IV
“The Ideal Criminal Is a Strategist”
“Where did he go?” she asked.
“He went to Millet,” said the Colonel, throwing himself down to a divan and biting off the end of a fresh cigar. “I wonder what the dickens he wants?” he mused.
Kate Westhanger made a little grimace.
“You can never tell whether a policeman finds his duty a pleasure or his pleasure a duty,” she said. “I suppose he is just renewing acquaintance with Crime Street.”
“Don’t use that phrase,” snapped her uncle.
“I shall use whatever phrase I wish,” she said calmly. “You are getting nervous. Why?”
“I’m not nervous,” he protested loudly; “I am getting old I suppose, and the job is such a big one. It is almost too big for me and if I occupied the position I had a few years ago, Kate, I would drop it. After all, we have made a good deal of money and we might as well all of us live to enjoy it.”
She was back at the piano again and was playing with the soft pedal down.
“Can’t you find anything more cheerful than the ‘Death of Asa?’ ” growled her relative.
“It is nerves, of course; I am awfully sorry.”
She got up and closed the piano with a bang which made him jump.
“I don’t know what to do about Mike,” she mused.
“Gregori has a solution,” said the Colonel.
“To cut his throat, I suppose,” said the girl coolly. “Gregori is so elemental and so horrific! I can’t imagine that he ever has cut a throat in his life, but I suppose he feels that it is in keeping with his sunny southern nature to talk like that. No, Colonel mio,” she mimicked, “we have stopped short of murder so far and I think we will remain on the safe side. My theory coincides with Mike’s. I was reading an article of his in a Socialistic paper the other day and it was all about the Right to Live. I don’t believe in killing people. I believe in bleeding those who have grown apoplectic with their money and I don’t even know whether I believe in that.”
“What do you mean?” the Colonel looked up at her under his shaggy brows.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“I mean,” she said slowly, “I never know whether my views are my own views or whether they are just your views which I reflect like a mirror. You see, dear,” she said, “I am very young but I have a logical mind and my logical mind tells me that no girl can have any very definite views at nineteen, not of her own, I mean. Perhaps when I am twenty-five I shall look upon you as a terrible person, and all this,” she spread her hands out, “as something to think of with a shudder.”
“In the meantime,” said her uncle practically, “you are Miss Ali Baba, chief strategist of our little army and a very exigent young lady—by-the-way, Gregori is kicking.”
She looked at him with a contemptuous little twist of her lips.
“There is a great centre forward lost in Gregori,” she said. “What has moved that dago’s feet?”
“Hush, hush, my child,” cautioned her uncle, “our admirable friend is upstairs and, anyway, it doesn’t do to speak disrespectfully of one’s criminal associates. There is a certain punctilio in our profession which you may have noticed.”
“How queer it sounds!” she said, leaning forward and clasping her knee. “Do you know, uncle, I cannot think straight. Ever since I was so high,” she stretched her hand out before her, “I have never known a desire to secure anything I wanted, save by taking it from somebody else. At the school in Lausanne I seemed to be amongst the queerest people and, honestly, although you had warned me, I thought they were all mad. All their fathers made money in business, which seems to be a slow method of stealing which is allowed by the law. Think of the horrible monotony of working steadily day after day without any holidays, with no excitement, no adventures, save the artificial thrill of a theatre and the adventures that meet you on your way home.”
“I didn’t even know there were those kind of adventures,” said the Colonel, fingering his trim moustache and enjoying with closed eyes the fragrance of his cigar.
“Oh, yes,” nodded the girl, “you meet all sorts of men who raise their hats and say, ‘Good evening, Miss,’ or ‘Haven’t we met before?’ I don’t think they have ever said anything else,” she reflected thoughtfully—“they all belong to the ‘Good evening’ or the ‘Met you before’ school, and they all want to know if you are ‘going their way.’ ”
“What happens then?” asked the amused Colonel, carefully removing his cigar in order that he might laugh without detriment to the accumulating ash.
“I have only had one experience,” said Kate. “It was with a young man with a horribly weak chin. He had studied in both schools, for his ‘Good evening’ was followed by a request for information upon my immediate plans and I let him walk with me. I expected something very dreadful but he talked mostly about his mother and the difficulties he had about getting a latchkey. He wanted to take my arm but I told him it wasn’t done and then he suggested that I should meet him on Sunday. By this time I had learnt all about his family, his mother and the girl he was prepared to sacrifice to retain a continuation of our intimacy. I also discovered his name was Ernest and that he was the cleverest man in his office.”
“He wanted to kiss you, I’ll be bound,” said the Colonel.
“I think he did,” admitted the girl, “but he didn’t say so. All he said was that he hoped it didn’t rain and asked if he might write to me. I told him he might, but, unfortunately, he forgot to ask me my address—” she broke off suddenly, “what is Gregori kicking about?”
“That Madrid affair didn’t go off as well as it might,” said the Colonel, avoiding her eye.
She nodded.
“I know; and Gregori blames me, I presume.”
“Gregori never blames you,” said the Colonel, “I think Gregori would knife anybody who said a word against you.”
“No,” she said, nodding her head, her eyes fixed on the opposite wall, “the Madrid affair went badly, in spite of the fact that there were forty-two sheets of manuscript in Spanish and English giving the most elaborate directions. It was a month’s work for me and it was all wasted and the greater part of a hundred thousand pesetas because Gregori’s trusted Señor Rahboulla thought he could improve upon my instructions and joined the train at Cordova in a light grey suit when I told him to wear the conventional black of the madrilleno and when I insisted upon his making his entrance to Madrid from Toledo. I knew that Cordova was watched by the French and Spanish police and I knew too that they would be looking for a stranger. Rahboulla advertised himself, was arrested and the chain, which I had carefully pieced together, was broken. By the time he had shaken off the police and arrived in Madrid the closing hour of the Prado had been advanced from six to five and the consequence is, that the Velasquez is still in the picture gallery and we are a hundred thousand pesetas the poorer.”
The Colonel shook his head.
“You are a wonderful girl and I will admit you are right. Heavens! the patience required to work out these details!”
“The ideal criminal is a strategist,” said the girl. “He foresees every move of the enemy and forestalls him. He makes a diversion at one point and his real attack at another. He prepares the way for retreat at the same time as he is preparing his advance. It took me six months to obtain all the information I wanted and it took six minutes for Rahboulla to upset our plans.”
She laughed.
“If things go wrong, you blame the general,” she said. “Three years ago, Gregori the Kicker introduced an Italian into one of our schemes—the business of the Nottingham Post Office. That went wrong, too.”
“There I admit you were right,” the Colonel hurried to say; “Tolmini made a mess of it.”
“And tried to drag us all into it when he was caught,” said the girl; “he went to prison under the impression that I had led him into a trap—though the fool was told the mail bags were not to be touched until the night shift came on duty.”
“Why do you mention him now with such emphasis?” asked the Colonel curiously.
“Because he’s out of prison—and he’ll be kicking, too,” she replied, “just as Gregori kicks!”
“ ‘Let the dead past bury the dead,’ ” quoted the Colonel. “And how is the new scheme?”
“Much farther advanced than you think. There are still one or two roads to be made smooth, one or two outposts to be rushed, some barbed wire to be cut.”
“By Gad!” cried the Colonel admiringly. “You ought to have been a soldier, Kate.”
She leant back in the chair with her hands clasped behind her head and looked at him searchingly.
“You were once a gentleman, uncle,” she said in that direct way of hers and Colonel Westhanger flushed and frowned.
“Well, my dear uncle,” she expostulated, “you are not a gentleman by the ordinary code now are you?”
“I have certain instincts,” protested the Colonel gruffly; “hang it all, Kate, you don’t let a fellow down very lightly.”
“I suppose you are still something of a gentleman,” said the girl reflectively; “the mere fact that you are annoyed at the suggestion that you are not proves that. But what I mean to say is this: there was a time when you obeyed another code, when you thought stealing was a disgraceful thing and robbery under arms a crime. You must have associated with men on whose word you could rely and who would never commit a dishonest or a mean action—men who were prepared in battle to give their lives for you. And you must have commanded men who had the same views and have punished soldiers who stepped aside from the straight path and committed little crimes which, compared with yours, were as pinheads to the dome of St. Paul’s.”
“I can’t see why you want to talk about the past,” said the Colonel irritably. He was still a fine figure of a man, grey-moustached, broad of shoulder, tall and straight of back and had about him that indefinable something which men who have commanded men never entirely lose.
“I am merely comparing you with me,” she said; “you have the advantage of having seen both sides. Tell me, which is the better?”
“Which do you think?” he demanded suspiciously.
She tossed her cigarette into the grate.
“I think this is the better,” she said frankly; “it is very pleasant and very exciting. And all the good people I have met have been very dull. I think that is because all good people are dull.”
“There are some good people,” said the Colonel virtuously, “who are very interesting.”
“Not because of their goodness,” rejoined the girl quickly; “if you meet a very popular good man it is because there is something about him which is not absolutely good. If you hear a man speak of a parson as a good fellow you will generally discover that he goes to the National Sporting Club and sees boxing or rides to hounds or does something which is quite unassociated with his professional duties or the exercise of his innocent qualities. But you have not answered me. Which is better?”
“If I had my life to live over again—” began the Colonel with a wry face.
“That’s silly,” said the girl calmly. “You won’t have your life to live over again, so why speculate upon the possibility? Anyway, if you could live your life over again, you could not possibly benefit by your present experience, because you would not remember it. You have lived two lives, which is the better?”
“You are in a queer mood, tonight,” said Colonel Westhanger, rising and stalking past her to the fireplace. “Have you got religion, or something?”
“Which is the better?” she asked again. “To be a free thief or to be in the dull bondage of honesty?”
“For your peace of mind the honest life is the better,” said the Colonel. “You have no sleepless nights, no agony of mind which you have to conceal with whatever skill you possess at every knock at the door, no fear of the police, no wondering what the next day is going to bring forth.”
“Really!” she looked up at him quizzically. “Do honest men never have any of those experiences? Do honest men get into debt, for example, and dread the coming of the collector? Does an honest man who is getting grey feel a little sickening sensation in his heart every time his employer looks at him thoughtfully?”
The Colonel turned round and snarled over his shoulder.
“As you seem to have all your answers ready-made, I don’t know why you trouble to ask me,” he snapped; “there are advantages and disadvantages on both sides of the picture.”
The girl was in a restless mood and presently she sprang up, walked to the window, opened the little square of shutter and looked out into the darkening street. Then she crossed to her little desk at one side of the fireplace. She sat down and wrote for a while, then, as suddenly, she dropped her pen and got up again.
“You are going to ask another question,” warned the Colonel.
“Only one,” she pleaded.
“Well, fire away,” he grumbled ungraciously.
“What would induce you to forsake your career and apply your undoubted talents, as the assize judge said to poor dear Mr. Mulberry, to better purpose?”
“Wealth,” said the Colonel promptly—“enough stuff put aside to bring me in a nice little income. And here again, let me say, Kate, that you and I could well afford to knock off—”
She interrupted him.
“That is a purely material inducement,” she said. “What other—spiritual or ethical?”
“Oh, rot!” he snapped. “Why do you ask these fool questions?”
“Because I am wondering,” she said, “what influence could be brought to bear upon me. The opinion of my fellow creatures? No, I don’t care what they think. I know they are mostly fools and so why should they influence me? Wealth? No, if I were rich as Croesus I should go on, for the sport of it. Punishment? No, I should use my spare time in correcting the faults in me which had resulted in my detection. I am afraid I am incorrigible, uncle, for there is something about this life which appeals to me no end—and now I am going to dress,” she said, making for the door.
“Going out?” asked the Colonel in surprise.
She nodded.
“But Gregori—”
“Gregori can wait,” said Kate, “and Gregori bores me. He is always trying to make love.”
“Is that remarkable?” suggested the Colonel archly.
“It is remarkably annoying,” said the girl. She flung open the door and stepped back. Gregori, politest of cavaliers, stood deferentially in the entrance and she surveyed him coolly.
“Were you listening?” she asked.
“Señorita!” he said, shocked.
She laughed and passed out. Gregori watched her as she mounted the stairs till she turned out of sight, then he closed the door and came across to the Colonel.
“Our little friend is hard on me,” he said with no hint of malice in his voice.
“She is a queer girl, Gregori,” replied the Colonel, shaking his head.
“She is a queer girl,” repeated Gregori; “queer indeed, yes.”
He stroked his little black moustache.
“She doesn’t like me.”
“Who does she like?” snapped the older man.
“You, I trust,” smiled the Spaniard.
The Colonel tossed his head despairingly.
“I hardly know,” he said. “What a reversal of positions!”
The Spaniard took the seat the girl had vacated.
“I know what you are thinking about,” he nodded; “a few years ago she was the obedient child absorbing our code—today she is the tyrannical mistress of the situation.”
He deftly unrolled and rolled a Spanish cigarette, licked its edges and fumbled for a match in his waistcoat pocket.
“She is all brain, our Kate,” he said admiringly, “but her heart—pouf!” he puffed out a cloud of smoke to emphasize the word.
“There is no end to her energy,” he went on; “sometimes I think she is dangerous and then when I come to consider all things it is impossible to say that she can be. After all, hers is only the plan. The responsibility for the bungling is with us—the plan is so perfect that you can hardly pick a hole in it. She works out to the last minute detail the chronology of a coup, she dresses it, rehearses it. She never fails. Yes, it was Rahboulla,” he agreed, “and I was wrong to kick. What was it she called me, a ‘centre forward’ and a ‘dago,’ ” he laughed softly.
“She is very young,” said the Colonel apologetically, “and a little impetuous of speech—she talks too much, I think.”
“A pretty woman can never talk too much,” said the gallant Gregori; “she can think too much and talk too little. A person who talks is like a lighted house with all the blinds up and the doors open, you know where you are. Now, Colonel mio, how far have we got with this new scheme?”
The Colonel brought a chair in one hand and a light table in the other to where the Spaniard sat, produced from his inside-pocket a bunch of memoranda and in a few minutes the men were deep in the discussion of the most remarkable, the most startling and the most daring enterprise that Crime Street had ever undertaken.