Complete works of peter.., p.489
Complete Works of Peter Cheyney. Illustrated, page 489
Then, as suddenly as before, the waters became quiet, and, arching his back, he came to the surface and filled his lungs with air. He was in complete darkness, and he could feel that only a few feet of the rope remained in his hands. After a moment a dim light appeared, and he was able to see dimly about him. He found himself in a square cavern, which he knew, had been cut out of the bank at the side of the river, both above and below water level.
The cavern was filled by means of a large trap opening which had been cut out of the bank below the surface of the river and which, when opened, caused the river to run sideways until the cavern was filled to the water level. At the far end of the cave leading out of the water was a flight of rough-hewn steps. These led into a narrow passage, from the end of which the dim light came.
Etienne looked round keeping a firm hold on the end of the rope. At his end of the cave, well above the water, was a small wooden shelf, and on this shelf was a box of the size of a large cigar box. He swam across and took the box from the shelf. Then, treading water, he peered towards the stairs and the passage. He knew that at the end of that passage Suan Chi Leaf was waiting, certain in his own mind that the only way out of the cave for Etienne was the way of the steps and passage.
Probably, Etienne thought, Twist Anderson was with him, too. The water cave had been the repository of his uncle's secret, and Suan Chi Leaf had intended that it should also be the repository of Etienne's body. Of course his disappearance would be easily explained. The punting accident would account for that.
MacGregor smiled quietly as he thought of the suave Chinaman waiting patiently. Then with a prayer that the trap opening beneath the bank was still open, and gripping the rope securely, he dived and commenced to draw himself hand over hand along the length of the rope. The trap was open, but it seemed years before he gained the surface of the river. He drew a grateful breath, swam for the bank, scrambled out, and with the box under his arm ran for the Sepoy Inn—and safety.
ONE hour afterwards, after a hot bath and supper, he ascertained from the local exchange Twist Anderson's telephone number, and rang up that gentleman.
"Hullo, Mr. Anderson," he said cheerily. "You sound a little depressed. I hope you are feeling well. By the way, if Mr. Suan Chi Leaf is with you remember me kindly to him. You might tell him, too, that the box contained a letter to my uncle's lawyers, and £500 in notes. It rather looks as if I'm getting the legacy by instalments, doesn't it? Tell Mr. Leaf that I'm sorry I couldn't leave the water cave by the passage, as you so carefully planned. If you take a look at the rope on the bank you'll see how I managed it. It would have been such a pity if I'd been drowned as a result of our little accident, wouldn't it? Better luck next time! Good-night 'Twist,' pleasant dreams!"
Mr. MacGregor hung up the receiver, and with a more than usually cherubic smile went to bed.
III. — THE DEMURE LADY
As published in The Age , Melbourne, Australia, 28 April 1928
MR. ETIENNE MACGREGOR, at peace with the world, leaned back in a comfortable arm-chair in the lounge of the Rialto Hotel, and, sipping his tea, listened with appreciation to the orchestra. Etienne was not dissatisfied with life.
He had managed to answer the first two questions, and in doing so had enriched himself to the tune of £500. It was because of this affluence that he was staying at the Rialto, whilst his rooms in Mortimer-street were undergoing their annual spring clean. At the same time he was beginning to feel slightly impatient.
By this time he should have heard from his late uncle's lawyers with reference to the third question, for, the financial aspect apart, Etienne was keenly interested in the strange quests in which he found himself involved as a result of his uncle's will.
His eyes, wandering round the lounge, stopped for some moments on the figure of a lady who had just entered the lounge, and who was looking round as if in search of someone. She had a letter in her hand, and, as her glance fell upon Etienne she commenced to walk towards his table. MacGregor, apparently concerned with the orchestra, watched her as she approached. His curiosity was aroused. He got up as she stopped at his table.
"Are you Mr. Etienne MacGregor?" she asked.
He nodded. "I am that unfortunate person," he murmured with a grin. "May I do something for you? Will you have some tea?"
She smiled. There was no doubt that she was a very charming person. "I'm from Rudder, Foal and Rudder," she said, "and I've brought a letter. Mr. Foal thought it would be better if I delivered it myself. I'm his secretary."
She held out the letter to MacGregor.
"Thank you," said Etienne. "Now you must have some tea whilst I read it. Waiter, bring another cup."
He tore open the envelope and read the letter. He read it through quickly, and then reread it more slowly, but, although his eyes were apparently on the paper before him, in reality he was unobtrusively noting some details about the lady who sat opposite him sipping her tea. In the first place MacGregor was curious about the thin chain which she wore about her neck, and which disappeared into the top of her well-cut black georgette gown. The chain was obviously of platinum. Etienne sensed that there was some ornament attached to the chain, which he thought, had been deliberately slipped into the top of her gown, and why?
Already an idea had begun to take shape in MacGregor's fertile brain, as he turned his attention, this time with a shade more interest, to the letter before him, which read:—
Dear Mr. MacGregor—
My sincere congratulations on your success in finding the answers to the first two questions. The third concerns the age of your late uncle's partner, who is an aged Chinese—Mr. Ho Hang Leaf. His age is known only to two people: his wife, Mrs. Lotus Leaf, and his son, Mr. Suan Chi Leaf. I am permitted to give you this slight clue. There was an elderly Chinese named Yo Hang, who owns a curiosity shop off Clint-street, Long Acre, and who was a very old friend of Ho Hang Leaf, being born the same day. Perhaps you can find this old man. In the meantime I must formally request that you inform us of the correct age of Ho Hang Leaf within seven days from this date.
I am, yours faithfully,
H.G. Foal, pp. Rudder, Foal and Rudder. Solicitors.
MacGregor slipped the letter into his pocket, and consulted his watch. Then he gave an exclamation.
"By Jove!" he said. "There's a man waiting to see me in the smoke-room. I'd forgotten him. Please excuse me. I shall be with you again in two minutes. I'd like you to wait, because I want to send a note by hand to Mr. Foal."
He strolled casually out of the lounge, but once out of sight of the lady he hurried to one of the smoke-room telephones and rang up his rooms in Mortimer-street. "Look here, Mrs. Hands," he said. "I want you to ask Tommy to speak to me on the telephone—be as quick as you can, and when I've finished talking to him will you give him a sovereign for me. I want him to do something."
Mrs. Hands was quick, and in another minute the voice of Tommy, her fourteen-year-old son, came over the wire to Etienne's ears.
"Now look here, Tommy," said MacGregor. "Here's an adventure for you. We were fairly successful together last time. Take a cab immediately and drive to within about twenty yards of the Rialto Hotel. In a few minutes' time a young lady will come out. You'll recognise her, for I shall walk to the entrance with her. Keep your cab waiting, and if she takes a taxi follow her and let me know where she goes. Do you understand?"
"You bet, Mr. MacGregor," replied Tommy. "I won't lose her. If she goes a long distance I'll telephone you at the Rialto so that you shan't be kept waiting."
"Good man," said MacGregor. "You'll be a regular Sherlock Holmes before you've finished. Get round as quickly as you can!"
He replaced the receiver and rejoined his companion in the lounge.
"I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting," he said cheerily. "Won't you have some more tea?"
"No thank you very much, Mr. MacGregor," she replied demurely. "I really must be getting back. My mother is not very well and I'm afraid that she will wonder what has become of me. I must be going at once. I think I ought to take a cab."
Etienne walked with her across the lounge and through the entrance hall, making their pace as slow as possible. He was thinking that if Tommy Hands had hurried and had been lucky enough to secure a taxi at once he would arrive in time. In this surmise he was correct, for, luck being with him, it was quite some little time before the commissionnaire succeeded in getting a taxi for the girl and, as she drove off, Etienne saw Tommy's head come out of the window of a taxi-cab just down the street, give some hurried instructions to the driver and then disappear.
MacGregor watched the girl's cab speed off in the direction of Knightsbridge with Tommy in pursuit, and with a sigh of satisfaction he returned to the lounge, and over a cigarette ruminated on the plan in his head.
He realised that if his idea with regard to the girl who had called with the letter was correct he had not a great deal of time left in which to put his plan into execution. At the back of his brain an idea was taking shape rapidly—an idea by which he hoped within a few hours to become possessed of the correct age of Ho Hang Leaf, without consulting or obtaining the assistance of the Chinaman Yo Hang, who lived off Long Acre.
He walked into the smoke-room once more and telephoned to a Mr. "Slick" Walker, an acquaintance of the days when Etienne had been studying life in all its different aspects, a gentleman whose peculiarly clever and light fingers often found themselves in other people's pockets, but whose sense of humor was unfailing. After a short conversation with Mr. Walker, when an arrangement was made for a meeting at Knightsbridge Tube station in an hour's time, Etienne returned to his seat in the lounge, and waited patiently for the message from Tommy—the message on which everything depended.
Fifteen minutes afterwards Tommy telephoned. "That you, Mr. MacGregor?" he whispered tensely. "I followed her to March Mews, a little turning off Sloane-street. She went into a house there—I waited outside for about ten minutes. Then she came out, and a man came to the door with her. He looked like a Chinaman, and had a little black moustache. I pretended to be waiting to go into the house next door, and I heard him say to her, 'I shall meet you at my mother's flat, I shall leave here at eight forty-five.' Then she went off down Sloane-street, and he went back into the house. Can I do anything else, Mr. MacGregor?"
"Nothing, thank you, Tommy," answered Etienne. "That's A1. You've done your job very successfully. I'll come round and tell you about it tomorrow."
Outside the smoke-room, MacGregor consulted his watch. He realised how lucky it had been that he had made the appointment with "Slick" Walker at a spot near Knightsbridge. Things were shaping very well. He went to his room and got his hat; then, with a cheerful smile, he made his way slowly towards Knightsbridge tube station, where he found Mr. "Slick" Walker, his hands in his pockets and a cigarette stub adhering to his lower lip, studying with professional interest the diamond rings in an adjacent jeweller's.
AT a quarter to nine Mr. Suan Chi Leaf left his house in March Mews and walked down Sloane-street. He appeared to be quite satisfied with life, judging by the smile of satisfaction which wreathed his thin, cruel lips. As he approached the corner of Sloane-street and Knightsbridge, where there is always a crowd of people waiting for the buses, Mr. "Slick" Walker, who seemed to be waiting for a bus, knocked into him. Mr. Walker apologised profusely, taking such a time over asking Suan Chi Leaf's pardon that the Chinaman wondered at such good manners in such an ill-dressed man.
Suan Chi Leaf continued on his way, until a tap on his shoulder caused him to stop and turn. He found himself looking into the face of a police constable and at the somewhat dignified and stern countenance of Mr. Etienne MacGregor.
"That's the man, officer," said MacGregor. "He brushed against me a moment ago, and immediately I missed my watch and chain. I saw him sneak off putting something into his waistcoat pocket. I'm certain that's him."
Suan Chi Leaf smiled. "This is ridiculous," he snarled. "This is what you call a 'frame up,' I suppose."
"We can talk about that at the police station," said the constable. "If you didn't steal this gentleman's watch, let's see what you've got in your pockets."
With a self-satisfied air Suan Chi Leaf turned out his waistcoat pockets. His face expressed the utmost amazement when he found, in his right-hand waist-coat pocket, the watch and chain of Mr. MacGregor. He commenced to argue, but ten minutes later found himself comfortably installed in a cell at Knightsbridge police station on a charge of picking pockets.
Etienne, with his most charming smile, then held a short conversation on the legal aspects of the case with the station inspector, and having ascertained from that worthy the address which Suan Chi Leaf had given when he was charged, which address MacGregor guessed would be that of Suan's mother—Mrs. Lotus Leaf—he left the police station and took a cab to that lady's flat in Oxford-street. Five minutes later found him ringing the bell at the Oxford-street flat. As he entered her sitting-room Mrs. Lotus Leaf regarded him smilingly, but beneath the smile lurked all the venom of her Oriental nature.
"What can I do for you, Mr. MacGregor?" she asked, regarding him intently. "Won't you sit down? Please make yourself quite comfortable."
Etienne grinned.
"It's awfully nice hearing you asking me to make myself comfortable, Mrs. Lotus Leaf," he said. "I appreciate your kind thoughts for my welfare, but I won't take up too much of your valuable time. What I want is to know the age—the exact age—of your husband, Mr. Ho Hang Leaf. You see that is the third question which I have to answer—the third of the thirteen questions which must be answered before I can inherit my uncle's money, I expect that you are rather surprised at my visit—you rather expected me to go to Mr. Yo Hang's in Long Acre tonight, didn't you, dear lady, and I expect that you and your equally charming son would have had a nice little surprise waiting for me when I got there. I gathered as much when you sent that charming and demure lady to my hotel with the letter, which you had typed on a sheet of Rudder, Foal and Rudder's note paper. You made one or two mistakes, though. Solicitors' typists don't wear 25-shillings-a-pair silk stockings, neither do they usually wear platinum neck chains, with immense diamond ornaments attached, which I noticed, although the lady had taken great care to wear it inside her dress. She forgot that lace is often transparent I was, therefore, forced to deal with the matter, and the position is briefly this. Half an hour ago your son, Mr. Suan Chi Leaf, was arrested in Knightsbridge for picking my pocket. My watch was actually found on him, and he is at the present moment in a cell at Knightsbridge police station. The point is this. If tomorrow, when he comes before the magistrate, I press the charge against him he will probably get six months' imprisonment, and be deported at the end of that term. Now I don't want him to be deported any more than you do. I find that you and he have helped me a great deal, in spite of yourselves, in answering these first two questions, and I want to put this proposition up to you. Supply me with the answer to the third question—give me the correct age of your husband, and I will call on Rudder, Foal and Rudder at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. If the answer is correct I will withdraw the charge against your charming son, and he shall go free. If it isn't..."
MacGregor shrugged his shoulders.
Mrs. Lotus Leaf's long manicured fingers replaced carefully a tendril of her carefully-dressed hair. Then she looked at MacGregor with her usual smile—a smile that boded no good for him in the future.
"I agree to your terms, Mr. MacGregor," she said. "Mainly because it appears, that I have no option but to agree. I admire your brains. You say that in spite of ourselves we have been of use to you. We shall he more careful in the future. We are learning. Next time we shall make no mistake!"
She wrote the answer to the question on a sheet of note-paper, which she handed to him. "That is my husband's correct age," she said. MacGregor took the sheet of paper and rose.
"Thanks awfully, Mrs. Lotus Leaf," he murmured. "You are as charming as ever. I'm really very sorry that I can't oblige you by being a corpse! I do hope that your son won't be too uncomfortable tonight. It will give him an opportunity to think quite a lot, won't it? Goodbye, and many thanks!"
THREE minutes afterwards Mr. MacGregor might have been observed walking down Oxford-street looking at peace with all the world, and in the saloon bar of the Three Crowns in Seven Dials Mr. "Slick" Walker held forth to a bosom companion on the strangeness of life.
"George," observed Mr. Walker, "I've been pickin' pockets all me life, but, strike me pink, this is the first time in me life that a feller's ever paid me to pick 'is pocket and put 'is watch an' chain into somebody else's. It's a funny world, ain't it!"
IV. — CHINA TEA
As published in The Age , Melbourne, Australia, 5 May 1928
IN spite of the cheerful and carefree expression which radiated from the round countenance of Mr. Etienne MacGregor as he strolled slowly up Regent-street, he was not feeling at all cheerful. Only three days remained for him to supply the answer to the fourth question which he had received four days ago from his late uncle's lawyers—the fourth of the thirteen questions which it was necessary for him to answer in order to inherit a fortune. He wondered if his luck had turned on him.
The first three questions had been easily dealt with—firstly, because of the keenness of the brain which existed behind Etienne's cherubic brow, and, secondly, because of the involuntary assistance he had received from Mrs. Lotus Leaf and her son Suan Chi Leaf. But this fourth question was a poser. He had not the slightest idea where to start in an endeavour to find the solution.
