The Complete Works of Arthur Morrison (Illustrated). Arthur Morrison

and accompanied Hewitt to the spot.

      ‘I think you’d better have your men handy,’ Hewitt remarked to Plummer when they reached the door, and a whistle quickly brought the men over.

      The key was inserted in the lock and turned, but the door would not open; the bolt was fastened at the bottom. Hewitt stooped and looked under the door.

      ‘It’s a drop bolt,’ he said. ‘Probably the man who left last let it fall loose, and then banged the door, so that it fell into its place. I must try my best with a wire or a piece of string.’

      A wire was brought, and with some manoeuvring Hewitt contrived to pass it round the bolt, and lift it little by little, steadying it with the blade of a pocket-knife. When at length the bolt was raised out of the hole, the knife-blade was slipped under it, and the door swung open.

      They entered. The door of the little office just inside stood open, but in the office there was nothing, except a board a couple of feet long in a corner. Hewitt stepped across and lifted this, turning it downward face toward Plummer. On it, in fresh white paint on a black ground, were painted the words

      “BULLER, CLAYTON, LADDS & CO.,

      TEMPORARY ENTRANCE.”

      Hewitt turned to Winsor & Weekes’s clerk and asked, ‘The man who took this room called himself Westley, didn’t he?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Youngish man, clean-shaven, and well-dressed?’

      ‘Yes, he was.’

      ‘I fancy,’ Hewitt said, turning to Plummer, ‘I fancy an old friend of yours is in this — Mr Sam Gunter.’

      ‘What, the “Hoxton Yob”?’

      ‘I think it’s possible he’s been Mr Westley for a bit, and somebody else for another bit. But let’s come to the cellar.’

      Winsor & Weekes’s clerk led the way down a steep flight of steps into a dark underground corridor, wherein they lighted their way with many successive matches. Soon the cellar corridor made a turn to the right, and as the party passed the turn, there came from the end of the passage before them a fearful yell.

      ‘Help! help! Open the door! I’m going mad — mad! O my God!’

      And there was a sound of desperate beating from the inside of the cellar door at the extreme end. The men stopped, startled.

      ‘Come,’ said Hewitt, ‘more matches!’ and he rushed to the door. It was fastened with a bar and padlock.

      ‘Let me out, for God’s sake!’ came the voice, sick and hoarse, from the inside. ‘Let me out!’

      ‘All right!’ Hewitt shouted. ‘We have come for you. Wait a moment.’

      The voice sank into a sort of sobbing croon, and Hewitt tried several keys from his own bunch on the padlock. None fitted. He drew from his pocket the wire he had used for the bolt of the front door, straightened it out, and made a sharp bend at the end.

      ‘Hold a match close,’ he ordered shortly, and one of the men obeyed. Three or four attempts were necessary, and several different bendings of the wire were effected, but in the end Hewitt picked the lock, and flung open the door.

      From within a ghastly figure fell forward among them fainting, and knocked out the matches.

      ‘Hullo!’ cried Plummer. ‘Hold up! Who are you?’

      ‘Let’s get him up into the open,’ said Hewitt. ‘He can’t tell you who he is for a bit, but I believe he’s Laker.’

      ‘Laker! What, here?’

      ‘I think so. Steady up the steps. Don’t bump him. He’s pretty sore already, I expect.’

      Truly the man was a pitiable sight. His hair and face were caked in dust and blood, and his finger-nails were torn and bleeding. Water was sent for at once, and brandy.

      ‘Well,’ said Plummer hazily, looking first at the unconscious prisoner and then at Hewitt, ‘but what about the swag?’

      ‘You’ll have to find that yourself,’ Hewitt replied. ‘I think my share of the case is about finished. I only act for the Guarantee Society, you know, and if Laker’s proved innocent ——’

      ‘Innocent! How?’

      ‘Well, this is what took place, as near as I can figure it. You’d better undo his collar, I think’— this to the men. ‘What I believe has happened is this. There has been a very clever and carefully prepared conspiracy here, and Laker has not been the criminal, but the victim.’

      ‘Been robbed himself, you mean? But how? Where?’

      ‘Yesterday morning, before he had been to more than three banks — here, in fact.’

      ‘But then how? You’re all wrong. We know he made the whole round, and did all the collection. And then Palmer’s office, and all, and the umbrella; why —’

      The man lay still unconscious. ‘Don’t raise his head,’ Hewitt said. ‘And one of you had best fetch a doctor. He’s had a terrible shock.’ Then turning to Plummer he went on, ‘As to how they managed the job, I’ll tell you what I think. First it struck some very clever person that a deal of money might be got by robbing a walk-clerk from a bank. This clever person was one of a clever gang of thieves — perhaps the Hoxton Row gang, as I think I hinted. Now you know quite as well as I do that such a gang will spend any amount of time over a job that promises a big haul, and that for such a job they can always command the necessary capital. There are many most respectable persons living in good style in the suburbs whose chief business lies in financing such ventures, and taking the chief share of the proceeds. Well, this is their plan, carefully and intelligently carried out. They watch Laker, observe the round he takes, and his habits. They find that there is only one of the clerks with whom he does business that he is much acquainted with, and that this clerk is in a bank which is commonly second in Laker’s round. The sharpest man among them — and I don’t think there’s a man in London could do this as well as young Sam Gunter — studies Laker’s dress and habits just as an actor studies a character. They take this office and cellar, as we have seen, because it is next door to a bank whose front entrance is being altered— a fact which Laker must know from his daily visits. The smart man — Gunter, let us say, and I have other reasons for believing it to be he — makes up precisely like Laker, false moustache, dress, and everything, and waits here with the rest of the gang. One of the gang is dressed in a blue coat with brass buttons, like a hall-porter in Buller’s bank. Do you see?’

      ‘Yes, I think so. It’s pretty clear now.’

      ‘A confederate watches at the top of the court, and the moment Laker turns in from Cornhill — having already been, mind, at the only bank where he was so well known that the disguised thief would not have passed muster — as soon as he turns in from Cornhill, I say, a signal is given, and that board’— pointing to that with the white letters —‘is hung on the hook in the doorpost. The sham porter stands beside it, and as Laker approaches says, “This way in, sir, this morning. The front way’s shut for the alterations”. Laker suspecting nothing, and supposing that the firm have made a temporary entrance through the empty house, enters. He is seized when well along the corridor, the board is taken down and the door shut. Probably he is stunned by a blow on the head — see the blood now. They take his wallet and all the cash he has already collected. Gunter takes the wallet and also the umbrella, since it has Laker’s initials, and is therefore distinctive. He simply completes the walk in the character of Laker, beginning with Buller, Clayton & Ladds’s just round the corner. It is nothing but routine work, which is quickly done, and nobody notices him particularly — it is the bills they examine. Meanwhile this unfortunate fellow is locked up in the cellar here, right at the end of the underground corridor, where he can never make himself heard in the street, and where next him are only the empty cellars of the deserted house next door. The thieves shut the front door and