Complete works of peter.., p.538
Complete Works of Peter Cheyney. Illustrated, page 538
He had no idea as to what his next move would be, until he saw a light go up in one of the windows on the first floor of the house. Apparently, this was the room which the three were going to use, and Alonzo's curiosity as to what was going to be discussed there, was almost unbearable.
He walked quietly down the opposite side of the road, until he was directly in front of the house. Standing under a tree, in the shadow, he looked carefully at the other windows, but could discover no sign of life except in the room on the first floor, where the light showed.
Presently, the street being deserted, Alonzo slipped quietly across the road, opened the wooden gate, and slipped round by the side of the house. He moved all round it, keeping in the shadow, listening carefully, but no sound came from within. It seemed to him that there was no one within, except the three conspirators.
His mind made up, he returned to the back of the house and, taking a miniature pick-lock from his pocket, commenced operations on the kitchen door. Two minutes later he was standing in the kitchen, listening intently. Then he made a careful inspection of the ground floor but, as he had thought, there was no one there. Moving slowly and silently he then proceeded to crawl up the stairs and, at the top, a gleam of light showing under the door indicated the room where Marney, Klausen and Vokell were in consultation.
Alonzo moved to the door, and slipping a small automatic pistol from his pocket and holding it in his left hand he commenced, inch by inch, to turn the handle of the door, until it was possible for him to push the door slightly open. Luckily the lock was well oiled, and Alonzo succeeded in opening the door an inch or two, without disturbing the three within.
He placed his ear to the crack and listened. From within the room came the sound of glasses being filled and of a siphon being squirted. Then the nasal American drawl of Klausen came distinctly to Alonzo's ears.
"Say," said the American, "I tell you that we've got the low down on this MacTavish if we play our cards properly. I tell you that he's after that Von Hatten necklace, an' I'll tell you how I got wise. I got the idea of having a go for it myself, an' I wanted to know how the land lay, so I went down to Surrey to have a look at the Von Hatten mansion. I was lying in a hedge, when who do I see crawling along the lane a few yards from me, but Lon Ferrers, MacTavish's side kicker. Ferrers had got a pocket camera and was takin' snaps of the house. Well, you know what that means—it means that MacTavish is going to have a go for that necklace, because he always photographs a house where he's goin' to crack a crib, from every side—he's a careful feller is Alonzo MacTavish! Now, what's the night he's going to try and do the job? There's only one night when he can do it and that's next Thursday night. There's a dance on there that night and the old Von Hatten girl will be wearing that necklace, and when she takes it off it'll go into the safe. Next morning it'll be sent back to the safe deposit where even MacTavish couldn't get at it. So that's the only night he can have a go. See?"
"Vell," said Vokell, in his high pitched foreign accents. "Vot's the big idea?"
"The big idea is this, boys," said Klausen: "I guess we don't love each other much, but I reckon we're brothers compared with what we think of Alonzo MacTavish. He's spoiled our game a dozen times. Marney here has done time for a job that MacTavish cracked. MacTavish has had stuff off me that it's taken me months to plan to get. Gee! I'm sick of that feller. I guess you've got one or two things up against him, too, Vokell, ain't you?"
"Vun or two things!" hissed Vokell. "I'd like to murder zat MacTavish!"
Klausen laughed. "I bet you would," he said. "So would I! But we got to get him first. That feller's full of brains, but I think that this time he gets what's coming to him. Here's the big idea. Next Thursday night we'll all go down to Marstead in Surrey, separately, and we'll watch that Von Hatten house like cats watching a mouse. There's only three sides of it that he can get through, an' we'll watch one side each. Directly that guy appears and gets into the house, we'll telephone through to Scotland Yard and wise 'em up. They'll be after him fast enough. He's not too popular with them. He's given them the slip too many times. When he gets into that house it's goin' to take him three-quarters of an hour to get the safe open. It'll only take the flying squad half an hour from the Yard in their fast car, an' MacTavish'll walk right into their arms. In the meantime, we make a quiet getaway and disappear, an' we'll have the satisfaction of knowing that we've put MacTavish out of the game for a few years. Well, what do you say?"
"I think it's a big idea," said Marney. "I'm for it."
"So am I," said Vokell. "I'll feel relieved ven zat man is be'ind the bars!"
"All right then," said Klausen. "This is how we do it. I'll take the front of the house. Marney can take the right hand side, and Vokell the left hand side. MacTavish can't get us from the back, that I know. Directly we see him at it, whoever spots him runs round and tells the other two. I'll have my car hidden down the road, and we'll drive to Hatstead, which is only five minutes away and telephone from the public call office. Everybody understand? All right, let's have a drink."
Alonzo heard the sound of the siphon once more. Then, with the utmost care, he closed the door, descended the stairs, and made his way carefully out of the house by the same way that he had entered.
Outside, he walked in the direction of Edgware Station. As he walked along Alonzo smiled to himself. Klausen had had a big idea, but Mr. Alonzo MacTavish had thought of a better one!
An hour later, arrived back at his flat in Earl's Court, Alonzo sat down at his writing table, and after some little thought wrote three letters. One he addressed to Mr. Marney, one to Mr. Klausen, and the third to Mr. Vokell. Having completed this task to his satisfaction. Mr. MacTavish smoked a cigarette and went to bed.
ON the following Thursday night a beautiful moon illuminated the stately towers of the Von Hatten home at Marstead. It was half past three in the morning, and the ball had been finished an hour. Crouching in the long grass, which bordered the lane running along one side of the house, Marney shivered, and wished that he had brought a heavier overcoat.
Suddenly someone approached him. He looked up. It was MacTavish.
"Everything's O.K." said MacTavish, with a smile. "Come along."
Marney scrambled to his feet and followed Alonzo who, making a wide detour, made for the other side of the mansion.
"What about Vokell?" whispered Marney. "He's watching round there isn't he?"
Alonzo grinned.
"Don't worry about him," he said. "I've knocked him over the head with a sandbag. He's in the tool shed, bound and gagged. Someone will let him out in the morning—if he's lucky!"
They worked their way round to the side of the house which Vokell should have been watching, and Marney saw, with no small admiration, a thin steel ladder which ran up to the first-floor window.
Alonzo prepared to mount. "After me," he said, "and not a sound."
When Alonzo had disappeared through the window, Marney clambered up and joined him. He found himself in a dark passage.
"Give me your hand," said Alonzo. "I don't want to use a torch, if possible. I know the way."
He took Marney's hand and together they walked quietly down the passage. Half a dozen yards down, Alonzo stopped, opened a door quietly and led Marney into a room which was in utter darkness. Marney found himself pushed into a chair.
"Sit there," said Alonzo, "and wait until I come back. We've got to use a blow-pipe on this safe, and I've got it just along the corridor. Don't move, and don't make a noise. I shan't be a minute."
Marney sat in the darkness. Minutes passed, but still there was no sign of Alonzo. The minutes lengthened into a quarter of an hour, then, half an hour, and Marney began to feel decidedly uneasy.
At last he made up his mind to go. Alonzo had fooled him, that was certain. With a muttered curse, Marney rose from the chair and commenced quietly to make his way in the direction of the door. Suddenly be stopped dead. He could hear someone breathing!
Marney stood listening intently. There was no doubt about it. Someone was in the room.
A cold sweat broke out on Marney's forehead. This was no place for him! There was something eerie—something uncanny about this breathing. He continued his progress towards the door, and eventually with a sigh of relief his fingers found the door-handle. He turned it, and pulled the door. It was locked!
At the same moment a hand closed over Marney's as it lay on the door-knob. Marney turned and struck out with his fist, and an exclamation broke from the other man. With a gasp Marney recognised the voice. It was Klausen.
"Klausen!" he gasped. "What are you doing here?"
"And what the hell are you doing here?" muttered Klausen.
A third voice—Vokell's—joined them:
"My Gott! Ve're all here!" hissed Vokell.
From somewhere at the far end of the room a voice sounded—the voice of Alonzo MacTavish.
"Keep quite still gentlemen," he said, "and don't move. Otherwise you'll disturb the whole household. I expect that you are all very surprised to meet each other here, and personally, after my dealings with all of you, I'm rather surprised at the idiot who said that there was honour amongst thieves.
"I expect that you would like me to satisfy your curiosity. Well, I'll do it. I saw you meet in Cork Street, and came to the conclusion that you were up to no good. I followed you to the house—Klausen's house—at Edgware, got in through the back door and overheard your little plot to put Scotland Yard on my track the night that I came here after the Von Hatten necklace. My next step in the game, knowing what a bunch of double-crossing crooks you were, was to write to each of you, making an appointment to see each of you separately. At this appointment I proposed that I would split the profits derived from the sale of the necklace, if that particular man would act as accomplice to me in the robbery. Each one of you, knowing that the others would be watching on the other sides of the house agreed. You were quite prepared to sell each other for a share of the loot.
"However, our friend Klausen made one mistake. He was perfectly right when he said that I took pains to find out about the inside. It may interest you to know that at this moment, I am standing in the entrance of a secret passage leading from this room to the outer ground. I came through this passage soon after the ball and removed the necklace from the safe in this room, which safe is still open. Then I went to each of you in turn and brought you up here and sat you in a chair. There is only one door leading from this room and it is locked. There are no windows at all. Now gentlemen, I am going to leave you via the secret passage, and on my way back to town I'm going to ring up Scotland Yard and inform them that the Von Hatten necklace has been stolen, and that if they will go down to Marstead that they will be in time to get the men who stole it. I've rather turned the tables on you, haven't I?"
There was a scraping sound, and Alonzo's voice came to them a little more faintly.
"Good night, gentlemen," he said "And I hope it keeps fine for you!"
24. — THE LUCKY CHANCE
As published in The Sunday Times , Perth, Australia, 16 June 1929
PARK LANE was deserted, and it seemed to Mr. Alonzo MacTavish as, with his overcoat over his arm and his silk hat on one side of his head, he walked slowly in the direction of Piccadilly, that he had never seen Park Lane look so depressing.
And there was no reason for this. Park Lane had really never looked better. A beautiful moon was shining, lighting up the fronts of the white painted mansions, and causing the windows to glisten with a thousand little points of light.
Mr. MacTavish, however, was depressed. Things had not gone too well of late, and nothing had presented itself to Alonzo as being worth the risks which he usually took in his profession as the world's master cracksman.
Also, he found himself thinking a shade too much of Chief Inspector McCarthy. Chief Inspector McCarthy had sworn that he would get Alonzo MacTavish in the end, and Alonzo's own secret service had informed him only that morning that McCarthy seemed very pleased with life, and had boasted to a colleague that within a few weeks he would have MacTavish 'behind the bars.'
Alonzo wondered if McCarthy had got something up his sleeve, some overlooked clue in a past robbery which had given him some idea for trapping the elusive MacTavish.
Alonzo's mind, busy with these thoughts, jumped suddenly as he saw the figure in front of him. He was half-way down Park Lane, and a dozen yards in front, the broad backed figure of a man in evening clothes was staggering along, obviously the worse for liquor.
There was nothing very amazing in this fact. It is not terribly unusual to see such a sight in Park Lane at two o'clock in the morning if it is fine, but the part which interested Alonzo was the identity of the stranger. There was no mistaking that back. It was Goylaff!
MacTavish wondered what Goylaff was doing in London. Goylaff was one of the most enterprising diamond thieves on the Continent, and he seldom honoured London with his presence. Also, it seemed that he must be very drunk, for he staggered along, reeling all over the pavement, and eventually fell, with a terrific bump, into the porch of one of the houses.
It was a very big porch, and quite dark inside. Alonzo, after a quick glance up and down Park Lane, which showed him that he was, apparently, the only inhabitant of the street, with the exception of the inebriated Swede, quickened his pace, turned into the porch into which Goylaff had fallen, and stood, looking down at the Swede as he lay across the step, his white shirt front crinkled and creased, and his silk hat badly dented as a result of his fall.
He was in a drunken sleep and breathing heavily. His evening coat had fallen back, disclosing a piece of white envelope sticking out of the breast pocket and, as curiosity had always been a strong point with Alonzo, especially where people like Goylaff were concerned, he bent down and took the envelope from the drunken man's coat.
He took the letter from the envelope, and, as a stray beam of moonlight fell on the handwriting, he gave a slight start. The handwriting was Radker's—Radker, one of Alonzo's greatest and most dangerous enemies, and one of the cleverest safe blowers in the United States.
MacTavish held the letter in the moonlight and read:
Dear Goylaff,
The stuff is in my flat at Gratton House, near Vine Street. I have to leave for Paris at seven o'clock tonight, so come along and get the sparklers and negotiate them as arranged. I enclose the street door key and the flat key herewith, as the night porter goes off immediately everyone is in. Pick up the stuff about three in the morning, and be careful with it—it's worth a small fortune. Any further information from bearer.
R.
A slight whistle escaped Alonzo. So the enterprising Goylaff should have been on his way to pick up some "sparklers" from Radker's flat. Alonzo suddenly realised what those sparklers were. A fifteen thousand pound necklace had been stolen from Carthews, the Bond Street jewellers a week before, and no doubt existed in the mind of Alonzo that this was the booty which Goylaff was to pick up and "negotiate as arranged."
With a smile Alonzo bent down and, feeling in the pockets of the drunken man, found the two keys referred to in the letter. There was no doubt that the necklace would be in some easily accessible spot in the flat, for Alonzo reasoned that, had it been locked away, a further key would have been enclosed.
It seemed to him, therefore, that all he had to do was to walk along to Radker's flat, find the necklace, and wander home to bed. He grinned as he thought of Goylaff coming back to his senses and finding the letter and keys gone. But it would take him some time to sleep off his present stupor, quite enough time for Mr. Alonzo MacTavish to secure the necklace.
Alonzo pushed and pulled the recumbent Goylaff until he was in a fairly comfortable position against the door, and also well in the shadow, so that it was unlikely that he would be seen by a passing policeman. Then, walking quickly, he made his way to Park Street, where he secured a taxi-cab and drove to Sackville Street.
Gratton House was but a few yards away, and Alonzo soon found it. As Radker had suggested, the night porter had closed and locked the main entrance to the flats, everyone being in for the night. Using the entrance key, Alonzo walked into the hall, closing and locking the front door carefully behind him. There was an indicator on the wall which showed him that Radker's flat was on the second floor. Alonzo produced from his pocket a small electric torch and, switching this on, made his way quietly to the second floor.
Inside three minutes he was in Radker's flat. Radker had evidently been doing well of late, for the place was ornately furnished. Alonzo passed from room to room, switching on the electric lights and looking about him for a likely place in which Radker might have put the necklace to await Goylaff's coming. There was no doubt in Alonzo's mind that such a place had been arranged by the two conspirators.
As he walked about the sitting room a large dish of fruit in the centre of the table caught his eye, for it seemed to him that as he had switched on the light he had seen some reflection from the fruit dish. He walked over to it and moved the fruit. There, at the bottom of the silver dish, wrapped in a piece of cotton wool, from which one end had escaped, lay the diamond necklace.
Alonzo picked it up and examined it under the electric light. The beautiful, flawless stones flashed and glittered. A very good haul, thought Alonzo, and by far the easiest bit of business he had ever done in his life. Radker had evidently taken the trouble to steal the necklace. Goylaff was to "negotiate it," and then, through Goylaff's fondness for liquor, the necklace had fallen into his hands, and all for the trouble of opening a couple of doors with keys which had been supplied to him.
He dropped the necklace into his breast pocket, switched off the light, and was about to leave the flat, when some instinct made him go over to the window, draw aside the curtain and look out. In the shadow on the other side of the road Alonzo could discern the figure of a man. He stood, in a dark doorway, waiting. Straining his eyes, MacTavish could see, a few doors further up, the figure of another man. He left the window, walked into the dining room, which looked out on the back of Gratton House, and carefully looked out of the window. Inside one or two minutes he saw the figure of a man walk across the narrow alley leading to Vine Street and halt in a doorway.
