had they been sixteen hundred, and the space of time occupied in their investigations a thousand years, would never have been able to balance the Company Promoter’s estate to the satisfaction of all concerned, for between debit and credit yawned an unfathomable chasm that close on a million pounds could not have spanned.
In the course of time a fickle public forgot the sensational disappearance of these men; in course of time their victims died or sought admission to the workhouse. There were spasmodic discussions that arose in smokerooms and tap-rooms, and the question, as to whether they were dead or whether they had merely bolted, was hotly debated, but it may be truthfully said that they were forgotten; but not by Scotland Yard, which neither forgets nor forgives.
The Official Memory sits in a big office that overlooks the Thames Embankment. It is embodied in a man who checks, day by day, hour by hour, and minute by minute, the dark happenings of the world. He is an inconsiderable person, as personalities go, for he enters no witnessbox to testify against a pallid prisoner. He grants no interviews to curious newspaper reporters, he appears in no magazines as a picturesque detector of crime, but silently, earnestly, and remorselessly he marks certain little square cards, makes grim entries in strange ledgers, consults maps, and pores over foreign newspaper reports. Sometimes he prepares a dossier as a cheap-jack makes up his prize packet, with a paper from this cabinet, a photograph from that drawer, a newspaper-cutting, a docketed deposition with the sprawling signature of a dying man, a fingerprint card — and all these he places in a large envelope, and addresses it in a clerkly hand to Chief Inspector So-and-So, or to the “Director of Public Prosecutions.” When the case is over and a dazed man sits in a cell at Wormwood Scrubbs pondering his sentence, or, as it sometimes happens, when convict masons are at work carving initials over a grave in a prison-yard, the envelope comes back to the man in the office, and he sorts the contents jealously. It is nothing to him, the sum of misery they have cast, or the odour of death that permeates them. He receives them unemotionally, distributes the contents to their cabinets, pigeonholes, guard-books, and drawers and proceeds to make up yet another dossier.
All things come to him; crime in all its aspects is veritably his stockin-trade.
When George T. Baggin disappeared in 1908, his simple arrangement of indexing showed the connection between the passing of Lucas Damant, six months later, and the obliteration of Gerald Grayson. The Official Memory knew, too, what the public had no knowledge of: namely, that there had been half-a-dozen minor, but no less mysterious, flittings in the space of two years.
Their stories, briefly and pithily told, were inscribed on cards in the silent man’s cabinet. Underneath was the significant word, “Incomplete.” They were stories to be continued; some other hand than his might take up the tale at a future time, and subscribe “Finis” to their grim chapters. He was satisfied to carry the story forward as far as his information allowed him.
There never was a more fascinating office than this of the Silent Recorder’s. It was terribly businesslike, with its banked files, its innumerable drawers, its rows of deep cabinets. “A, B, C, D,” they ran; then began all over again, “AA, BB, CC,” except the big index drawer where “Aabot, Aaroon, Aato, Abard, Abart” commenced the record of infamous men. There were forgers here, murderers, coiners, defaulters great and small. There are stories of great swindles, and of suspected swindles, of events apparently innocent in themselves, behind which lie unsuspected criminalities.
I show you this office, the merest glimpse of it, so that as this story progresses, and information comes mysteriously to the hand of the chief actor, you will understand that no miracle has been performed, no Heavensent divination of purpose has come to him, but that at the back of the knowledge he employs with such assurance is this big office at New Scotland Yard. A pleasant office, overlooking the Embankment with its green trees and its sunny river and its very pleasant sights — none of which the Recorder ever sees, being shortsighted from overmuch study of criminal records.
8. The Ambassador Takes a Hand
Mr. John Hammond Bierce, American Ambassador and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Saint James, sat in his spacious private office, and listened with an air of grave attention to the story his young protégé poured into his ears. As Van Ingen concluded, the great man leaned back in his swivel-chair until the spring creaked, and stifled a yawn behind a white, well-groomed hand.
“My dear boy,” he said, “this is a very sad tale, and I am genuinely sorry for Miss Grayson. Her father appears to have been a rascal. But,” he smiled across at his youthful visitor, “I do not quite see what the American ambassador has to do with the business. I understand you consulted me in my official capacity.”
“I — I thought perhaps you might wish to take some action—”
“But the man is dead!” exclaimed the ambassador. “Dead and buried.”
“That is just the question!” cried Cord eagerly. “Is he dead? For my part, I suspect he is very much alive and kicking. His suicide was only a ruse, to mask his plans from the public.”
“A very successful one!” retorted the older man drily. “His daughter identified the body and was present at its burial. It was in all the papers.”
“That is another point!” exclaimed Van Ingen.
“Not once was I permitted to view the body. I was even denied admittance to the house until three days after the funeral. Throughout the affair the utmost secrecy was observed.”
“That seems natural, under the circumstances.”
Van Ingen coloured warmly. “Pardon me, it is not natural, sir, when you know all the circumstances. I was an intimate of the family — almost, one might say, in the position of a son.” He halted, and then continued, with a certain dignity:
“I have not spoken on the subject to you before, sir, chiefly because there has been nothing definite to say. But Miss Grayson is, I hope and pray, sir, my future wife.”
“Ah!” The ambassador surveyed him with a keen but kindly glance.
“I feel bound,” he observed thoughtfully, “to make a few remarks, both as your guardian and as a man who has seen something of the world. The wife of a rising young diplomat must be, like Caesar’s wife, above reproach. In short, my dear boy, to marry Miss Grayson will absolutely ruin your career.”
Van Ingen sprang to his feet; his face was livid with anger.
“Then, sir,” he cried hotly, “I shall ruin my career, with the greatest pleasure in life. Miss Grayson — Doris — is worth inestimably more to me than any paltry success, or material advantage. Moreover,” he continued, composing himself with a strong effort, “I disagree with you, even upon worldly grounds. Marriage with Doris will not mar me — it will make me. Without her, I shall be ineffectual, a nobody to the end of my days. Without her, living has no aim, no purpose. She justifies existence. I can’t explain these things, sir, even to you. I — I love her!”
“So it would seem!” murmured the ambassador. The sternness had melted out of his face, leaving a whimsical tenderness.
“Sit down, my dear boy! Other people have been as hot in love as you before now — and as rashly headstrong.” A shade passed over his features. “Come, let us get down to business. What is it you wish me to do — administer a love-potion to the young woman? Or restore the father to life?”
“I want you to investigate the case,” Cord replied simply. “Or rather, give me the power to do so.”
“There’s Scotland Yard, you know,” suggested his friend mildly.
“They could cooperate with us. In fact, that is what I should like to ask. That you send for Mr. T.B. Smith, who is already in charge of the business, and tell him that a certain strangeness in the circumstances has aroused your suspicions, and that you wish to sift the affair