CHAPTER XII.
THE MYSTERIOUS MR. ROSS.
“You look as if you've had a bad night, my friend,” said Mr. Tray-Bong Smith.
“A bad night?” said Cæsar absently. “Er—oh, yes, I didn't get back to town until late.”
“Did you see your Mr. Welland?”
Cæsar did not reply.
“I gather you did,” said Smith, “and that the interview was one you don't care to think about.”
Cæsar nodded. “I am wondering just what Welland will do,” he said, after a while. “With any kind of luck I should have known, but I was interrupted.”
Smith looked at him sharply. “That sounds like an interesting story spoiled by overmodesty,” said he, “Will you be kind enough to tell me just what happened when you met this interesting Mr, Welland?”
“I ought to have sent you,” said Cæsar moodily. “There's something weak about us Borgias, a cursed desire for the theatrical. I can imagine that you would have made no mistake,” and then he told his companion the story.
Smith was grave. “At any moment you, the artist in slaughter, are liable to be arrested for a very vulgar, common assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, if I may employ the stilted phraseology of an indictment.”
Cæsar shook his head. “He will not take action. I tell you the man is fanatical. He is satisfied in his mind that some day he will kill me, and nothing less than killing me will please him.”
“Better you than me,” said Smith. “You would be well advised to go careful, Mr. Cæsar Valentine. You can't play those monkey tricks in England and get away with 'em. If Welland is Number Six, then you're going to have the devil's own trouble before you're rid of his attentions.”
“Welland is Number Six,” said Cæsar. “My agent made inquiries. He spends his time running about up and down the country. He's away for long periods. Moreover—and this is important—he has been visiting the gaols.”
“As a boarder?” asked Smith flippantly, but Cæsar was in no mood for jests.
“I told you that I was pretty well informed as to what happened at Scotland Yard. As a matter of fact, when Hallett, the chief of the criminal intelligence bureau, gave his instructions to the mysterious Number Six, there was a man of mine planted in the library, which was the next room. He had bored a hole through the wall, which was covered by the bookshelf in the chief's office and one of the bookshelves in the library. By taking out one book and pushing away another, he could hear practically all that went on.”
Smith nodded. “So that is how it was done, eh?” he said. “You must have had a pretty good man. Well, what about the prisons?”
“That was Hallett's instructions,” said Cæsar. “He told this man, or this woman, that he or she had the entree to all the prisons. He was under the impression that I had friends or confederates who might be undergoing terms of imprisonment.”
“Rather a stupid idea,” said Smith. “You're not likely to have gaolbirds as your accomplices.”
“I have you,” answered Cæsar, a little tactlessly, Smith thought. But the man from Chi So's laughed.
“I have never been in prison—yet,” he said. “So you think that Welland is Number Six?” he asked. “Because you have traced him to a few of his majesty's gaols?”
“Isn't he the kind of man who'd take this job on? Didn't Hallett say that his agent was an amateur? All the evidence points to Welland.”
He paced up and down his library, his hands behind him, a considerably ruffled man.
Smith had come to Portland Place before breakfast that morning rather in the hope of seeing the girl than of interviewing Cæsar.
“Where is Welland now?” asked Smith.
“In Lancashire, I suppose” Cæsar began, and then stopped dead and looked down at his blotting pad. “I didn't see that before.”
“What?” asked Smith.
Cæsar took the envelope from his writing table. It was sealed and addressed as was the letter he had found at his feet in Green Park. He tore it open, and read the typewritten message aloud:
Cæsar, you are but mortal. Remember! Number Six!
He stared at the paper stupidly, then sank down heavily into his chair.
“I think,” said Smith to himself, “our Cæsar is afraid.”
Cæsar's prediction was fulfilled. Welland took no action, though for days Mr. Smith was in such a state of apprehension that he twice mislaid the millionaire to watch whose comings and goings was his duty. In that period two things occurred which worried him. The first was the absence from town of Stephanie. Cæsar mentioned casually that she had gone up to Scotland for a couple of days, and seemed on the whole relieved by her absence. And then Mr. Ross confined himself to his room and refused to come out and be watched. That did not worry Smith greatly, except that he thought it was extraordinary.
On the evening of the second day the mystery of Mr. Ross deepened. Smith had been unaccountably sleepy through his dinner, and went upstairs to his room to lie down. He was lying on his bed, half asleep, when he heard the handle of his door turned, and presently somebody came in, and after a moment's hesitation switched on the light. In the second of time between the switching on of the light and its extinguishment, he caught a glimpse of old Ross in a dressing gown, just a momentary glimpse, and then the light was snapped out. There was a patter of feet, and the old man's door closed with a slam, and Smith heard the key turned in the lock.
That in itself was remarkable. That the man he had been set to watch should be watching him, and, taking advantage of his absence, as he evidently had thought, should have entered the room, was astounding. Smith was quite awake now, and walked down the corridor, inspecting the door, wondering in his mind what excuse he could find for knocking and interviewing his neighbor. He thought better of it, and went downstairs into the hall; and there he found waiting for him the shock of his life, for, standing near the reception desk was Mr. Ross, wearing a heavy ulster and a cloth cap, which gave his queer old face an odd appearance.
Smith stared as the old man shuffled across to the elevator and was whisked up to his floor. “Where did Mr. Ross come from?” he asked.
“I don't know, sir,” said the clerk, shaking his head, “I thought he was in his room. He hasn't been out of his room all day, and I certainly didn't see him go through the vestibule.”
“H'm!” said Smith.
He was waiting in the hall, undecided as to what he should do, when piquancy was added to the situation by the arrival of a small page boy who requested him to go to Mr. Ross' room. Tray-Bong Smith followed the diminutive messenger, and was ushered into the bedroom, where Mr. Ross was waiting in the identical dressing gown he had worn when he had stepped into Smith's room.
“I owe you an apology, Mr. Smith,” growled the old man. “Won't you sit down?”
Smith obeyed.
“I am afraid I have been wandering rather restlessly about the hotel of late, and I made a mistake and stepped into your room about half an hour ago.”
“Yes,” said Smith, “and then you made a mistake and stepped into the hall, dressing yourself en route.”
The old man's grim face relaxed in a smile. “You're very observant, Mr. Smith,” he said. “What a wonderful detective you would have made!”
Was he being sarcastic? Smith rather thought he was. He wondered at first why the old man had sent for him, but the soft sound of footsteps on the carpet outside the door reached his ears and he wondered no longer. Of course the old man had brought him to the bedroom while his double was escaping from the sitting room.