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Cheese (Bait for the Beast):
Ethel Lina White:
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Cheese
(Bait for the Beast)
by
Ethel Lina White
e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
First published in Pearson's Magazine, October 1923
Reprinted in Argosy (UK), August 1942
Reprinted as "Bait for the Beast" in:
Detective Story Magazine, 16 February 1924
Best Detective Magazine, May 1933
This e-book edition: Project Gutenberg Australia, 2024
Detective Story Magazine, 16 February 1924,
with "Bait for the Beast" ("Cheese")
THIS story begins with a murder, and ends with
a mousetrap. The murder can be disposed of in a paragraph. An
attractive girl—carefully reared and educated for a future,
which proved to hold only a twisted throat—at the end of
seven months, an unsolved mystery and a reward of five hundred
pounds.
It is a long road from a murder to a mousetrap—and one
with no finger posts; but the police knew every inch of the way.
In spite of a prestige punctured by the press and public, they
solved the identity of the killer. There remained the problem of
tracking this wary and treacherous rodent from his unknown sewer
in the underworld, into their trap.
They failed repeatedly for lack of the right bait.
And, unexpectedly, one spring evening, the bait turned up in
the person of a young girl—cheese.
Inspector Angus Duncan was alone in his office when her
message was brought up. He was a red-haired Scot, handsome in a
dour fashion—with the chin of a prize fighter and frigid
blue eyes.
He nodded. "I'll see her."
It was between the lights. River, government offices and
factories were all deeply dyed with the blue stain of dusk. Even
in the city the lilac bushes showed green tips, and an occasional
crocus cropped through the grass of the public gardens, like
scattered orange peel. The evening star was a jewel in the
pale-green sky.
Duncan was impervious to the romance of the hour; he knew that
twilight was but the prelude to night and that darkness was a
shield for crime.
He looked up sharply when his visitor was admitted. She was
young and flower-faced—her faint freckles already fading
away into pallor. Her black suit was shabby, although her hat was
garnished for the spring with a yellow rose.
As she raised her blue eyes, he saw that they still carried
the sweet memory of the things that constitute a country
life.
Thereupon the inspector looked at her more sharply, for he
knew that, of all poses, innocence is easiest to counterfeit.
"You say Roper sent you?" he inquired.
"Yes. Maggie Roper."
He nodded. Maggie Roper—Sergeant Roper's niece—was
already shaping as a promising young store detective.
"Where did you meet her?"
"At the girls' hotel where I'm staying."
"Your name?"
"Jenny Morgan."
"From the country?"
"Yes. But I'm up now, for good."
"For good?" He queried that. "Alone?"
"Yes."
"How's that?" He looked at her mourning. "People all
dead?"
She nodded. From the lightning sweep of her lashes, he knew
that she had put in some rough work with a tear. It prepossessed
her in his favor. His voice grew more genial as his lips
relaxed.
"Well, what's it all about?"
She drew a letter from her bag.
"I'm looking for work and I advertised in the paper. I got
this answer. I'm to be companion-secretary to a lady, to travel
with her and entertain her and be treated as her
daughter—if she likes me. I sent my photograph and my
references and she's made an appointment to meet me."
"When and where?"
"The day after to-morrow, in the first room in the National
Gallery. But as she's elderly, she is sending her nephew to drive
me to her house."
"Where's that?"
"That's what Maggie Roper is making the fuss about. First, she
said I must see if Mrs. Harper—that's the lady's
name—had taken up my references. And then she insisted on
ringing up the Hotel Cecil, where the letter was written from.
The address was printed, so it was bound to be genuine,
wasn't it?"
"Was it? What happened then?"
"They said no Mrs. Harper had stayed there. But I'm sure it
must be a mistake." Her voice trembled. "One must risk something
to get such a good job."
His face darkened. He was beginning to accept Jenny as the
genuine article.
"Tell me," he asked, "have you had any experience of
life?"
"Well—I've always lived in the country with auntie. But
I've read all sorts of novels and the newspapers."
"Murders?"
HE could tell by the note in her childish voice that she ate
up the newspaper accounts merely as exciting fiction, without the
slightest realization that the printed page was grimmest
fact.
He could see the picture; a sheltered childhood passed amid
green spongy meadows; she could hardly have culled sophistication
from clover and cows.
"Did you read about the Bell murder?" he asked abruptly.
"Auntie wouldn't let me." She added in the same breath,
nodding, "Every word."
"Why did your aunt forbid you?" "She said it must be a
specially bad one because they'd left all the bad parts out
of the paper."
"Well, didn't you notice the fact that that poor
girl—Emmeline Bell—a well-bred girl of about your own
age, was lured to her death through answering a newspaper
advertisement?"
"I—I suppose so. But those things don't happen to
oneself."
"Why? What's there to prevent your falling into a similar
trap?"
"I cant explain. But if there was something wrong, I should
know it."
"How? D'you expect a bell to ring or a red light to flash
'Danger'?"
"Of course not. But, if you believe in right and wrong,
surely, there must be some warning."
He looked skeptical. That innocence bore a lily in its hand
was to him a beautiful phrase, and nothing more. His own position
in the sorry scheme of affairs was, to him, proof positive of the
official failure of guardian angels.
"Let me see that letter, please," he said.
She studied his face anxiously as he read, but his expression
remained inscrutable. Twisting her fingers in her suspense, she
glanced around the room, noting vaguely the three telephones on
the desk and the stacked files in the pigeonholes. A great Dane
snored before the red-caked fire. She wanted to cross the room to
pat him, but lacked the courage to stir from her place.
The room was warm, for the windows were only opened a couple
of inches at the top. In view of Duncan's weather-tanned color
the fact struck her as odd.
Mercifully, the future is veiled. She had no inkling of the
fateful part that Great Dane was to play in her own drama, nor
was there anything to tell her that a closed window would have
been a barrier between her and the yawning mouth of hell.
She started as Duncan spoke.
"I want to hold this letter, for a bit. Will you call about
this time, to-morrow? Meantime, I must impress upon you the need
of utmost caution. Don't take one step on your own. Should
anything fresh crop up, phone me immediately. Here's my
number."
When she had gone, Duncan walked to the window. The blue dusk
had deepened into a darkness pricked with lights. Across the
river, advertisement-signs wrote and effaced themselves
intermittently in colored lights.
The inspector still glowed with the thrill of the hunter on
the first spoor of his quarry. Although he had to await the
report of the expert test, he was confident that the letter which
he held had been penned by the murderer of poor ill-starred
Emmeline Bell.
Then his elation vanished at a recollection of Jenny's wistful
face. In this city were scores of other girls, frail as
windflowers, too—blossom-sweet and country-raw—forced
through economic pressure into positions fraught with deadly
peril.
The darkness dropped down overhead like a dark shadow pregnant
with crime. And out from their holes and sewers stole the
rats.
AT last, Duncan had the trap baited for his hat; a young and
pretty girl—ignorant and unprotected—cheese.
When Jenny, punctual to the minute, entered his office the
following evening, Duncan instantly appraised her as his
prospective decoy.
His first feeling was one of disappointment. Either she had
shrunk in the night, or her eyes had grown bigger. She looked
such a frail scrap as she stared at him, her pretty lips bitten
to a thin line, that it seemed hopeless to credit her with the
necessary nerve for his project.
"Oh! Please, do tell me it's all perfectly right about that
letter."
"Anything but right." For a moment, Duncan thought she
was about to faint. He wondered, uneasily, whether she had eaten
that day. It was obvious from the keenness of her disappointment,
that she was at the end of her resources.
"Are you sure?" Jenny insisted. "It's—very important to
me. Perhaps I'd better keep the appointment. If I didn't like the
look of things, I needn't go on with it."
"I tell you, it's not a genuine job," he repeated. "But I've
something to put to you, which is the goods. Would you like to
have a shot at five hundred pounds?"
Her flushed face, her eager eyes, her trembling lips, all
answered him.
"Yes, please," was all she said.
He searched for reassuring terms. "It's like this. We've
tested your letter and know it is written, from a bad motive, by
an undesirable character."
"You mean a criminal?" she asked.
"Um-m-m! His record is not good. We want to get hold of
him."
"Then why don't you?"
He suppressed a smile.
"Because he doesn't confide in us. But, if you have the
courage to keep your appointment to-morrow, and let his messenger
take you to the house of the suppositious Mrs. Harper, I'll
guarantee it's the hiding place of the man we want. We get
him—you get the reward. Question is—have you the
nerve?"
She was silent. Presently she spoke in a very small voice.
"Will I be in great danger?"
"None. I wouldn't risk your safety for any consideration. From
first to last, you'll be under the protection of the police."
"You mean, I'll be watched over by detectives in
disguise?"
"From the moment you enter the National Gallery, you'll be
covered doubly and trebly. You'll be followed every step of the
way and directly we've located the house, the place will be
raided by the police."
"All the same, for a minute or so, just before you can get
into the house, I'll be alone with—him?"
"The briefest interval. You'll be safe at first. He'll begin
with overtures. Stall him off with questions. Don't let him see
you suspect—or show you're frightened."
Duncan frowned as he spoke. It was his clear duty to society
to rid it of a dangerous pest, and, in order to do so, Jenny's
cooperation was vital. Yet, to his own surprise, he disliked the
necessity, in the case of this especial girl.
"Remember! We'll be on hand," he said. "But, if your nerve
goes, just whistle and we'll break cover immediately."
"Will you be there?" she asked suddenly.
"Not exactly in the foreground. But—I'll be there."
"Then—I'll do it." She smiled, for the first time. "You
laughed at me, yesterday, when I said there was something inside
me, which told me—things. But I just know I can trust
you!"
"Good." His voice was rough. "Wait a bit. You've been put to
expense coming over here. This will cover your fares and so
on."
He thrust a note into her hand and hustled her out, while she
protested. It was a satisfaction to feel that she would eat that
night.
As Duncan seated himself at his desk, preparatory to work, his
frozen face was no index of the emotions raised by Jenny's
parting words. Hitherto, he had thought of women merely as
"skirts." He had regarded a saucepan merely as a weapon.
For the first time, he had a domestic vision of a country
girl—creamy and fragrant as meadow-sweet—in a nice
womanly setting of saucepans.
JENNY experienced a thrill, which was almost akin to elation
when she entered Victoria Station, the following day. At the last
moment the place for meeting had been altered in a telegram from
"Mrs. Harper."
Immediately she had received the message, Jenny had gone to
the telephone box in the hotel and duly reported the change of
plan, with a request that her message should be repeated to her,
to obviate any risk of mistake.
And now—the incredible adventure was actually begun.
The station seemed filled with hurrying crowds as Jenny slowly
walked toward the clock. Her feet rather lagged upon the way. She
wondered if the sinister messenger had already marked the yellow
flower in her hat, which she had named as her mark of
identification.
Then, she remembered her guards. At this moment, they were
here, unknown, watching over her slightest movement.
It was a curious sensation to feel that she was spied upon by
unseen eyes. Yet it helped to brace the muscles of her knees when
she took up her station under the clock, with the sensation of
having exposed herself as a target for gunfire.
But nothing happened; no one spoke to her; she was encouraged
to gaze around.
A few yards away, a pleasant-faced, smartly dressed young man
was covertly regarding her. He carried a yellowish sample bag,
which proclaimed him a drummer.
Suddenly, Jenny felt positive that this was one of her guards.
There was a quality about his keen, clean-shaven face—a
hint of the eagle in his eye—which reminded her of
Duncan.
She gave him the beginnings of a smile, and was thrilled when,
almost imperceptibly, he fluttered one eyelid.
She read it rightly, however, as a signal for caution; alarmed
by her indiscretion, she looked steadfastly in another
direction.
Still—it helped her to know that, even if she might not
look at him, he was there.
The minutes dragged slowly by. Jenny began to grow anxious as
to whether the affair were not some hoax. It would be not only a
tame ending to the adventure, but a positive disappointment.
She would miss the chance of earning a sum which, to her, was
a little fortune. Her need was so vital that she would have
undertaken the enterprise for five pounds. Moreover, after her
years of green country solitude, she felt a thrill at the mere
thought of her temporary link with the underworld. This was life
in the raw; while, screening her as she aided him, she worked
with Angus Duncan.
She smiled—then started, as though stung.
Some one had touched her on the arm.
"HAVE I the honor, happiness, and felicity of addressing Miss
Jenny Morgan? Yellow flower in the lady's hat? Red flower in the
gent's buttonhole, as per arrangement."
The man who addressed her was young and bull-necked, with
florid coloring which ran into purple blotches. He wore a red
carnation in the buttonhole of his checkered overcoat.
"Yes, I'm Jenny Morgan." As she spoke, she looked into his
eyes.
She felt a sharp revulsion—an instinctive recoil of her
whole being. "Are you Mrs. Harper's nephew?" she faltered.
"That's right. Excuse a gent keeping a lady waiting, but I
just slipped into the bar for a glass of milk. I've a taxi
waiting, if you'll just hop outside."
Jenny's mind worked rapidly as she followed him. She was
forewarned and protected. But, were it not for Maggie Roper's
intervention, she would have kept this appointment in very
different circumstances. She wondered if she would have heeded
that instinctive warning and refused to follow the stranger.
She shook her head; her need was so urgent that in her wish to
believe the best, she knew that she would have summoned up her
courage and flouted her fears as nerves. She would have done
exactly what she was doing—accompanied an unknown man to an
unknown destination.
She shivered at the realization. It might have been
herself—that other girl—gone to her doom.
At that moment, Jenny encountered the grave scrutiny of a
stout clergyman who was standing by the book-stall. He was ruddy,
wore horn-rimmed glasses, and carried the Church Times.
His look of understanding was almost as eloquent as a vical
message. It filled her with gratitude. She was certain that this
was a second guard. Turning to see if the young commercial
traveler were following her, she was thrilled to discover that he
had preceded her into the station yard.
He got into a taxi at the exact moment that her companion
flung open the door of another, which was waiting.
It was only this knowledge that Duncan was thus making good
his promise which induced her to enter the vehicle. Once again,
her nerves rebelled and she was rent with sick foreboding.
As they moved off, she had an overpowering impulse to scream
aloud for help to the porters—just because all this might
have happened to some poor girl who had not her own good
fortune.
Her companion nudged her. "Bit of all-right joy-riding,
eh?"
She stiffened, but managed to force a smile. "Is it a long
ride?"
"Ah! Now you're asking."
"Where does Mrs. Harper live?"
"Ah! That's telling."
She shrank away, seized with disgust of his blotched face so
near her own.
"Please give me more room! It's stifling here."
"Now don't you go taking no liberties with me. A married man I
am, with four wives, all on the dole." All the same, to her
relief, he moved farther away. "From the country, aren't you?
Nice place. Lots of milk. Suit me a treat. Any objection to a
gent smoking?"
"I wish you would. The cab reeks of whisky."
They were passing St. Paul's, which was the last landmark in
her limited knowledge of London. Girls from offices passed on the
pavements, laughing and chatting together or hurrying by, intent
on business. A group was scattering crumbs to the pigeons which
fluttered on the steps of the cathedral.
Jenny watched them with a stab of envy—safe, happy
girls!
Then she remembered that, somewhere in the press of traffic, a
taxi was shadowing her own. She took fresh courage.
The drive passed like an interminable nightmare, in which she
was always on guard to stem the advances of her disagreeable
companion. Something seemed always on the point of
happening—something unpleasant, just out of sight and round
the corner—and then, somehow, she staved it off.
The taxi bore her through a congested maze of streets. Shops
and offices were succeeded by regions of warehouses and
factories, which, in turn gave way to areas of dun squalor, where
gas works rubbed shoulders with grimed laundries, which bore such
alluring signs as Dewdrop or White Rose.
From the shrilling of sirens, Jenny judged that they were in
the neighborhood of the river, when they turned into a quiet
square. The tall, lean houses wore an air of drab respectability.
Lace curtains hung at every window. Plaster pineapples crowned
the pillared porches.
"Here's our destination!"
As her guide inserted his key into the door of No. 17, Jenny
glanced eagerly down the street, just in time to see a taxi turn
the corner.
"Hop in, dearie!"
On the threshold, Jenny shrank back.
SOMETHING very evil hovered there. Never before had she felt
its presence. But she recognized it. Like the fumes creeping
upward from the grating of a sewer, it poisoned the air.
Had she embarked on this enterprise in her former ignorance,
she was certain, that, at this point, her instinct would have
triumphed.
"I would never have passed through this door!"
She was wrong. Volition had nothing to do with the matter. Her
arm was gripped, and before she could struggle, she was pulled
inside.
She heard the slam of the door.
"Never loiter on the doorstep, dearie. Gives the house a bad
name. This way; up the stairs—all the nearer to
heaven."
Her heart heavy with dread, Jenny followed him. She had
entered on the crux of her adventure—the dangerous few
minutes when she would be quite alone.
The place was horrible—with no visible reason for
horror. It was no filthy east-end rookery, but a technically
clean apartment house. The stairs were covered with brown
linoleum. The mottled yellow wall paper was intact. Each landing
had its marble-topped table, adorned with a forlorn
aspidistra—its molting rug at every door. The air was dead
and smelled chiefly of dust.
They climbed four flights of stairs without meeting any one.
Only faint rustlings and whispers within the rooms told of other
tenants.
Then the blotched-faced man threw open a door.
"Young party come to see Mrs. Harper about the situwation.
Tootle-oo, dearie. Hope you strike lucky!"
He pushed her inside and she heard his steps upon the
stairs.
In that moment Jenny longed for any one, even her late
companion. She was vaguely aware of the figure of a man seated in
a chair. Too terrified to look at him, her eyes flickered round
the room.
Like the rest of the house, it struck the note of parodied
respectability. Yellowish lace curtains hung at the windows,
which were blocked by pots of stringy geraniums. A walnut-wood
suite was upholstered in faded bottle-green rep, with burst
padding. A gilt framed mirror surmounted a stained marble piece,
which was decorated with a clock-permanently stopped under its
glass case—and a bottle of whisky.
On a small table by the door rested a filthy cage, containing
a poor old gray parrot, its eyes mere slits of mystery.
It had to come. At last, with an effort, Jenny looked at the
man.
He was tall and slender and wrapped in a once-gorgeous
dressing gown of frayed crimson-quilted silk. At first sight his
features were not only handsome but wore an air of breeding. But
the whole face was blurred—as though it were a waxen mask
half melted by the sun and over which the fiend, in passing, had
lightly drawn a hand.
His eyes drew her own. Large and brilliant, they were of so
light a blue as to appear almost white. The lashes were unusually
long and matted into spikes.
The blood froze at Jenny's heart. The girl was no fool.
Despite Duncan's cautious statements, she had drawn her own
deduction which linked an unsolved murder mystery and a reward of
five hundred pounds.
She knew that she was alone with a homicidal maniac—the
murderer of ill-starred Emmeline Bell.
IN that moment, she realized the full horror of a crime which,
a few months ago, had been nothing but an exciting newspaper
story. It sickened her to reflect that a girl—much like
herself—whose pretty face had smiled fearlessly upon the
world from the printed page, had walked into this same trap, in
all the blindness of her youthful confidence. No one to hear her
cries. No one to guess the agony of those last terrible
moments.
Jenny, at least, understood that first rending shock of
realization. She had to fight for self-control. At sight of that
smiling, marred face, she wanted to do what she knew
instinctively that other girl had done, precipitating her doom.
With a desperate effort, she suppressed the impulse to rush madly
round the room, like a snared creature, beating her hands against
the locked door and crying for help. Help which would never
come.
Luckily, common sense triumphed. In a few minutes time she
would not be alone. Even then, a taxi was speeding on its
mission; wires were humming; behind her was the protection of the
police.
She remembered Duncan's advice to temporize. It was true that
she was not dealing with a beast of the jungle which sprang on
its prey at sight.
"Oh, please!" She hardly recognized the tiny pipe of her own
voice. "I've come to see Mrs. Harper about her situation."
"Yes." The man did not remove his eyes from her face. "So, you
are Jenny?"
"Yes, Jenny Morgan. Is—is Mrs. Harper in?"
"She'll be in presently. Sit down. Make yourself at home. What
are you scared for?"
"I'm not scared."
Her words were almost true. Her strained ears had detected
faintest sounds without—dulled footsteps, the cautious
fastening of a door.
The man, for his part, also noticed the stir. For a few
seconds, he listened intently. Then, to her relief, he relaxed
his attention.
She snatched again at the fiction of her future employer.
"I hope Mrs. Harper will soon come in."
"What's your hurry? Come closer! I can't see you
properly."
They were face to face.
The scene reminded her of the old nursery story of "Little Red
Riding Hood"—of the Child's startled
exclamation—"What big eyes you've got, grandmother!"
The words swam across her brain.
Terrible eyes! Like white glass cracked in distorting facets.
Jenny knew she was looking into the depths of a blasted soul.
Down, down—That poor girl But she must not think of her.
She must be brave—give him back look for look--
Her lids fell; she could bear the sight no longer.
She gave an involuntary start, observing his hands for the
first time.
They were beyond the usual size—unhuman—with long
knotted fingers.
"What big hands you've got!" Before she could control her
tongue, the words slipped out.
The man stopped smiling.
But Jenny was not frightened now. Her guards were near. She
thought of the detective who carried the bag of samples; she
thought of the stout clergyman. She thought of Duncan.
AT that moment, the commercial traveler was in an upper room
of a wholesale drapery house, in the city, holding the
fashionable blond lady buyer with his magnetic blue eyes, while
he displayed his stock of crepe-de-Chine underwear.
At that moment, the clergyman was seated in a third-class
railway carriage, watching the hollows of the Down fill with
heliotrope shadows.
He was not quite at ease. His thoughts persisted in dwelling
on the frightened face of a little country girl, as she drifted
by in the wake of a human vulture.
"I did wrong. I should have risked speaking to her."
But—at that moment—Duncan was thinking of her.
Jenny's message had been received over the telephone wire,
repeated and duly written down by Mr. Herbert Yates, shorthand
typist—who, during the absence of Duncan's own secretary,
was filling the gap, for one morning.
At the sound of his chief's step in the corridor outside, he
rammed on his hat, for he was already overdue for a lunch
appointment with one of the numerous "only girls."
At the door, he met Duncan.
"May I go to lunch now, sir?"
Duncan nodded assent. He stopped, for a minute, in the passage
while he gave Yates his instructions for the afternoon.﹃Any
message?﹄he inquired.
"One came this instant, sir. It's under the weight."
Duncan entered the office. But in that brief interval, the
disaster had occurred.
Yates could not be held to blame for what happened. It was
true that he had taken advantage of Duncan's absence to open the
window wide, but he was ignorant of any breach of rules. In his
hurry, he had also written down Jenny's message on the nearest
leaf to hand, but he had taken the precaution to place it under a
heavy paper weight.
It was Duncan's Great Dane which worked the mischief.
He was accustomed, at this hour, to be regaled with biscuit by
Duncan's secretary, who was an abject dog lover. As his dole had
not been forthcoming, he went in search of it. His great paws on
the table, he rooted among the papers, making nothing of a trifle
of a letter weight.
Over it went. Out of the window, at the next gust, went
Jenny's message. Back to his rug, went the dog.
The instant Duncan was aware of what had happened, a frantic
search was made for Yates. But that wily and athletic youth, wise
to the whims of his official superiors, had disappeared. They
raked every place of refreshment within a wide radius. It was not
until Duncan's men rang up to report that they had drawn blank at
the National Gallery, that Yates was discovered in an underground
dive, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes with his
charmer.
Duncan arrived at Victoria Station, forty minutes after the
appointed time.
It was the bitterest hour of his life. He was haunted by the
sight of Jenny's flower face upturned to his. She had
trusted him. And in his ambition to track his man, he
had taken advantage of her necessity, to use her as a pawn in his
game.
He had played her—and lost her.
The thought drove him to madness. Steeled though he was to
face reality, he dared not let himself think of the end.
Jenny—country raw and blossom-sweet—even then,
struggling in the grip of murderous fingers.
EVEN then—Jenny panted as she fought—her brain on
fire. The thing had rushed upon her so swiftly, that her chief
feeling was of sheer incredulity. What had gone before was
already burning itself up in a red mist. She had no clear memory
afterward of those tense minutes of fencing. There was only an
interlude filled with a dimly comprehended menace—and then
this. And Duncan had not intervened. Her strength was failing.
Hell cracked open, revealing glimpses of unguessed horror.
With a supreme effort she wrenched herself free. It was but a
momentary respite, but it sufficed for her signal—a broken,
tremulous whistle.
The response was immediate. Somewhere a gruff voice was heard
in warning: "Perlice!"
The killer stiffened—his ears pricked, every nerve
astrain. His eyes flickered to the ceiling which was broken by
the outline of a trapdoor.
Then, he noticed the parrot.
His fingers on Jenny's throat, he paused. The bird rocked on
its perch, its eyes slits of old dreaming.
Time stood still. The killer stared at the parrot. Which of
the gang had given the warning? Whose voice? Not Glass-eye. Not
Mexican Jo. The sound had seemed to be within the room.
That parrot
He laughed. His fingers tightened—to relax.
For a day and a half he had been in Mother Bargery's room.
During that time, the bird had been dumb. Did it talk?
The warning echoed in his brain. Every moment of delay was
fraught with peril. At that moment, his enemies were here,
stealing upward to catch him in their trap.
The instinct of the human rodent—enemy of mankind,
eternally hunted and harried—prevailed. With an oath, he
flung Jenny aside and jumping upon the table, wormed through the
trapdoor.
Jenny was alone. She was too stunned to think. There was still
a roaring in her ears—shooting lights before her eyes.
In a vague way, she knew that some hitch had occurred in the
plan. The police were here—yet they had let their prey
escape. .
She put on her hat, straightened her hair. Very slowly she
walked down the stairs. There was no sign of Duncan or of his
men.
As she reached the hall, a door opened and a white, puffed
face looked at her.
Had she quickened her pace, or shown the least sign of fear,
she would never have left that place alive. Her very nonchalance
proved her salvation, as she unbarred the door with the
deliberation bred of custom.
The street was deserted, save for an empty taxi, which she
hailed.
"Where to. Miss?" asked the driver.
Involuntarily she glanced back at the drab house, squeezed
into its strait waistcoat of grimed bricks. She had a momentary
vision of a white-blurred face, flattened against the glass. At
the sight, realization swept over her, in wave upon wave of sick
terror.
There had been no guards. She had taken every step of
that perilous journey—alone.
Her very terror sharpened her wits to action. If her eyesight
had not deceived her, the killer had already discovered that the
alarm was false. It was obvious that he would not run the risk of
remaining in his present quarters. But it was possible that he
might not anticipate a lightning swoop; there was nothing to
connect a raw, terrified country girl with a preconcerted
alliance with the police.
"The nearest telephone booth," she panted, "quick!"
A few minutes later, Duncan was electrified by Jenny's voice
gasping over the wire.
"He's at 17 Jamaica Square, S. E. No time to lose. He'll go
out through the roof. Quick, quick!"
"Right. Jenny, where'll you be?"
"At your house. I mean, Scot—Quick!"
As the taxi bore Jenny swiftly away from the dun outskirts, a
shriveled hag pattered into the upper room of that drab
house.
Taking no notice of its raging occupant, she approached the
parrot's cage. "Talk for mother, dearie!"
She held out a bit of dirty sugar. As she whistled, the parrot
opened its eyes. "Per-lice!"
IT was more than two hours later when Duncan entered his
private room, at Scotland Yard.
His eyes sought Jenny.
A little wan, but otherwise none the worse for her adventure,
she presided over a teapot, which had been provided by the
resourceful Yates. The Great Dane—unmindful of that little
incident of the letter weight—accepted her biscuits and
caresses with hypocritical sighs of protest.
Yates sprang up, eagerly. "Did the coop come off, chief?"
Duncan nodded twice—the second time toward the door, in
dismissal.
Jenny looked at him in some alarm, when they were alone
together. There was little trace left of the machine-made
martinet of Scotland Yard. The lines in his face appeared freshly
retooled and there were dark pouches under his eyes.
"Jenny," he said slowly, "I've—sweated—blood."
"Oh! Was he so very difficult to capture? Did he
right?"
"Who? That rat? He ran into our net just as he was about to
bolt. He'll lose his footing, all right. No."
"Then, why are you--"
"You!"
Jenny threw him a swift glance. She had just been half
murdered, after a short course of semi-starvation, but she
commanded the situation.
"Sit down," she said. "And don't say one word, until you've
drunk this!"
He started to gulp obediently, and then knocked over his
cup.
"Jenny, you don't know the hell I've been through. You don't
understand what you ran into. That man who—"
"He was a murderer, of course. I knew that, all along."
"But you were in deadliest peril--you--"
"I wasn't frightened, so it didn't matter. I knew I could
trust you."
"Don't, Jenny. Don't turn the knife! I failed you. There was a
ghastly blunder--"
"But it was all right, for it ended beautifully. You
see, something told me to trust you. I always know."
During his career, Duncan had known cases of love at first
sight. So, although he could not rule them out, he always argued
along Jenny's lines. Those things did not happen to him.
They had the same philosophy.
He realized now that it had happened to him—cautious
Scot though he was.
"Jenny," he said, "it strikes me that Iwant some one
to watch--"
"I'm quite sure you do. Have I won that reward"
His rapture was dashed. "Yes."
"I'm so glad. I'm rich." She smiled happily. "So, this
can't be pity for me."
"Pity? Oh, Jenny, girl—"
Click. The mousetrap was set for the confirmed bachelor with
the right bait.
A young and friendless girl—country-bred and
blossom-sweet—cheese.
THE END
Project Gutenberg Australia