A Superlatively Good Mystery
Story by a Writer of Thrillers.

Angel Esquire

By EDGAR WALLACE

Angel Esquire, of Scotland Yard, has his hands full in helping Jimmy Stannard, as he is known to the criminal element of London, solve the puzzle of the great safe which held the fortune of Old Reale who had placed it there, and who had taken the precaution to hide the combination in a bit of doggerel verse that served as a cryptogram.

When Old Reale’s Will was read it was found that four people might benefit by it. Two of them, known as members of the famous “Borough Lots” gang would stop at nothing to gain possession of the fortune. Jimmy and his friend are pitted against them in a story that constitutes the finest entertainment for the person liking excitement, love and mystery combined.

OTHER BOOKS
BY THIS AUTHOR:

THE BLACK ABBOT
THE CLUE OF THE NEW PIN
THE DOOR WITH SEVEN LOCKS
THE MELODY OF DEATH
A KING BY NIGHT
THE RINGER
THE SINISTER MAN
THE TERRIBLE PEOPLE
TERROR KEEP
TRAITOR’S GATE

A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers · New York

See Reverse Side of Jacket for Complete
List of 75c Fiction

ANGEL ESQUIRE

By EDGAR WALLACE
Author of
“The Girl from Scotland Yard,” “The Traitors’ Gate,”
“The Clue of the New Pin,” “The Green Archer,”
“The Hairy Arm,” “Blue Hand,” “The Black
Abbott,” “The Sinister Man,” “Terror
Keep,” “The Ringer,” “The Door with
Seven Locks,” “A King by Night,”
“The Melody of Death,” “The
Four Just Men,” “Jack
O’Judgment,” etc.

A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Published by arrangement with
Lincoln Mac Veagh, The Dial Press
Printed in U. S. A.

Copyright, 1908,
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

Copyright, 1927,
BY
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
(Incorporated)
Printed in the United States of America

ANGEL ESQUIRE

CONTENTS

ANGEL ESQUIRE

CHAPTER I
THE LOMBARD STREET DEPOSIT

Mr. William Spedding, of the firm of Spedding, Mortimer and Larach, Solicitors, bought the site in Lombard Street in the conventional way. The property came into the market on the death of an old lady who lived at Market Harborough, who has nothing to do with this story, and it was put up to auction in the orthodox fashion.

Mr. William Spedding secured the site at £106,000, a sum sufficiently large to excite the interest of all the evening papers and a great number of the morning journals as well.

As a matter of exact detail, I may add that plans were produced and approved by the city surveyor for the erection of a building of a peculiar type. The city surveyor was a little puzzled by the interior arrangement of the new edifice, but as it fulfilled all the requirements of the regulations governing buildings in the City of London, and no fault could be found either with the external appearance—its façade had been so artfully designed that you might pass a dozen times a day without the thought occurring that this new building was anything out of the common ruck—and as the systems of ventilation and light were beyond reproach, he passed the plans with a shrug of his shoulders.

“I cannot understand, Mr. Spedding,” he said, laying his forefinger on the blue print, “how your client intends securing privacy. There is a lobby and one big hall. Where are the private offices, and what is the idea of this huge safe in the middle of the hall, and where are the clerks to sit? I suppose he will have clerks? Why, man, he won’t have a minute’s peace!”

Mr. Spedding smiled grimly.

“He will have all the peace he wants,” he said.

“And the vaults—I should have thought that vaults would be the very thing you wanted for this.” He tapped the corner of the sheet where was inscribed decorously: “Plan for the erection of a New Safe Deposit.”

“There is the safe,” said Mr. Spedding, and smiled again.

This William Spedding, now unhappily no longer with us—he died suddenly, as I will relate—was a large, smooth man with a suave manner. He smoked good cigars, the ends of which he snipped off with a gold cigar-cutter, and his smile came readily, as from a man who had no fault to find with life.

To continue the possibly unnecessary details, I may add further that whilst tenders were requested for the erection of the New Safe Deposit, the provision of the advertisement that the lowest tender would not necessarily be accepted was justified by the fact that the offer of Potham and Holloway was approved, and it is an open secret that their tender was the highest of all.

“My client requires the very best work; he desires a building that will stand shocks.” Mr. Spedding shot a swift glance at the contractor, who sat at the other side of the desk. “Something that a footling little dynamite explosion would not scatter to the four winds.”

The contractor nodded.

“You have read the specification,” the solicitor went on—he was cutting a new cigar, “and in regard to the pedestal—ah—the pedestal, you know——?”

He stopped and looked at the contractor.

“It seems all very clear,” said the great builder. He took a bundle of papers from an open bag by his side and read, “The foundation to be of concrete to the depth of twenty feet.... The pedestal to be alternate layers of dressed granite and steel ... in the center a steel-lined compartment, ten inches by five, and half the depth of the pedestal itself.”

The solicitor inclined his head.

“That pedestal is to be the most important thing in the whole structure. The steel-lined recess—I don’t know the technical phrase—which one of these days your men will have to fill in, is the second most important; but the safe that is to stand fifty feet above the floor of the building is to be—but the safe is arranged for.”

An army of workmen, if the hackneyed phrase be permitted, descended upon Lombard Street and pulled down the old buildings. They pulled them down, and broke them down, and levered them down, and Lombard Street grew gray with dust. The interiors of quaint old rooms with grimy oak paneling were indecently exposed to a passing public. Clumsy, earthy carts blocked Lombard Street, and by night flaring Wells’ lights roared amidst the chaos.

And bare-armed men sweated and delved by night and by day; and one morning Mr. Spedding stood in a drizzle of rain, with a silk umbrella over his head, and expressed, on behalf of his client, his intense satisfaction at the progress made. He stood on a slippery plank that formed a barrow road, and workmen, roused to unusual activity by the presence of “The Firm”—Mr. Spedding’s cicerone—moved to and fro at a feverish rate of speed.

“They don’t mind the rain,” said the lawyer, sticking out his chin in the direction of the toiling gangs.

“The Firm” shook his head.

“Extra pay,” he said laconically, “we provided for that in the tender,” he hastened to add in justification of his munificence.

So in rain and sunshine, by day and by night, the New Safe Deposit came into existence.

Once—it was during a night shift, a brougham drove up the deserted city street, and a footman helped from the dark interior of the carriage a shivering old man with a white, drawn face. He showed a written order to the foreman, and was allowed inside the unpainted gate of the “works.”

He walked gingerly amidst the debris of construction, asked no questions, made no replies to the explanations of the bewildered foreman, who wondered what fascination there was in a building job to bring an old man from his bed at three o’clock on a chill spring morning.

Only once the old man spoke.

“Where will that there pedestal be?” he asked in a harsh, cracked cockney voice; and when the foreman pointed out the spot, and the men even then busily filling in the foundation, the old man’s lips curled back in an ugly smile that showed teeth too white and regular for a man of his age. He said no more, but pulled the collar of his fur coat the tighter about his lean neck and walked wearily back to his carriage.

The building saw Mr. Spedding’s client no more—if, indeed, it was Mr. Spedding’s client. So far as is known, he did not again visit Lombard Street before its completion—even when the last pane of glass had been fixed in the high gilded dome, when the last slab of marble had been placed in the ornate walls of the great hall, even when the solicitor came and stood in silent contemplation before the great granite pedestal that rose amidst a scaffolding of slim steel girders supporting a staircase that wound upward to the gigantic mid-air safe.

Not quite alone, for with him was the contractor, awed to silence by the immensity of his creation.

“Finished!” said the contractor, and his voice came echoing back from the dim spaces of the building.

The solicitor did not answer.

“Your client may commence business to-morrow if he wishes.”

The solicitor turned from the pedestal.

“He is not ready yet,” he said softly, as though afraid of the echoes.

He walked to where the big steel doors of the hall stood ajar, the contractor following.

In the vestibule he took two keys from his pocket. The heavy doors swung noiselessly across the entrance, and Mr. Spedding locked them. Through the vestibule and out into the busy street the two men walked, and the solicitor fastened behind him the outer doors.

“My client asks me to convey his thanks to you for your expedition,” the lawyer said.

The builder rubbed his hands with some satisfaction.

“You have taken two days less than we expected,” Mr. Spedding went on.

The builder was a man of few ideas outside his trade. He said again—

“Yes, your client may start business to-morrow.”

The solicitor smiled.

“My client, Mr. Potham, may not—er—start business—for ten years,” he said. “In fact, until—well, until he dies, Mr. Potham.”

CHAPTER II
THE HOUSE IN TERRINGTON SQUARE

A man turned into Terrington Square from Seymour Street and walked leisurely past the policeman on point duty, bidding him a curt “good night.” The officer subsequently described the passer, as a foreign-looking gentleman with a short pointed beard. Under the light overcoat he was apparently in evening dress, for the officer observed the shoes with the plain black bow, and the white silk muffler and the crush hat supported that view. The man crossed the road, and disappeared round the corner of the railed garden that forms the center of the square. A belated hansom came jingling past, and an early newspaper cart, taking a short cut to Paddington, followed; then the square was deserted save for the man and the policeman.

The grim, oppressive houses of the square were wrapped in sleep—drawn blinds and shuttered windows and silence.

The man continued his stroll until he came abreast of No. 43. Here he stopped for a second, gave one swift glance up and down the thoroughfare, and mounted the three steps of the house. He fumbled a little with the key, turned it, and entered. Inside he stood for a moment, then taking a small electric lamp from his pocket he switched on the current.

He did not trouble to survey the wide entrance hall, but flashed the tiny beam of light on the inside face of the door. Two thin wires and a small coil fastened to the lintel called forth no comment. One of the wires had been snapped by the opening of the door.

“Burglar-alarm, of course,” he murmured approvingly. “All the windows similarly treated, and goodness knows what pitfalls waiting for the unwary.”

He flashed the lamp round the hall. A heavy Turkish rug at the foot of the winding staircase secured his attention. He took from his pocket a telescopic stick, extended it, and fixed it rigid. Then he walked carefully towards the rug. With his stick he lifted the corner, and what he saw evidently satisfied him, for he returned to the door, where in a recess stood a small marble statue. All his strength was required to lift this, but he staggered back with it, and rolling it on its circular base, as railway porters roll milk churns, he brought it to the edge of the rug. With a quick push he planted it square in the center of the carpet. For a second only it stood, oscillating, then like a flash it disappeared, and where the carpet had lain was a black, gaping hole. He waited. Somewhere from the depths came a crash, and the carpet came slowly up again and filled the space. The unperturbed visitor nodded his head, as though again approving the householder’s caution.

“I don’t suppose he has learnt any new ones,” he murmured regretfully, “he is getting very old.” He took stock of the walls. They were covered with paintings and engravings. “He could not have fixed the cross fire in a modern house,” he continued, and taking a little run, leapt the rug and rested for a moment on the bottom stair. A suit of half armor on the first landing held him in thoughtful attention for a moment. “Elizabethan body, with a Spanish bayonet,” he said regretfully; “that doesn’t look like a collector’s masterpiece.” He flashed the lamp up and down the silent figure that stood in menacing attitude with a raised battle-ax. “I don’t like that ax,” he murmured, and measured the distance.

Then he saw the fine wire that stretched across the landing. He stepped across carefully, and ranged himself alongside the steel knight. Slipping off his coat, he reached up and caught the figure by the wrist. Then with a quick jerk of his foot he snapped the wire.

He had been prepared for the mechanical downfall of the ax; but as the wire broke the figure turned to the right, and swish! came the ax in a semicircular cut. He had thought to hold the arm as it descended, but he might as well have tried to hold the piston-rod of an engine. His hand was wrenched away, and the razor-like blade of the ax missed his head by the fraction of a second. Then with a whir the arm rose stiffly again to its original position and remained rigid.

The visitor moistened his lips and sighed.

“That’s a new one, a very new one,” he said under his breath, and the admiration in his tone was evident. He picked up his overcoat, flung it over his arm, and mounted half a dozen steps to the next landing. The inspection of the Chinese cabinet was satisfactory.

The white beam of his lamp flashed into corners and crevices and showed nothing. He shook the curtain of a window and listened, holding his breath.

“Not here,” he muttered decisively, “the old man wouldn’t try that game. Snakes turned loose in a house in London, S.W., take a deal of collecting in the morning.”

He looked round. From the landing access was gained to three rooms. That which from its position he surmised faced the street he did not attempt to enter. The second, covered by a heavy curtain, he looked at for a time in thought. To the third he walked, and carefully swathing the door-handle with his silk muffler, he turned it. The door yielded. He hesitated another moment, and jerking the door wide open, sprang backward.

The interior of the room was for a second only in pitch darkness, save for the flicker of light that told of an open fireplace. Then the visitor heard a click, and the room was flooded with light. In the darkness on the landing the man waited; then a voice, a cracked old voice, said grumblingly—

“Come in.”

Still the man on the landing waited.

“Oh, come in, Jimmy—I know ye.”

Cautiously the man outside stepped through the entry into the light and faced the old man, who, arrayed in a wadded dressing-gown, sat in a big chair by the fire—an old man, with white face and a sneering grin, who sat with his lap full of papers.

The visitor nodded a friendly greeting.

“As far as I can gather,” he said deliberately, “we are just above your dressing-room, and if you dropped me through one of your patent traps, Reale, I should fetch up amongst your priceless china.”

Save for a momentary look of alarm on the old man’s face at the mention of the china, he preserved an imperturbable calm, never moving his eyes from his visitor’s face. Then his grin returned, and he motioned the other to a chair on the other side of the fireplace.

Jimmy turned the cushion over with the point of his stick and sat down.

“Suspicious?”—the grin broadened—“suspicious of your old friend, Jimmy? The old governor, eh?”

Jimmy made no reply for a moment, then—

“You’re a wonder, governor, upon my word you are a wonder. That man in armor—your idea?”

The old man shook his head regretfully.

“Not mine entirely, Jimmy. Ye see, there’s electricity in it, and I don’t know much about electricity. I never did, except——”

“Except?” suggested the visitor.

“Oh, that roulette board, that was my own idea; but that was magnetism, which is different to electricity, by my way of looking.”

Jimmy nodded.

“Ye got past the trap?” The old man had just a glint of admiration in his eye.

“Yes, jumped it.”

The old man nodded approvingly.

“You always was a one for thinkin’ things out. I’ve known lots of ’em who would never have thought of jumping it. Connor, and that pig Massey, they’d have walked right on to it. You didn’t damage anything?” he demanded suddenly and fiercely. “I heard somethin’ break, an’ I was hoping that it was you.”

Jimmy thought of the marble statue, and remembered that it had looked valuable.

“Nothing at all,” he lied easily, and the old man’s tense look relaxed.

The pair sat on opposite sides of the fireplace, neither speaking for fully ten minutes; then Jimmy leant forward.

“Reale,” he said quietly, “how much are you worth?”

In no manner disturbed by this leading question, but rather indicating a lively satisfaction, the other replied instantly—

“Two millions an’ a bit over, Jimmy. I’ve got the figures in my head. Reckonin’ furniture and the things in this house at their proper value, two millions, and forty-seven thousand and forty-three pounds—floatin’, Jimmy, absolute cash, the same as you might put your hand in your pocket an’ spend—a million an’ three-quarters exact.”

He leant back in his chair with a triumphant grin and watched his visitor.

Jimmy had taken a cigarette from his pocket and was lighting it, looking at the slowly burning match reflectively.

“A million and three-quarters,” he repeated calmly, “is a lot of money.”

Old Reale chuckled softly.

“All made out of the confiding public, with the aid of me—and Connor and Massey——”

“Massey is a pig!” the old man interjected spitefully.

Jimmy puffed a cloud of tobacco smoke.

“Wrung with sweat and sorrow from foolish young men who backed the tiger and played high at Reale’s Unrivaled Temple of Chance, Cairo, Egypt—with branches at Alexandria, Port Said, and Suez.”

The figure in the wadded gown writhed in a paroxysm of silent merriment.

“How many men have you ruined, Reale?” asked Jimmy.

“The Lord knows!” the old man answered cheerfully; “only three as I knows of—two of ’em’s dead, one of ’em’s dying. The two that’s dead left neither chick nor child; the dying one’s got a daughter.”

Jimmy eyed him through narrowed lids.

“Why this solicitude for the relatives—you’re not going——?”

As he spoke, as if anticipating a question, the old man was nodding his head with feverish energy, and all the while his grin broadened.

“What a one you are for long words, Jimmy! You always was. That’s how you managed to persuade your swell pals to come an’ try their luck. Solicitude! What’s that mean? Frettin’ about ’em, d’ye mean? Yes, that’s what I’m doin’—frettin’ about ’em. And I’m going to make, what d’ye call it—you had it on the tip of your tongue a minute or two ago?”

“Reparation?” suggested Jimmy.

Old Reale nodded delightedly.

“How?”

“Don’t you ask questions!” bullied the old man, his harsh voice rising. “I ain’t asked you why you broke into my house in the middle of the night, though I knew it was you who came the other day to check the electric meter. I saw you, an’ I’ve been waitin’ for you ever since.”

“I knew all about that,” said Jimmy calmly, and flicked the ash of his cigarette away with his little finger, “and I thought you would——”

Suddenly he stopped speaking and listened.

“Who’s in the house beside us?” he asked quickly, but the look on the old man’s face reassured him.

“Nobody,” said Reale testily. “I’ve got a special house for the servants, and they come in every morning after I’ve unfixed my—burglar-alarms.” He grinned, and then a look of alarm came into his face.

“The alarms!” he whispered; “you broke them when you came in, Jimmy. I heard the signal. If there’s some one in the house we shouldn’t know it now.”

They listened.

Down below in the hall something creaked, then the sound of a soft thud came up.

“He’s skipped the rug,” whispered Jimmy, and switched out the light.

The two men heard a stealthy footstep on the stair, and waited. There was the momentary glint of a light, and the sound of some one breathing heavily. Jimmy leant over and whispered in the old man’s ear.

Then, as the handle of the door was turned and the door pushed open, Jimmy switched on the light.

The newcomer was a short, thick-set man with a broad, red face. He wore a check suit of a particularly glaring pattern, and on the back of his head was stuck a bowler hat, the narrow brim of which seemed to emphasize the breadth of his face. A casual observer might have placed him for a coarse, good-natured man of rude but boisterous humor. The ethnological student would have known him at once for what he was—a cruel man-beast without capacity for pity.

He started back as the lights went on, blinking a little, but his hand held an automatic pistol that covered the occupants of the room.

“Put up your hands,” he growled. “Put ’em up!”

Neither man obeyed him. Jimmy was amused and looked it, stroking his short beard with his white tapering fingers. The old man was fury incarnate.

He it was that turned to Jimmy and croaked—

“What did I tell ye, Jimmy? What’ve I always said, Jimmy? Massey is a pig—he’s got the manners of a pig. Faugh!”

“Put up your hands!” hissed the man with the pistol. “Put ’em up, or I’ll put you both out!”

“If he’d come first, Jimmy!” Old Reale wrung his hands in his regret. “S’pose he’d jumped the rug—any sneak-thief could have done that—d’ye think he’d have spotted the man in armor? If you’d only get the man in armor ready again.”

“Put your pistol down, Massey,” said Jimmy coolly, “unless you want something to play with. Old man Reale’s too ill for the gymnastics you suggest, and I’m not inclined to oblige you.”

The man blustered.

“By God, if you try any of your monkey tricks with me, either of you——”

“Oh, I’m only a visitor like yourself,” said Jimmy, with a wave of his hand; “and as to monkey tricks, why, I could have shot you before you entered the room.”

Massey frowned, and stood twiddling his pistol.

“You will find a safety catch on the left side of the barrel,” continued Jimmy, pointing to the pistol; “snick it up—you can always push it down again with your thumb if you really mean business. You are not my idea of a burglar. You breathe too noisily, and you are built too clumsily; why, I heard you open the front door!”

The quiet contempt in the tone brought a deeper red into the man’s face.

“Oh, you are a clever ’un, we know!” he began, and the old man, who had recovered his self-command, motioned him to a chair.

“Sit down, Mister Massey,” he snapped; “sit down, my fine fellow, an’ tell us all the news. Jimmy an’ me was just speakin’ about you, me an’ Jimmy was. We was saying what a fine gentleman you was”—his voice grew shrill—“what a swine, what an overfed, lumbering fool of a pig you was, Mister Massey!”

He sank back into the depths of his chair exhausted.

“Look here, governor,” began Massey again—he had laid his pistol on a table by his side, and waved a large red hand to give point to his remarks—“we don’t want any unpleasantness. I’ve been a good friend to you, an’ so has Jimmy. We’ve done your dirty work for years, me an’ Jimmy have, and Jimmy knows it”—turning with an ingratiating smirk to the subject of his remarks—“and now we want a bit of our own—that is all it amounts to, our own.”

Old Reale looked under his shaggy eyebrows to where Jimmy sat with brooding eyes watching the fire.

“So it’s a plant, eh? You’re both in it. Jimmy comes first, he being the clever one, an’ puts the lay nice an’ snug for the other feller.”

Jimmy shook his head.

“Wrong,” he said. He turned his head and took a long scrutiny of the newcomer, and the amused contempt of his gaze was too apparent.

“Look at him!” he said at last. “Our dear Massey! Does he look the sort of person I am likely to share confidence with?”

A cold passion seemed suddenly to possess him.

“It’s a coincidence that brought us both together.”

He rose and walked to where Massey sat, and stared down at him. There was something in the look that sent Massey’s hand wandering to his pistol.

“Massey, you dog!” he began, then checked himself with a laugh and walked to the other end of the room. There was a tantalus with a soda siphon, and he poured himself a stiff portion and sent the soda fizzling into the tumbler. He held the glass to the light and looked at the old man. There was a look on the old man’s face that he remembered to have seen before. He drank his whisky and gave utterance to old Reale’s thoughts.

“It’s no good, Reale, you’ve got to settle with Massey, but not the way you’re thinking. We could put him away, but we should have to put ourselves away too.” He paused. “And there’s me,” he added.

“And Connor,” said Massey thickly, “and Connor’s worse than me. I’m reasonable, Reale; I’d take a fair share——”

“You would, would you?”

The old man was grinning again.

“Well, your share’s exactly a million an’ three-quarters in solid cash, an’ a bit over two millions—all in.”

He paused to notice the effect of his words.

Jimmy’s calm annoyed him; Massey’s indifference was outrageous.

“An’ it’s Jimmy’s share, an’ Connor’s share, an’ it’s Miss Kathleen Kent’s share.”

This time the effect was better. Into Jimmy’s inexpressive face had crept a gleam of interest.

“Kent?” he asked quickly. “Wasn’t that the name of the man——?”

Old Reale chuckled.

“The very feller, Jimmy—the man who came in to lose a tenner, an’ lost ten thousand; who came in next night to get it back, and left his lot. That’s the feller!”

He rubbed his lean hands, as at the memory of some pleasant happening.

“Open that cupboard, Jimmy.” He pointed to an old-fashioned walnut cabinet that stood near the door. “D’ye see anything—a thing that looks like a windmill?”

Jimmy drew out a cardboard structure that was apparently a toy working-model. He handled it carefully, and deposited it on the table by the old man’s side. Old Reale touched it caressingly. With his little finger he set a fly-wheel spinning, and tiny little pasteboard rods ran to and fro, and little wooden wheels spun easily.

“That’s what I did with his money, invented a noo machine that went by itself—perpetual motion. You can grin, Massey, but that’s what I did with it. Five years’ work an’ a quarter of a million, that’s what that little model means. I never found the secret out. I could always make a machine that would go for hours with a little push, but it always wanted the push. I’ve been a chap that went in for inventions and puzzles. D’ye remember the table at Suez?”

He shot a sly glance at the men.

Massey was growing impatient as the reminiscences proceeded. He had come that night with an object; he had taken a big risk, and had not lost sight of the fact. Now he broke in—

“Damn your puzzles, Reale. What about me; never mind about Jimmy. What’s all this rotten talk about two millions for each of us, and this girl? When you broke up the place in Egypt you said we should stand in when the time came. Well, the time’s come!”

“Nearly, nearly,” said Reale, with his death’s-head grin. “It’s nearly come. You needn’t have troubled to see me. My lawyer’s got your addresses. I’m nearly through,” he went on cheerfully; “dead I’ll be in six months, as sure as—as death. Then you fellers will get the money”—he spoke slowly to give effect to his words—“you Jimmy, or Massey or Connor or the young lady. You say you don’t like puzzles, Massey? Well, it’s a bad look out for you. Jimmy’s the clever un, an’ most likely he’ll get it; Connor’s artful, and he might get it from Jimmy; but the young lady’s got the best chance, because women are good at puzzles.”

“What in hell!” roared Massey, springing to his feet.

“Sit down!” It was Jimmy that spoke, and Massey obeyed.

“There’s a puzzle about these two millions,” Reale went on, and his croaky voice, with its harsh cockney accent, grew raucous in his enjoyment of Massey’s perplexity and Jimmy’s knit brows. “An’ the one that finds the puzzle out, gets the money.”

Had he been less engrossed in his own amusement he would have seen a change in Massey’s brute face that would have warned him.

“It’s in my will,” he went on. “I’m goin’ to set the sharps against the flats; the touts of the gamblin’ hell—that’s you two fellers—against the pigeons. Two of the biggest pigeons is dead, an’ one’s dying. Well, he’s got a daughter; let’s see what she can do. When I’m dead——”

“That’s now!” bellowed Massey, and leant over and struck the old man.

Jimmy, on his feet, saw the gush of blood and the knife in Massey’s hand, and reached for his pocket.

Massey’s pistol covered him, and the man’s face was a dreadful thing to look upon.

“Hands up! It’s God’s truth I’ll kill you if you don’t!”

Jimmy’s hands went up.

“He’s got the money here,” breathed Massey, “somewhere in this house.”

“You’re mad,” said the other contemptuously. “Why did you hit him?”

“He sat there makin’ a fool of me.” The murderer gave a vicious glance at the inert figure on the floor. “I want something more than his puzzle-talk. He asked for it.”

He backed to the table where the decanter stood, and drank a tumbler half-filled with raw spirit.

“We’re both in this, Jimmy,” he said, still keeping his man covered. “You can put down your hands; no monkey tricks. Give me your pistol.”

Jimmy slipped the weapon from his pocket, and handed it butt foremost to the man. Then Massey bent over the fallen man and searched his pockets.

“Here are the keys. You stay here,” said Massey, and went out, closing the door after him.

Jimmy heard the grate of the key, and knew he was a prisoner. He bent over the old man. He lay motionless. Jimmy tried the pulse, and felt a faint flutter. Through the clenched teeth he forced a little whisky, and after a minute the old man’s eyes opened.

“Jimmy!” he whispered; then remembering, “Where’s Massey?” he asked.

There was no need to inquire the whereabouts of Massey. His blundering footfalls sounded in the room above.

“Lookin’ for money?” gasped the old man, and something like a smile crossed his face. “Safe’s up there,” he whispered, and smiled again. “Got the keys?”

Jimmy nodded.

The old man’s eyes wandered round the room till they rested on what looked like a switchboard.

“See that handle marked ‘seven’?” he whispered.

Jimmy nodded again.

“Pull it down, Jimmy boy.” His voice was growing fainter. “This is a new one that I read in a book. Pull it down.”

“Why?”

“Do as I tell you,” the lips motioned, and Jimmy walked across the room and pulled over the insulated lever.

As he did there was a heavy thud overhead that shook the room, and then silence.

“What’s that?” he asked sharply.

The dying man smiled.

“That’s Massey!” said the lips.

Half an hour later Jimmy left the house with a soiled slip of paper in his waistcoat pocket, on which was written the most precious verse of doggerel that the world has known.

And the discovery of the two dead men in the upper chambers the next morning afforded the evening press the sensation of the year.

CHAPTER III
ANGEL ESQUIRE

Nobody quite knows how Angel Esquire came to occupy the position he does at Scotland Yard. On his appointment, “An Officer of Twenty Years’ Standing” wrote to the Police Review and characterized the whole thing as “a job.” Probably it was. For Angel Esquire had been many things in his short but useful career, but never a policeman. He had been a big game shot, a special correspondent, a “scratch” magistrate, and his nearest approach to occupying a responsible position in any police force in the world was when he was appointed a J.P. of Rhodesia, and, serving on the Tuli Commission, he hanged M’Linchwe and six of that black desperado’s companions.

His circle of acquaintances extended to the suburbs of London, and the suburbanites, who love you to make their flesh creep, would sit in shivering but pleasurable horror whilst Angel Esquire elaborated the story of the execution.

In Mayfair Angel Esquire was best known as a successful mediator.

“Who is that old-looking young man with the wicked eye?” asked the Dowager Duchess of Hoeburn; and her vis-à-vis at the Honorable Mrs. Carter-Walker’s “sit-down tea”—it was in the days when Mayfair was aping suburbia—put up his altogether unnecessary eyeglass.

“Oh, that’s Angel Esquire!” he said carelessly.

“What is he?” asked the Duchess.

“A policeman.”

“India?”

“Oh, no, Scotland Yard.”

“Good Heavens!” said Her Grace in a shocked voice. “How very dreadful! What is he doing? Watching the guests, or keeping a friendly eye on the Carter woman’s spoons?”

The young man guffawed.

“Don’t despise old Angel, Duchess,” he said. “He’s a man to know. Great fellow for putting things right. If you have a row with your governor, or get into the hands of—er—undesirables, or generally, if you’re in a mess of any kind, Angel’s the chap to pull you out.”

Her Grace surveyed the admirable man with a new interest.

Angel Esquire, with a cup of tea in one hand and a thin grass sandwich in the other, was the center of a group of men, including the husband of the hostess. He was talking with some animation.

“I held three aces pat, and opened the pot light to let ’em in. Young Saville raised the opening to a tenner, and the dealer went ten better. George Manfred, who had passed, came in for a pony, and took one card. I took two, and drew another ace. Saville took one, and the dealer stood pat. I thought it was my money, and bet a pony. Saville raised it to fifty, the dealer made it a hundred, and George Manfred doubled the bet. It was up to me. I had four aces; I put Saville with a ‘full,’ and the dealer with a ‘flush.’ I had the beating of that lot; but what about Manfred? Manfred is a feller with all the sense going. He knew what the others had. If he bet, he had the goods, so I chucked my four aces into the discard. George had a straight flush.”

A chorus of approval came from the group.

If “An Officer of Twenty Years’ Standing” had been a listener, he might well have been further strengthened in his opinion that of all persons Mr. Angel was least fitted to fill the responsible position he did.

If the truth be told, nobody quite knew exactly what position Angel did hold. If you turn into New Scotland Yard and ask the janitor at the door for Mr. Christopher Angel—Angel Esquire by the way was a nickname affixed by a pert little girl—the constable, having satisfied himself as to your bona-fides, would take you up a flight of stairs and hand you over to yet another officer, who would conduct you through innumerable swing doors, and along uncounted corridors till he stopped before a portal inscribed “647.” Within, you would find Angel Esquire sitting at his desk, doing nothing, with the aid of a Sporting Life and a small weekly guide to the Turf.

Once Mr. Commissioner himself walked into the room unannounced, and found Angel so immersed in an elaborate calculation, with big sheets of paper closely filled with figures, and open books on either hand, that he did not hear his visitor.

“What is the problem?” asked Mr. Commissioner, and Angel looked up with his sweetest smile, and recognizing his visitor, rose.

“What’s the problem?” asked Mr. Commissioner again.

“A serious flaw, sir,” said Angel, with all gravity. “Here’s Mimosa handicapped at seven stone nine in the Friary Nursery, when, according to my calculations, she can give the field a stone, and beat any one of ’em.”

The Commissioner gasped.

“My dear fellow,” he expostulated, “I thought you were working on the Lagos Bank business.”

Angel had a far-away look in his eyes when he answered—

“Oh, that is all finished. Old Carby was poisoned by a man named—forget his name now, but he was a Monrovian. I wired the Lagos police, and we caught the chap this morning at Liverpool—took him off an Elder, Dempster boat.”

The Police Commissioner beamed.

“My congratulations, Angel. By Jove, I thought we shouldn’t have a chance of helping the people in Africa. Is there a white man in it?”

“We don’t know,” said Angel absently; his eye was wandering up and down a column of figures on the paper before him.

“I am inclined to fancy there is—man named Connor, who used to be a croupier or something to old Reale.”

He frowned at the paper, and picking up a pencil from the desk, made a rapid little calculation. “Seven stone thirteen,” he muttered.

The Commissioner tapped the table impatiently. He had sunk into a seat opposite Angel.

“My dear man, who is old Reale? You forget that you are our tame foreign specialist. Lord, Angel, if you heard half the horrid things that people say about your appointment you would die of shame!”

Angel pushed aside the papers with a little laugh.

“I’m beyond shame,” he said lightheartedly; “and, besides, I’ve heard. You were asking about Reale. Reale is a character. For twenty years proprietor of one of the most delightful gambling plants in Egypt, Rome—goodness knows where. Education—none. Hobbies—invention. That’s the ‘bee in his bonnet’—invention. If he’s got another, it is the common or garden puzzle. Pigs in clover, missing words, all the fake competitions that cheap little papers run—he goes in for them all. Lives at 43 Terrington Square.”

“Where?” The Commissioner’s eyebrows rose. “Reale? 43 Terrington Square? Why, of course.” He looked at Angel queerly. “You know all about Reale?”

Angel shrugged his shoulders.

“As much as anybody knows,” he said.

The Commissioner nodded.

“Well, take a cab and get down at once to 43 Terrington Square. Your old Reale was murdered last night.”

It was peculiar of Angel Esquire that nothing surprised him. He received the most tremendous tidings with polite interest, and now he merely said, “Dear me!” Later, as a swift hansom carried him along Whitehall he permitted himself to be “blessed.”

Outside No. 43 Terrington Square a small crowd of morbid sightseers stood in gloomy anticipation of some gruesome experience or other. A policeman admitted him, and the local inspector stopped in his interrogation of a white-faced butler to bid him a curt “Good morning.”

Angel’s preliminary inspection did not take any time. He saw the bodies, which had not yet been removed. He examined the pockets of both men, and ran his eye through the scattered papers on the floor of the room in which the tragedy had occurred. Then he came back to the big drawing-room and saw the inspector, who was sitting at a table writing his report.

“The chap on the top floor committed the murder, of course,” said Angel.

“I know that,” said Inspector Boyden brusquely.

“And was electrocuted by a current passing through the handle of the safe.”

“I gathered that,” the inspector replied as before, and went on with his work.

“The murderer’s name is Massey,” continued Angel patiently—“George Charles Massey.”

The inspector turned in his seat with a sarcastic smile.

“I also,” he said pointedly, “have seen the envelopes addressed in that name, which were found in his pocket.”

Angel’s face was preternaturally solemn as he continued—

“The third man I am not so sure about.”

The inspector looked up suspiciously.

“Third man—which third man?”

Well-simulated astonishment sent Angel’s eyebrows to the shape of inverted V’s.

“There was another man in it. Didn’t you know that, Mr. Inspector?”

“I have found no evidence of the presence of a third party,” he said stiffly; “but I have not yet concluded my investigations.”

“Good!” said Angel cheerfully. “When you have, you will find the ends of three cigarettes—two in the room where the old man was killed, and one in the safe room. They are marked ‘Al Kam,’ and are a fairly expensive variety of Egyptian cigarettes. Massey smoked cigars; old Reale did not smoke at all. The question is”—he went on speaking aloud to himself, and ignoring the perplexed police official—“was it Connor or was it Jimmy?”

The inspector struggled with a desire to satisfy his curiosity at the expense of his dignity, and resolved to maintain an attitude of superior incredulity. He turned back to his work.

“It would be jolly difficult to implicate either of them,” Angel went on reflectively, addressing the back of the inspector. “They would produce fifty unimpeachable alibis, and bring an action for wrongful arrest in addition,” he added artfully.

“They can’t do that,” said the inspector gruffly.

“Can’t they?” asked the innocent Angel. “Well, at any rate, it’s not advisable to arrest them. Jimmy would——”

Inspector Boyden swung round in his chair.

“I don’t know whether you’re ‘pulling my leg,’ Mr. Angel. You are perhaps unused to the procedure in criminal cases in London, and I must now inform you that at present I am in charge of the case, and must request that if you have any information bearing upon this crime to give it to me at once.”

“With all the pleasure in life,” said Angel heartily. “In the first place, Jimmy——”

“Full name, please.” The inspector dipped his pen in ink.

“Haven’t the slightest idea,” said the other carelessly. “Everybody knows Jimmy. He was old Reale’s most successful decoy duck. Had the presence and the plumage and looked alive, so that all the other little ducks used to come flying down and settle about him, and long before they could discover that the beautiful bird that attracted them was only painted wood and feathers, ‘Bang! bang!’ went old Reale’s double-barrel, and roast duck was on the menu for days on end.”

Inspector Boyden threw down his pen with a grunt.

“I’m afraid,” he said in despair, “that I cannot include your parable in my report. When you have any definite information to give, I shall be pleased to receive it.”

Later, at Scotland Yard, Angel interviewed the Commissioner.

“What sort of a man is Boyden to work with?” asked Mr. Commissioner.

“A most excellent chap—good-natured, obliging, and as zealous as the best of ’em,” said Angel, which was his way.

“I shall leave him in charge of the case,” said the Chief.

“You couldn’t do better,” said Angel decisively.

Then he went home to his flat in Jermyn Street to dress for dinner.

It was an immaculate Angel Esquire who pushed through the plate-glass, turn-table door of the Heinz, and, walking into the magnificent old rose dining-room, selected a table near a window looking out on to Piccadilly.

The other occupant of the table looked up and nodded.

“Hullo, Angel!” he said easily.

“Hullo, Jimmy!” greeted the unconventional detective.