"He must be blind. They don't look anything alike. Besides there was somebody else there when I talked to Antrim: an American named Stone."
"Who," said Charters grimly, "said he didn't know one of our cars from another. Don't talk to me about Stone! There was the hell of a row up here between him and Merrivale; but never mind that now. We didn't tumble to the business about the cars until I got the message that the black bag of the sinister criminal they bad caught contained a set of burglar's tools." (In the background I could hear H.M.'s voice squawking fiendishly, apparently with some protest or some message he wanted transmitted.) "But I suppose you don't see you've ruined everything, Blake? I don't know how you escaped. All the same, you won't have a chance now to have a look at Hogenauer's house, or in the big desk, or "
"On the contrary," I said, "on the contrary, I have already done it in spite of your bloodhounds."
I recounted all the facts, as fast and as concisely as I could. In the middle of it the Exchange butted in for some more money, but we got the charges reversed after some wrangling. Also, there appeared to be a little trouble at the other end of the wire while Charters was passing on the information as I gave it. I could hear H.M. in the background, and another voice as well. I concluded by quoting
word for word, as far as I could remember, the words on the blotter.
"Consequently, I shouldn't have got away at all if the coppers hadn't been so flabbergasted at discovering that body that they were off balance. And here's the point: it's all very well to say you've telephoned through to the police station and told them to release me. But the point is that now they want me as the key witness in a murder case. Even though they're convinced I didn't have anything to do with the murder, still it'll be cheerio to any wedding to-morrow if they catch up with me. Will you try to get busy and think of a way out of this?"
Hogenauer-drank-strychnine — " said Charters dully. The telephone seemed to go dead, and I jiggled it. "Merrivale will take over," Charters added.
"How de do, Ken?" rumbled H.M.'s voice, casually.
"As to your part in this affair," I said, "I remain coldly silent. But in all fairness, have another inspiration! Think of some subtle means by which I can pull myself out of this. Can you do it?"
"Well… now," said the old man. I could picture him scratching the side of his jaw with one finger. "I been sittin' and thinkin' here in the last couple of minutes, and I believe I got it. Uh-huh, we can get you out of it-1'
"Yes?"
`The envelope is in the upper left-hand pigeon-hole in Keppel's desk at the Cabot Hotel, Bristol'," H.M. quoted. "Well, now, Ken," he said with an air of inspiration, "the only thing for you to do is to hurry on to Bristol and pinch that envelope before Keppel gets back. Hey?"
I stood back and studied the telephone. For sheer, consummate, unadulterated nerve; for nerve which sprang like a fountain at the stars and poured like a cataract into a voiceless pit; this proposal seemed to outmatch anything I had heard that night.
"Won't you be satisfied until I stay in jail?" I inquired. "Is it absolutely necessary for me to get twenty years in order to make you happy? What's the matter with you, anyway? H.M., I won't do it, and that's flat."
"I bet you do, though," said the old man gleefully. "You want to bet, hey? Listen, Ken. Dammit, don't carry on like that! You're goin' to do it of your own free will. Do you know who's at Charter's place, do you know who's standin' at my elbow talkin' to me this very minute? Well, I'll tell you. It's your light o' life, your petit morceau de fluff, your intended bride, Evelyn Cheyne…" "What?"
"Uh-huh. (Shut up, wench!)" He howled at someone behind him, and then turned back to the telephone. "How can I help it if she follows you? Am I to blame if she insists on chasm her true love? She got here not ten minutes after you'd left, walked in bright and breezy and beamin', and said she wasn't going to miss whatever fireworks were on display. Now, if you won't go to Bristol, she's offered to go herself; so I think you better go along and protect her. She takes awful chances, son…’
"No, it ain't `blackmail,' either! Don't you say that. Bum me, Ken, can't you see this is the only way to do it? If it'll comfort you any, I'll absolutely guarantee that Charters and I can arrange it so that you don't get dragged into this business of Hogenauer's death at all, so that you ain't called as a witness and never show your nose anywhere. But I can't do it immediately: I mean I can't do it smack within the next couple of hours: there's got to be some wire-pullin' first. D'ye see that? And it's the next couple of hours that count. Ken, you got to go on to Bristol straight as a homin' crow, and pinch that envelope before Keppel gets back to his hotel. You got to go by train, too. It's a pretty long way, and what we want is speed."
"With a halfpenny in my pocket," I said, "and without a coat-'
"Sure!" agreed H.M. comfortably, "and that's where the wench comes in. There's a late train up from Plymouth that gets into Moreton Abbot at 11.20. It's a fast train to London, but it makes several stops, and Bristol is one of 'em. It'll be touch-and-go if we can make it, but we'll snap the wench to Moreton Abbot as fast as we can, and I think she can make it. You meet her on the platform. She can't pick you up where you are, because the station's clear over at the other side of town from Valley Road, and she'd miss the train for sure. She'll meet you at the station with plenty of money, and one of Charters's coats if you're so goddam sartorially fussy. And there you are. Hey?"
"That's fine. What if she misses the train?"
"Now, now," growled H.M. soothingly. "You can find a way to Bristol if she does. We got to hurry, Ken. Bye-bye."
The line went dead.
Even that little thread of communication was cut off. In vain I jiggled the hook. In vain I pointed out to unresponsive carbon that I had never before been in Moreton Abbot in my life, and had no notion as to where the railway-station might be — except the encouraging fact that it was on the other side of town. Under the circumstances, I should probably have to ask a policeman.
However, it would not do to remain in an illuminated box on a street corner, open to any inspection. I stepped out into a grateful cool after the thick heat of that box, and still the gloomy streets seemed deserted. At random I chose a turning (it had high hedges on either side, and was sufficiently ill-lighted), where I leaned back against the hedge to consider the position.
To get to that station there was only one course I could safely employ, but it was the best one. I still had my Compleat Policeman's outfit. There were still plenty of motor-cars abroad. I could put on the outfit again, stop some car with official stateliness, and ask to be driven to the station in order to head off a wanted man whom we believed to be escaping by the 11.20 train.
It did no good merely to stand and swear. My wench, with her usual taste for devilment, had insisted on walking straight into the middle of this tangle: and now it appeared that I must see her through it. I should have been warned by Evelyn's chortle of pleasure that afternoon, and her suspicious meekness when I had ordered her to stay behind. It occurred to me to wonder what her father, the major-general, might be thinking at that moment. Of course, our being together made it a little better, but it did not improve the hare-brained course. It is all very well to talk of the open road, the bright eyes of danger, and similar cliches, but I am a Scot and I have a Scot's caution.
For I couldn't make any sense of the puzzle: I wondered most of all what H.M. made of it. In the matter of expressing opinions about anything, it is usually almost impossible to stop him. But he had said nothing. Of course, it may have been the telephone. Like myself, H.M. dislikes talking at length over the telephone: he prefers talking face to face: and protracted conversations on a wire make him fidget. We were both inclined to throw the facts at each other quickly and disjointedly. Yet I had not even been able to learn what it was Serpos had stolen out of the safe, something which seemed to be so valuable and over which so much fuss had been made.