Wallace at Bay Read Online Free PDF Page A

Jimmy, it doesn’t matter now whether I find out if the boot wallah is a pukka member of the association or brigade of bootblacks or not. He must be, anyway, or he wouldn’t dare take up a pitch and wear the uniform and a number in Leicester Square. I’m going into that house.’
    ‘It would be a good notion if one of us did,’ agreed Cartright. ‘Perhaps you’d better go. You’re a more expert burglar than I am. I’ll walk by and whistle the old tune, if they show signs of returning before you come back. I hope you get out in time.’
    ‘Whistle it loudly,’ enjoined the younger man. ‘It would be a pity if my promising career was cut short, because you didn’t whistle loudly enough.’
    He crossed to the other side, and hurried along towards the house. It was an admirable night for his purpose. There was no moon, while a heavy cloudbank had blown up, and it had commenced to rain. The children had dispersed, and the chatterers had been driven in to their firesides. A bus came swinging round from Formosa Street, stopped to drop a single passenger, who went towards Bristol Gardens, and rattled on its way again. For the moment there was not a soul about. Carter slipped through the gate, up the steps to the front door. He did not worry about the lamp standard right outside the house. A bunch of skeleton keys which he carried about with him wouldprovide the means of entrance. There would be no question of attempting to enter by a window, when he would be certain to draw attention to himself.
    In a little over half a minute after trying a key in the lock, he was inside the house, the door closed behind him. He found himself in a dark, narrow hall, which contained an unpleasant odour of mustiness and decay. Making his way cautiously forward – he did not have a torch on him, and did not wish to risk switching on the light – he came to a staircase and, without making a sound, ascended. On the floor above was a passage narrower than the hall below. Two rooms opened into it, while there was a bathroom at the rear, down two steps. A door directly in front of him proved to belong to a cupboard, the staircase continuing upward to the left of it. He chose the back room in which to start his investigations as being the safer. His main object was to discover for certain, if possible, whether the two men with Pestalozzi and the bootblack were actually Haeckel and Zanazaryk. If he were able to ascertain that, there would be no reason for him to enter the front room at all. There was a great deal less risk in the back room, but would he hear Cartright whistle? A smile played round his lips at the recollection of his last remark to his colleague.
    He pushed open the door quietly and entered. For a moment he stood listening; then feeling for the electric light switch, turned on the light. A quick glance round showed him a room in a state of awful untidiness. A double bedstead and a smaller one occupied most of the space, blankets, sheets and pillows being thrown on them in heaps. Shirts – dirty-looking objects – socks and collars covered the rickety dressing table and only chair, and overflowed on to the floor. A washstand in onecorner of the room contained a cracked ewer and a basin full of black, soapy water. An expression of disgust crossed Carter’s face, but he had no time for fastidious repugnance. The blind was already drawn down before the solitary window, therefore he could not be seen from the houses at the back. His eyes searched for and found what was of importance to him – three suitcases of varying sizes, all old and very much worn, pushed under the large bed.
    Quickly he dragged them out. They were not locked, and rapidly but expertly he searched them, taking care to replace everything exactly as he found it. He was extremely disappointed when he had finished. He had failed to find a single article of any interest to him. At least he had hoped to come across the men’s passports. Even if they were held under