Chapter 2

We had not long to wait. The two men rose from the table and walked
slowly to the door, where they paused to light their cigars before going
out. Then Badger rose, with his back towards them and his eyes on the
mirror opposite; and as they went out, he snatched up his hat and stick
and followed. Thorndyke looked at me inquiringly.

“Do we indulge in the pleasures of the chase?” he asked, and as I
replied in the affirmative, we, too, made our way out and started in the
wake of the inspector.

As we followed Badger at a discreet distance, we caught an occasional
glimpse of the quarry ahead, whose proceedings evidently caused the
inspector some embarrassment, for they had a way of stopping suddenly to
elaborate some point that they were discussing, whereby it became
necessary for the detective to drop farther in the rear than was quite
safe, in view of the rather crowded state of the pavement. On one of
these occasions, when the older man was apparently delivering himself of
some excruciating joke, they both turned suddenly and looked back, the
joker pointing to some object on the opposite side of the road. Several
people turned to see what was being pointed at, and, of course, the
inspector had to turn, too, to avoid being recognised. At this moment
the two men popped into an entry, and when the inspector once more
turned they were gone.

As soon as he missed them, Badger started forward almost at a run, and
presently halted at the large entry of the Celestial Bank Chambers, into
which he peered eagerly. Then, apparently sighting his quarry, he darted
in, and we quickened our pace and followed. Half-way down the long hall
we saw him standing at the door of a lift, frantically pressing the
call-button.

“Poor Badger!” chuckled Thorndyke, as we walked past him unobserved.
“His usual luck! He will hardly run them to earth now in this enormous
building. We may as well go through to the Blenheim Street entrance.”

We pursued our way along the winding corridor and were close to the
entrance when I noticed two men coming down the staircase that led to
the hall.

“By Jingo! Here they are!” I exclaimed. “Shall we run back and give
Badger the tip?”

Thorndyke hesitated. But it was too late. A taxi had just driven up and
was discharging its fare. The younger man, catching the driver’s eye,
ran out and seized the door-handle; and when his companion had entered
the cab, he gave an address to the driver, and, stepping in quickly,
slammed the door. As the cab moved off, Thorndyke pulled out his
notebook and pencil and jotted down the number of the vehicle. Then we
turned and retraced our steps; but when we reached the lift-door, the
inspector had disappeared. Presumably, like the incomparable Tom
Bowling, he had gone aloft.

“We must give it up, Jervis,” said Thorndyke. “I will send
him—anonymously—the number of the cab, and that is all we can do. But
I am sorry for Badger.”

With this we dismissed the incident from our minds—at least, I did;
assuming that I had seen the last of the two strangers. Little did I
suspect how soon and under what strange and tragic circumstances I
should meet with them again!

It was about a week later that we received a visit from our old friend,
Superintendent Miller of the Criminal Investigation Department. The
passing years had put us on a footing of mutual trust and esteem, and
the capable, straightforward detective officer was always a welcome
visitor.

“I’ve just dropped in,” said Miller, cutting off the end of the
inevitable cigar, “to tell you about a rather queer case that we’ve got
in hand. I know you are always interested in queer cases.”

Thorndyke smiled blandly. He had heard that kind of preamble before, and
he knew, as did I, that when Miller became communicative we could safely
infer that the Millerian bark was in shoal water.

“It is a case,” the superintendent continued, “of a very special brand
of crook. Actually there is a gang, but it is the managing director that
we have particularly got our eye on.”

“Is he a regular ‘habitual,’ then?” asked Thorndyke.

“Well,” replied Miller, “as to that, I can’t positively say. The fact is
that we haven’t actually seen the man to be sure of him.”

“I see,” said Thorndyke, with a grim smile. “You mean to say that you
have got your eye on the place where he isn’t.”

“At the present moment,” Miller admitted, “that is the literal fact. We
have lost sight of the man we suspected, but we hope to pick him up
again presently. We want him badly, and his pals too. It is probably
quite a small gang, but they are mighty fly; a lot too smart to be at
large. And they’ll take some catching, for there is someone running the
concern with a good deal more brains than crooks usually have.”

“What is their lay?” I asked.

“Burglary,” he replied. “Jewels and plate, but principally jewels; and
the special feature of their work is that the swag disappears completely
every time. None of the stuff has ever been traced. That is what drew
our attention to them. After each robbery we made a round of all the
fences, but there was not a sign. The stuff seemed to have vanished into
smoke. Now that is very awkward. If you never see the men and you can’t
trace the stuff, where are you? You’ve got nothing to go on.”

“But you seem to have got a clue of some kind,” I said.

“Yes. There isn’t a lot in it; but it seemed worth following up. One of
our men happened to travel down to Colchester with a certain man, and
when he came back two days later, he noticed this same man on the
platform at Colchester and saw him get out at Liverpool Street. In the
interval there had been a jewel robbery at Colchester. Then there was a
robbery at Southampton, and our man went at once to Waterloo and saw all
the trains in. On the second day, behold! the Colchester sportsman turns
up at the barrier, so our man, who had a special taxi waiting, managed
to track him home and afterwards got some particulars about him. He is a
chap named Shemmonds; belongs to a firm of outside brokers. But nobody
seems to know much about him and he doesn’t put in much time at the
office.

“Well, then, Badger took him over and shadowed him for a day or two, but
just as things were looking interesting, he slipped off the hook. Badger
followed him to a restaurant, and, through the glass door, saw him go up
to an elderly man at a table and shake hands with him. Then he took a
chair at the table himself, so Badger popped in and took a seat near
them where he could keep them in view. They went out together and Badger
followed them, but he lost them in the Celestial Bank Chambers. They
went up in the lift just before he could get to the door and that was
the last he saw of them. But we have ascertained that they left the
building in a taxi and that the taxi set them down at Great Turnstile.”