Chapter 30

THERE is an air of serene calm about Scotland Yard. Clerks and messengers stroll leisurely through its low-vaulted corridors on the ground floor, and except for the policeman on duty at the door, and the marble memorial to its fallen sons in the hall, there is little to distinguish police head-quarters from any other great Government office.

Mr. Bourke sat at his desk in the superintendent's room, toying with a paper-knife. Inspector Moses Rouper divided his attention between his chief and the pageantry of the Thames Embankment. On the table was spread a number of copper plates, and these Bourke examined from time to time with the greatest interest. One of them was bent almost double, but the remainder were intact, and bore no evidence of the drastic treatment to which they had been subjected.

"The whole thing's as clear as daylight to me, sir," said Rouper respectfully. "Clifton got news that we might search the house---I am not saying that anybody at the Yard tipped him off----"

"I shouldn't say that, Rouper, if I were you," murmured Mr. Bourke, his attention apparently engaged with the plates.

"I'm not saying it," Rouper hastened to assure him. "Anyway, he got news that we might want to know all about this place that he was visiting so often, and he took the press and the plates and threw 'em down the well. If one of the local coppers hadn't found 'em, we should never have known they were there."

"I should, Rouper," said Bourke, as gently as ever; "because I knew they were there---at least, I guessed they were there---and I was going to have a thorough search the day you found them. The paper and the notes were of course burnt----"

"By Clifton," said Rouper triumphantly.

"Very possibly by Mr. Clifton," agreed Bourke.

He was so very courteous that Rouper's uneasiness increased with every minute. Nothing was quite so symptomatic of an impending explosion as was Superintendent Bourke's more beatific manner.

"There's been quite a lot of forgery at that place, Rouper. I should imagine it has been used for years by Mr. X, or Y or Z, or whatever his name is. How is Mrs. Untersohn?"

"She's all right," said Rouper, surprised by the question. "I haven't seen her since she was taken back from Longford, but I met one of the servants, quite by accident, in Harley Street---when I say Harley Street I mean Marylebone Road," he added quickly.

"Say Harley Street---it sounds better," suggested Bourke with his blandest smile. "And the servant says she's making a good recovery?"

Rouper nodded. He loathed his chief when he was in a sarcastic vein.

"As you were saying, there must have been a lot of notes printed at Longford. Peter Clifton has been a tenant there off and on for years. Very likely he owns the place."

"It is owned by Mr. Blonberg, or at least he's the agent," said Bourke, "but it's quite true Mr. Clifton is the tenant. That's so of other people. I quite agree, a considerable amount of forged currency has come out of that interesting room. But the five notes for one hundred pounds which you paid into your wife's banking account last Thursday are, I should imagine, the genuine product of the Bank of England."

He did not look up; he spoke in quite an ordinary tone of voice, but Rouper's jaw dropped.

"Five---five hundred?" he stammered. "I don't know what you mean."

"I've got the numbers, can trace most of them," said Bourke, with a little sigh. "They came from Dr. Cheyne Wells's bank and they went into your wife's bank. I thought it was rather strange, and then it occurred to me that possibly you might have sold a grand idea for a patent medicine to the doctor, and of course there's no reason in the world why you shouldn't. If, on the other hand," he continued, still fingering the plates which apparently absorbed him, "you had accepted five hundred pounds as a gift, that, I fear, would have been contrary to police regulations and would involve your appearance before the Chief Commissioner."

"I sold him something." Rouper found his voice at last.

"But it was a very valuable something, I hope?" said Bourke softly. "I should like to think he'd got value for his money."

"It was a---picture, an old master. I picked it up for a song."

"And sold it for a dance," said the tantalising Bourke. "Old masters are best masters, Rouper. The old master has been paying you a salary for eighteen years and will be giving you a pension one of these days. It's pretty silly to go risking the old master's pension for the young master's five hundred---or is it a thousand?"

Chief Inspector Moses Rouper listened and sweated.

"What are you going to do about these things?" Bourke indicated the plates and the battered press which was in a small adjoining room.

"I've made a report about them," said Rouper. His hand strayed towards his pocket.

"One moment! Is there anything about Peter Clifton in your report? You see, I should have to take action if his name was mentioned. If it is just an ordinary report about finding these things in the well, that's quite in order. If it's the sort of thing that I'd have to put before the Commissioner and put in the Crown basket, well, I'd be very sorry---for everybody."

There was too much significance in his tone for Rouper to overlook.

"I'm not sure that I've got the report correct," he said. "I'll look it over and I'll write another one."

Bourke nodded several times.

"It's always wise to be careful," he said sententiously. "I'm hoping and praying that something will happen to-night to save everybody's face---except the young master's."

And then his lethargy dropped away from him without warning, and he became his old crisp self.

"Rouper, watch your step! That is not a threat, it's a warning! I've broken so many police rules myself lately that I'm beginning to have an unhealthy sympathy with people who have broken them all their lives. Go along and write that report of yours, and let me see it before I leave the office."

Before the door had closed on Rouper he was on the telephone to the chief inspector whose province was Central London. There followed a private consultation, and that evening fifty picked men of the C.I.D. were on duty at various restaurants in the West End, waiting for the arrival of a small coterie of couriers who were to carry east and west the latest and last products from the forger's press.