The room had no occupant, and for a very good reason. The man who had been listening-in through this microphone, and who had been transmitting the conversation he had overheard to Fing-Su, had had ample warning. He had, in fact, left the mews almost at the identical moment that Clifford had come into it.
“A dark, military-looking man with a bad-tempered face.” A chauffeur who had seen him was responsible for a description which identified Major Spedwell.
Clifford Lynne went back to his dining-room and found a greatly troubled Leggat splashing whisky into a glass with an unsteady hand.
“What’s the trouble? What is it all about?” asked the stout man fearfully.
Although it seemed to be a waste of time attempting to make this boaster realize his peril, Lynne told him what he had discovered.
“And you need to be very careful, Leggat!” he said. “If Fing-Su knows you have betrayed him I wouldn’t give a string of native beads for your life. The only chance is that the listener failed to recognize your voice.”
It was not until later that he discovered who was the eavesdropper, and then it was clear that the chance of Major Spedwell being ignorant of Leggat’s identity was a very remote one.
“Fing-Su—bah!”
There was, however, a note of uneasiness in the deep laughter of Ferdinand Leggat. He had been in unpleasant situations and had been threatened before, facing frenzied shareholders who had clamoured for his blood. Yet—the Chinaman was different somehow.
“My dear good fellow, you’re theatrical! Let Fing-Su start something, that’s all!”
“When are you seeing him again?” asked Lynne.
“Tomorrow night,” was the reply. “There is a meeting of the Lodge—damn’ tomfoolery, I call it! But I suppose one ought to turn up, if it is’ only to humour the silly devil!”
Lynne was regarding him with unusual gravity. He, of all men, understood the mentality of the Chinaman, and could see all the potentialities for mischief that vast wealth had given to him.
“If you take my advice, Leggat, you’ll be among the missing tomorrow night,” he said. “Get out of England until I’ve broken up this gang. Take a trip to Canada; there’s a boat leaving tomorrow, and if you hurry you can get your ticket and passport fixed.”
Leggat set down his glass on the table with a bang.
“J’y suis, j’y reste” he said valiantly. “There never was a coolie that could run me out of England, and don’t you forget it, Lynne! I can handle this bird…!”
Clifford Lynne listened without listening, his mind too occupied with the possible consequences which would follow his discovery of the spy-wire to pay much attention to the boastings of his companion. With a final warning he dismissed Leggat, sending him back through the garage by his private taxi. It was then that he went out into the mews, to make a few inquiries, and, discovering that the listener was undoubtedly Major Spedwell, he made an effort to get in touch with Leggat, but without success.
The man’s danger was a very real one; how far would Fing-Su go? A long way, to judge by what had already happened. He drew entirely different conclusions from those which Leggat had drawn from the Joyful Hands. The Lodge meetings might, from the European standpoint, be ridiculous, but they had a deadly significance too.
That afternoon Clifford interviewed a high authority at Scotland Yard, and he went to that most austere of public departments with a letter of introduction from the Foreign Secretary. The interview had been a longer one than he had anticipated, but its first result was to relieve him of his greatest worry. He drove straight from the Yard to Sunningdale, and if he had any perturbation at all it was on account of Mr Ferdinand Leggat. The cottage door was locked and he found Joe curled up on the sofa asleep, and Mr Bray awoke in a spirit of revolt. When Joe Bray began to protest in advance against the folly of shutting himself up like a prisoner, Clifford had a shrewd idea that he was justifying in advance a departure from the strict letter of his instructions.
“It’s bad for me health and it gets on me mind,” said Joe loudly, keeping a guilty eye fixed upon the partner of whom he stood in no little awe.
“You’ve been out!” accused Clifford.
There was really not much harm done if he had been. Nobody in Sunningdale knew Joe and, with the exception of Fing-Su, it was doubtful if there was a person in England who would recognize him.
“I went out to pick a few flowers,” explained Joe. “There is something about flowers, Cliff, that brings a lump into my throat. You can sniff! You’re naturally hard. But to see all them bluebells–-“
“It’s too late for bluebells; you probably mean dandelions,” said Cliff coldly, “or more likely turnips!”
“Bluebells,” insisted Mr Bray with a vigorous nodding of his head. “And nestling under, as it were, the trees. And, Cliff”—he coughed—“I met the dandiest young lady you’ve ever seen!”
Clifford looked at him aghast. Mr Joseph Bray was blushing violently. Was this the iron-souled prospector, the man who had won through from poverty to affluence by a grim disregard of most of the laws that govern Chinese lands and customs? He could only wonder and remain speechless.
“There’s no reason why I shouldn’t have met her,” said Joe defiantly. “I’m not old—not much more than fifty.” He flung the challenge at Cliff’s head, but it was not taken up. “There’s a lot of people that don’t believe I am fifty.”
“You’re a hundred in sin and ten in wisdom,” said Clifford, smiling good-humouredly. “Who was she, Joe?”
“I don’t know. A well-made, nice-looking girl. A bit redheaded, but that shows spirit. What a girl!” He waggled his head ecstatically.
“Well-made—do you mean fat?” asked Clifford brutally.