misfortune, it is nothing but that.”
What response Narkom might have made was checked by a sudden discovery. Huddling in a corner, feigning a drunken sleep, he saw a man lying with his face hidden in his folded arms. It was the pedler. He pounced on the man and jerked up his head before the fellow could prevent it or could dream of what was about to happen.
“Here’s one of them at least!” he cried, and fell to shaking him with all his force. “Here’s one of Margot’s pals, Ducroix. You shan’t go empty-handed after all.”
A cry of consternation fluttered through the gathering as he brought the man’s face into view. Evidently they were past masters of the art of acting, these Apaches, for one might have sworn that every man and every woman of them was taken aback by the fellow’s presence.
“Mother of Miracles! who shall the man be?” exclaimed Marise. “Messieurs, I know him not. I have not seen him in all my life before. Cochon, speak up! Who are you, that you come in like this and get a respectable widow in trouble, dog? Eh?”
The man made a motion first to his ears, then to his mouth, then fell to making movements in the sign language, but spoke never a word.
“La, la! he is a deaf mute, m’sieur,” said Ducroix. “He hears not and speaks not, poor unfortunate.”
“Oh, doesn’t he?” said Narkom with an ugly laugh. “He spoke well enough a couple of hours back, I promise you. My young friend here and I heard him when he paid off the fisherman who had carried him over to Dover just before he sneaked aboard the packet to come back with Margot and the Mauravanian.”
The eyes of the Apaches flew to the man’s face with a sudden keen interest which only they might understand; but he still stood, wagging his great head either drunkenly or idiotically, and pointing to ears and mouth.
“Lay hold of him – run him in!” said Narkom, whirling him across into the arms of a couple of stalwart Sergeants de Ville. “I’ll go before the magistrate and lay a charge against him in the morning that will open your eyes when you hear it. One of a bloodthirsty, dynamiting crew, the dog! Lay fast hold of him! don’t let him get away on your lives! God! to have lost that woman! to have lost her after all!”
It was a sore blow, certainly, but there was nothing to do but to grin and bear it; for to seek Margot at any of the inns which might communicate with the sewer trap, or to hunt for her and a motor boat on the dark water’s surface, was in very truth like looking for a needle in a haystack, and quite as hopeless. He therefore, decided to go, for the rest of the night, to the nearest hotel; and waiting only to see the pedler carried away in safe custody, and promising to be on hand when he was brought up before the local magistrate in the morning, took Dollops by the arm and dejectedly went his way.
The morning saw him living up to his promise; and long before the arrival of the magistrate or, indeed, before the night’s harvest of prisoners was brought over from the lockup and thrust into the three little “detention rooms” below the court, he was there with Dollops and Ducroix, observing with wonder that groups of evil-looking fellows of the Apache breed were hanging round the building as he approached, and that later on others of the same kidney slipped in and took seats in the little courtroom and kept constantly whispering one to the other while they waited for the morning session to begin.
“Gawd’s truth, guv’ner, look at ’em – the ’ole blessed place is alive with the bounders,” whispered Dollops. “Wot do you think they are up to, sir? Makin’ a rush and settin’ the pedler free when he comes up before the Beak? There’s twenty of ’em waitin’ round the door if there’s one.”
Narkom made no reply. The arrival of the magistrate focussed all eyes on the bench and riveted his attention with the rest.
The proceedings opened with all the trivial cases first – the night’s sweep of the dragnet: drunks and disorderlies, vagrants and pariahs. One by one these were brought in and paid their fines and went their way, unheeded; for this part of the morning’s proceedings interested nobody, not even the Apaches. The list was dragged through monotonously; the last blear-eyed sot – a hideous, cadaverous, monkey-faced wretch whose brutal countenance sickened Narkom when he shambled up in his filthy rags – had paid his fine, and gone his way, and there remained now but a case of attempted suicide to be disposed of before the serious cases began. This latter occupied the magistrate’s time and attention for perhaps twenty minutes or so, then that, too, was disposed of; and then a voice was heard calling out for the unknown man arrested last night at the Inn of the Seven Sinners to be brought forward.
In an instant a ripple of excitement ran through the little court. The Apache fraternity sat up within and passed the word to the Apache fraternity without, and these stood at attention – close-lipped, dark-browed, eager, like human tigers waiting for the word to spring. Every eye was fixed on the door through which that pretended mute should be led in; but although others had come at the first call, he came not even at the second, and the magistrate had just issued an impatient command for the case to be called yet a third time, when there was a clatter of hasty footsteps and the keeper of the detention rooms burst into the court pale as a dead man and shaking in every nerve.
“M’sieur le Juge!” he cried out, extending his two arms. “Soul of Misfortunes, how shall I tell? He is not there – he is gone – he is escape, that unknown one. When I shall unlock the room and call for Jean Lamareau, the drunkard, at the case before the last, there shall come out of the dimness to me what I shall think is he and I shall bring him here and he shall be fine and dismissed. But, m’sieur, he shall not be Jean Lamareau after all! I shall go now and call for the unknown and I shall get no answer; I shall go in and make of the place light, and there he shall be, that real Jean Lamareau – stripped of his clothes, choked to unconsciousness, alone on the floor, and the other shall have paid his fine and gone!”
A great cry went up, a wild confusion filled the court. The Apaches within rose and ran with the news to the Apaches without; and these, joining forces, scattered and ran through the streets in the direction the escaped prisoner had been seen to take.
But through it all Narkom sat there squeezing his hands together and laughing in little shaking gusts that had a heart throb wavering through them; for to him this could mean but one thing.
“Cleek!” he said, leaning down and shrilling a joyous whisper into Dollops’ ear. “But one man in all the world could have done that thing – but one man in all the world would have dared. It was he – it was Cleek! God bless his bully soul!”
“Amen, sir,” said Dollops, swallowing something; then he rose at Narkom’s bidding and followed him outside.
A minute later a gamin brushing against them put out a grimy hand and said whiningly:
“Boulogne, messieurs. Quai des Anges. Third house back from the waterside; in time for the noon boat across to Folkestone. Give me two francs, please. The monsieur said you would if I said that to you when you came out.”
The two francs were in his hand almost as he ceased speaking, and in less than a minute later a fiacre was whirling Narkom and Dollops off to the railway station and the next outgoing train to Boulogne. It was still short of midday when they arrived at the Quai des Anges and made their way to the third house back from the waterside – a little tavern with a toy garden in front and a sort of bowered arcade behind – and there under an almond tree, with a cigarette between his fingers and a bunch of flowers in his buttonhole, they came upon him at last.
“Guv’ner! Oh, Gawd bless you, guv’ner, is it really you again?” said Dollops, rushing up to him like a girl to a lover.
“Yes, it is really I,” he answered with one of his easy laughs. Then he rose and held out his hand as Narkom advanced; and for a moment or two they stood there palm in palm, saying not one word, making not one sound.
“Nearly did for me, my overzealous friend,” said Cleek, after a time. “I could have kicked you when you turned up with that lot at the Seven Sinners. Another ten minutes and I’d have had that in my hands which would have compelled his Majesty of Mauravania to give Irma his liberty and to abdicate in his consort’s favour. But you came, you dear old blunderer; and when