 Prologue of Kleek, the man of the forty faces. Kleek, the man of the forty faces, by Thomas W. Hanshaw. Prologue. The affair of the man who called himself Hamilton Kleek. The thing wouldn't have happened if any other constable than Collins had been on point duty at Blackfriars Bridge that morning, for Collins was young, good-looking, and knew it. Nature had gifted him with a susceptible heart and a fond eye for the beauties of femininity. So when he looked round and saw the woman threading her way through the maze of vehicles at Deadman's Corner, with her skirt held up just enough to show two twinkling little feet in French shoes, and over them a graceful, willowy figure, and over that an enchanting, if rather too highly tinted face, with arm and eyes and a fluff of shining hair under the screen of a big Parisian hat, that did for him on the spot. He saw at a glance that she was French, exceedingly French, and he preferred English beauty as a rule, but French or English beauty is beauty, and here undeniably was a perfect type. So he unhesitatingly sprang to her assistance, and piloted her safely to the curb, reveling in her voluble thanks, and tingling as she clung timidly but rather firmly to him. Sir, I have to give you much gratitude," she said, in a pretty, wistful sort of way, as they stepped on to the pavement. Then she dropped her hand from his sleeve, looked up at him, and shyly drooped her head, as if overcome with confusion and surprise at the youth's and good looks of him. Ah, it is nowhere in the world but Landre won't find this delicate attention, this splendid Sargent de Ville," she added with a sort of sigh. You are wonderful, you are most wonderful, you English police. Sir, I am a stranger, I know not the ways of this city of amazement, and if Monsieur would so kindly direct me where to find the Abbey of the Vesse Minister. Before P. C. Collins could tell her that, if that were her destination, she was a good deal out of her latitude. Indeed, even before she concluded what she was saying, over the rumble of the traffic, there rose a thin, shrill piping sound, which to ears trained to the call of it possessed a startling significance. It was the shrilling of a police whistle, far off down the embankment. Hello, that's a call to the man on point, exclaimed Collins, all alert at once. Excuse me, Mum, see you presently. Something's up, one of my mates is a-signalling me. Mets, monsieur, mets, signalling, I shall not understand as of words, but yes, va-chelle-dat-min, eh? Good Lord, don't bother me now, I am in quite of it. That's the call to head off some one, and by George there he is now, coming head-on, the hound, and running like the wind. For, of a sudden, through a break in the traffic, a scudding figure had sprung into sight, the figure of a man in a grey frock coat and a shining topper, a well-groomed, well-set-up man, with a small turned-up moustache, and hair of that peculiar purplish red one sees only on the shell of a roasted chestnut. As he swung into sight, the distant whistle shrilled again. Far off in the distance voices sent up cries of, Edimov, stop that man, etc. Then those on the pavement near to the fugitive took up the cry, joined in pursuit, and in a twinkling, what with cadmium, tram-men, dremen, and pedestrians shouting, there was hubbub enough for Hades. A swell, pickpocket au lait, my life! commented Collins, as he squared himself for an encounter, and made ready to leap on the man when he came within gripping distance. Here, get out of the way, mademoiselle, business before pleasure, and besides, you'll like to get bold over in the rush. Here, chauffeur! This to the driver of a big black motor-car, which swept round the angle of the bridge at that moment, and made as though to scud down the embankment into the thick of the chase. Pull that thing up sharp! Stop where you are! Dead still! At once! At once! Do you hear? We don't want you getting in the way! Now, then!" nodding his head in the direction of the running man. Come on, you bounder! I'm ready for you! And as if he really heard that invitation, and really was eager to accept it, the red-headed man did come on with a vengeance. And all the time, mademoiselle, unheeding Collins' advice, stood calmly and silently waiting. Onward came the runner, with the whole roaring pack in his wake, dodging in and out among the vehicles, flooring people who got in his way, scutting, dodging, leaping, like a fox hard-pressed by the hounds, until, all of a moment, he spied a break in the traffic, leapt through it, and then there was mischief. For Collins sprang at him like a cat, gripped too big, strong as iron hands on his shoulders, and had him tight and fast. Got you, you ass! snapped he, with a short, crisp, self-satisfied laugh. None are your blessed squirming now. Keep still! You'll get out of your coffee, you bounder, as soon as out of my grip. Got you! Got you! Do you understand? The response to this fairly took the wind out of him. Of course I do," said the captive gaily. It's part of the programme that you should get me. Only if a heaven's sake don't spoil the film by remaining inactive, you goat. Struggle with me. Handle me roughly. Throw me a bat. Make it look real. Make it look as though I actually did get away from you, not as though you let me. You chaps behind there. Don't get in the way of the camera. It's in one of those cabs. Now then, Bobby, don't be wooden. Struggle, struggle, you goat, and save the film. Save the what? gasped Collins. Here, good Lord, do you mean to say? Struggle, struggle, struggle! Cutting the man impatiently. Can't you grasp the situation? It's a put-up thing, the taking of a kinematograph film, a living picture for the Alhambra tonight. Heaven's above Marguerite, didn't you tell him? No, no, there was not the time. You come so quick. I could not. And there, ah, le bon Dieu, he gave me no chance. Officer, I beg, I entreat of you. Make it real. Struggle, fight. Keep on the constant move. There. Something tinkled on the pavement with the unmistakable sound of gold. There, monsieur, there is the half-sovereign to pay you for the trouble. Only for the love of goodness, do not pick it up while the instrument, the camera, he is going. It is the kinematograph, and you would spoil everything. The chock-fallen cry that Collins gave was lost in a roar of laughter from the pursuing crowd. Struggle, struggle! Don't you hear, you idiot? Broke in the red-headed man irritably. You're being devilishly well-paid for it, so for goodness' sake, make it look real. That's it. Bully-boy! Now, once more to the right, then loosen your grip so that I can push you away and make a faint of punching you off. Already there, Marguerite? Keep a clear space about her, gentlemen. Ready with the motor, chauffeur? All right. Now then, Bobby, fall back and mind your eye when I hit out, old chap. One, two, three. Here goes! With that he pushed the chock-fallen Collins from him, made a faint of punching his head as he reeled back, then sprang toward the spot where the French woman stood, and gave a finish to the adventure that was highly dramatic and decidedly theatrical. For Mamzelle, seeing him approach her, struck a pose throughout her arms, gathered him into them to the exceeding enjoyment of the laughing throng, then both looked back, and behaved as people do on the stage when pursued, gesticulated extravagantly, and rushing to the waiting motor, jumped into it. Many thanks, Bobby. Many thanks, everybody. Sang out the red-headed man. Let her go, chauffeur. The cameramen will pick us up again at Whitehall in a few minutes' time. Right, you are, sir," responded the chauffeur gaily. Then, doot-doot, went the motor-horn as the gentleman in grey closed the door upon himself and his companion, and the vehicle, darting forward, spared down the embankment in the exact direction whence the man himself had originally come, and, passing directly through that belated portion of the hurrying crowd to whom the end of the adventure was not yet known, flew on and vanished. And Collins, stooping to pick up the half-sovereign that had been thrown him, felt that after all it was a poor price to receive for all the jeers and jibes of the assembled onlookers. Smart capture, Bobby, wasn't it? Sang out a deriding voice that set the crowd jeering anew. You'll get promoted, you will. See it in all the evening papers. Oh, yes. Horrible end-to-end struggle with a death-burrado. Brave, constable as half a quid's worth out of an infuriated ruffin. My hat! Won't your Mrs. be proud when you take her to see that blooming film? Move on, now. Move on, said Collins, recovering his dignity and asserting it with a vim. Look here, Cabby. I don't take it kind of you to laugh like that. They had you just as bad as they had me. Blow that, Frenchie. She might have ticked me off before I made such an ass of myself. I don't say that I'd have done it so naturally if I'd known, but—oh, no. What's that? Load if it ain't that, Blessed Whistle again, and another crowd have pelt in this way. And no. Yes, by Jupiter, a coupler's Scotland yardchats with him. My hat! What do you suppose that means? He knew in the next moment, panting and puffing, a crowd at their heels, and people from all sides stringing out from the pavement and trooping after them, the two plain clothesmen came racing through the grinning gathering and bore down on P. C. Collins. Hello, smithers. You in this, too? began he. His feelings softened by the knowledge that other arms of the law would figure on that film with him at the Alhambra tonight. Now, what are you after, you goat? That French lady or the red-headed party in the grey suit? Yes, yes, of course I am. You heard me signal you to head him off, didn't you? replied smithers, looking round and growing suddenly excited when he realised that Collins was empty-handed and that the red-headed man was not there. Heavens! You never let him get away, did you? You grabbed him, didn't you? Hey! Of course I grabbed him. Come out of it. What are you giving me, you josser? said Collins with a wink and a grin. Ain't you found out even yet, you silly? Why, it was only a faked-up thing, the taking of a kinematograph picture for the Alhambra. You and Petrie ought to have been here sooner and got your wages, you goats. I got half a quid for my share when I let him go. Smithers and Petrie lifted up their voices in one despairing howl. When you what? fairly yelled smithers. You fool! You don't mean to tell me that you let him take you in like that, those two? You don't mean to tell me that you had him, had him in your hands and then let him go? You did? Oh, you seventy-seven kinds of double-barreled ass! Had him, think of it, had him and let him go! Did yourself out of a share in a reward of two hundred quid when you'd only to shut your hands and hold on to it? Two hundred quid? What are you talking about? Wasn't it true? Wasn't it a kinematograph picture after all? Now you fool know howled smithers, fairly dancing with despair. Oh, you blithering idiot! You ninety-seven varieties of a fool! Do you know who you had in your hands? Do you know who you let go? It was that devil forty faces, the vanishing cracksman, the man who calls himself Hamilton. And the woman was his pal, his confederate, his blessed stall pigeon, Margot, the queen of the Apache. And she came over from Paris to help him in that clean scoop of Lady Dresma's jewels last week. Evans got Collins too far gone to say anything else, too deeply dejected to think of anything, but that he had had the man for whom Scotland Yard had been groping for a year, the man over whom all England, all France, all Germany wondered, close shut in the grip of his hands and then had let him go. The biggest and boldest criminal the police had ever had to cope with, the almost supernatural genius of crime, who defied all systems, laughed at all laws, mocked at all the vidocs and dupeins and Sherlock Holmeses, whether amateur or professional, French or English, German or American, that ever had been or ever could be pitted against him. And who, for sheer devilry, for diabolical ingenuity and for colossal impudence, as well as for a nature bestowed power that was simply amazing, had not his match in all the universe. Who or what he really was, whence he came, whether he was English, Irish, French, German, Yankee, Canadian, Italian or Dutchman, no man knew, and no man might ever hope to know unless he himself chose to reveal it. In his many encounters with the police he had assumed the speech, the characteristics, and indeed the facial attributes of each in turn, and assumed them with an ease and a perfection that were simply marvellous, and had gained for him the sobriquet of forty faces among the police and of the vanishing cracksman among the scribes and reporters of Newspaperdom. That he came in time to possess another name than these was due to his own whim and caprice, his own bald, unblushing impudence, for, of a sudden, whilst London was in a fever of excitement and all the newspapers up in arms over one of the most daring and successful coups, he chose to write boldly to both editors and police, complaining that the title given him by each was both vulgar and cheap. You would not think of calling Paganini a fiddler, he wrote, why then should you degrade me with the coarse term of cracksman? I claim to be as much an artist in my profession as Paganini was in his, and I claim also a like courtesy from you. So then, if in the future it becomes necessary to allude to me, and I fear it often will, I shall be obliged if you do so as the man who calls himself Hamilton Cleak. In return for that courtesy, gentlemen, I promise to alter my mode of procedure, to turn over a new leaf as it were, to give you at all times hereafter distinct information in advance of such places as I elect for the field of my operations, and of the time when I shall pay my respect to them, and on the morning after each such visit to bestow some small portion of the loot upon Scotland Yard as a souvenir of the event. And to that remarkable programme he rigidly adhered from that time forth, always giving the police twelve hours notice, always evading their traps and snares, always carrying out his plans in spite of them, and always, on the morning after, sending some trinket or trifle to Superintendent Narcombe of Scotland Yard in a little pink cardboard box tied up with rose-coloured ribbon, and marked with the compliments of the man who calls himself Hamilton Cleak. The detectives of the United Kingdom, the detectives of the Continent, the detectives of America, each and all had measured swords with him, tried wits with him, spread snares and laid traps for him, and each and all had retired from the field vanquished. And this was the man that he, police constable Samuel James Collins, had actually had in his hands, nay, in his very arms, and then had given up for half a sovereign and let go. Oh, so help me! You make my head swim, smithers, that you do!" he managed to say it last. I had him. I had the vanishing cracksman in my blessed paws, and then went and let that French Aussie— But look here, I say, how do you know it was him? Nobody can go by his look, so how do you know? No, you footler! growled smithers disgustedly. Why shouldn't I know when I've been after him ever since he left Scotland Yard half an hour ago? Left what? My hat! You ain't going to tell me that he's been there? When? Why? What for? To leave one of his blessed notices the daredevil. What a detective he'd have made, wouldn't he, if he'd only had turned his attention that way and been on the side of the law instead of against it. He walked in bold as brass, sat down, and talked with the superintendent over some cock-and-bull yarn about a black hand-letter that he said had been sent to him, and asked if he couldn't have police protection whilst he was in town. It wasn't until after he left that the super he sees a note on the chair where the blighter had been sitting, and when he opened it, there it was in black and white, something like this. The list of presents that have been sent for the wedding to-morrow of Sir Horace Wyvern's eldest daughter make interesting reading, particularly that part which describes the jewels sent, no doubt as a tribute to her father's position as the greatest brain specialist in the world from the Austrian court and the continental principalities. The care of such gems is too great a responsibility for the bride. I propose, therefore, to relieve her of it to-night, and to send you the customary souvenir of the event to-morrow morning. Yours faithfully, the man who calls himself Hamilton Clicke. That's how I know, dash you. Superintendent sent me out after him, hot foot, and after a bit I picked him up in the strand, toddling along with that French hussy as cool as you please, but blow him, he must have eyes all round his head for he saw me just as soon as I saw him, and he and Frenchie separated like a shot. She hopped into a taxi and flew off in one direction, he dived into a crowd and bolted in another, and before you could say Jack Robinson he was doubling and twisting, jumping into cabs and jumping out again, all to gain time, of course, for the woman to do what he'd put her up to doing, and leading me the devil's own chase through the devil's own tangle till he was ready to bunk for the embankment. And you let him go, you blooming footler, had him and let him go, and chucked away a third of two hundred pounds for the price of half a quid. And long after Smathers and Petrie had left him and the wandering crowd had dispersed, and point duty at dead man's corner was just point duty again and nothing more, P. C. Collins stood there, chewing the cud of bitter reflection over those words, and trying to reckon up just how many pounds and how much glory had been lost to him. End of the first part of the prologue. The second part of the prologue of Cleek, the man of the forty faces. This Librivox recording is in the public domain, recording by Ruth Golding. Cleek, the man of the forty faces, by Thomas W. Henshu. Prologue part two. Dammy, sir, the thing's an outrage. I don't mince my words, Mr. Narcombe. I say plump and plain that thing's an outrage. A disgrace to the police, an indignity upon the community at large, and for Scotland Yard to permit itself to be defied, bamboozled, mocked at in this appalling fashion by a paltry burglar. Uncle dear, pray don't excite yourself in this manner. I'm quite sure that if Mr. Narcombe could prevent the things. Hold your tongue, Elsa. I will not be interfered with. It's time that somebody spoke out plainly and let this establishment know what the public has a right to expect of it. What do I pay my rates and taxes for and devilish high ones they are too, begat, if it's not to maintain law and order and the proper protection of property? And have the whole blessed country terrorized, the police defied, and people's houses invaded with impunity by a gutter-bread brute of a cracksman, is nothing short of a scandal and a shame. Call this sort of tomfoolery being protected by the police. God bless my soul. One might as well be in charge of a parcel of doddering old women and be done with it. It was an hour and a half after that exciting affair at Deadman's Corner. The scene was Superintendent Narcombe's private room at headquarters. The dramatist's persony Mr. Maverick Narcombe himself, Sir Horace Wyvern, and Miss Ailsa Lorne, his niece, a slight, fair-haired, extremely attractive girl of twenty, the only and orphaned daughter of a much-loved sister, who, up till a year ago, had known nothing more exciting in the way of life than that which is to be found in a small village in Suffolk, and falls to the lot of an underpaid vicar's only child. A railway accident had suddenly deprived her of both parents, throwing her wholly upon her own resources, without a penny in the world. Sir Horace had gracefully come to the rescue and given her a home and a refuge, being doubly repaid for it by the affection and care she gave him, and the malar in which she assumed control of a household which hitherto had been left wholly to the attention of servants, Lady Wyvern having long been dead, and her two daughters of that type which devotes itself entirely to the pleasures of society and the demands of the world. A regular pepper-box of a man, testy, short-tempered, exacting, Sir Horace had flown headlong to Superintendent Narcombe's office as soon as that gentleman's note, telling him of the vanishing cracksman's latest threat, had been delivered, and on Miss Lorne's advice, had withheld all news of it from the members of his household, and brought her with him. "'Elew that Scotland Yardless do something! Must, must, must!' stormed he, as Narcombe, resenting that stigma upon the institution, puckered up his lips and looked savage. "'That fellow has always kept his word, always, in spite of your precious band of muffs, and if you let him keep it this time, when there's upwards of forty thousand pounds worth of jewels in the house, it will be nothing less than a national disgrace, and you and your wretched collection of bunglers will be covered with deserved ridicule.'" Narcombe swung round, smarting under these continued taunts, these flings at the efficiency of his prided department, his nostrils dilated, his tempers strained to the breaking point. "'Well, he won't keep it this time, I promise you that,' he rapped out sharply, sooner or later every criminal, no matter how clever meets his Waterloo, and this shall be his. "'I'll take this affair in hand myself, Sir Horace. I'll not only send the pick of my men to guard the jewels, but I'll go with them. And if that fellow crosses the threshold of women-house tonight by the Lord, I'll have him. He will have to be the devil himself to get away from me.'" "'Miss Lorne,' recollecting himself and bowing apologetically, I ask your pardon for this strong language. My temper got the better of my manners." "'It does not matter, Mr. Narcombe, so that you preserve my cousin's wedding gifts from that appalling man,' she answered, with a gentle inclination of the head, and with a smile that made the superintendent think she must certainly be the most beautiful creature in all the world. It so irradiated her face, and added to the magic of her glorious eyes. "'It does not matter what you say, what you do, so long as you accomplish that.'" "'And I will accomplish it, as I'm a living man I will. You may go home feeling assured of that. Look for my men some time before dusk, Sir Horace. I will arrive later. They will come in one at a time, see that they are admitted by the area door, and that, once in, not one of them leaves the house again before I put in an appearance. I'll look them over when I arrive, to be sure that there's no wolf in sheep's clothing amongst them. With a fellow like that, a diabolical rascal with a diabolical gift for impersonation, one can't be too careful. Meantime, it is just as well not to have confided this news to your daughters, who naturally would be nervous and upset. But I assume that you have taken some one of the servants into your confidence, in order that nobody may pass them and enter the house under any pretext whatsoever. No, I have not. Miss Lorne advised against it, and, as I am always guided by her, I said nothing of the matter to anybody. Was that wrong, do you think, Mr. Narcombe? queried Elsa anxiously. I feared that if they knew they might lose their heads, and that my cousins, who are intensely nervous and highly emotional, might hear of it and add to our difficulties by becoming hysterical, and demanding our attention at a time when we ought to be giving every moment to watching for the possible arrival of that man. And as he has always lived up to the strict letter of his dreadful promises here to fore, I knew that he was not to be expected before nightfall. Besides, the jewels are locked up in the safe in Sir Horace's consulting-room, and his assistant, Mr. Murfroy, has promised not to leave it for one instant before he return. Oh, well, that's all right, then. I daresay there is very little likelihood of our man getting in whilst you and Sir Horace are here, and taking such a risk as stopping in the house until nightfall to begin his operations. Still, it was hardly wise, and I should advise hurrying back as fast as possible, and taking at least one servant, the one you feel least likely to lose his head, into your confidence, Sir Horace, and putting him on the watch for my men. Otherwise, keep the matter as quiet as you have done, and look for me about nine o'clock, and rely upon this as a certainty, the vanishing cracksman will never get away with even one of those jewels if he enters that house to-night, and never get out of it unshackled. With that, he suavely bowed his visitors out, and rang up the pick of his men without an instance delay. Promptly at nine o'clock he arrived as he had promised at Wyvern House, and was shown into Sir Horace's consulting-room, where Sir Horace himself and Miss Lawn were awaiting him, and keeping close watch before the locked door of a communicating apartment in which sat the six men who had preceded him. He went in, and put them all in severally through a rigid examination, pulling their hair and beards, rubbing their faces with a clean handkerchief in quest of any trace of makeup or disguise of any sort, examining their badges and the marks on the handcuffs they carried with them to make sure that they bore the sign which he himself had scratched upon them in the privacy of his own room a couple of hours ago. No mistake about this lot, he announced with a smile. Has anybody else entered or attempted to enter the house? Not a soul, replied Miss Lawn. I didn't trust anybody to do the watching, Mr. Narcombe. I watched myself. Good. Where are the jewels? In that safe? No, replied Sir Horace. They are to be exhibited in the picture gallery for the benefit of the guests at the wedding breakfast tomorrow, and as Miss Wyvern wished to superintend the arrangement of them herself, and there would be no time for that in the morning, she and her sister are in there laying them out at this moment. As I could not prevent that without telling them what we have to dread, I did not protest against it, but if you think it will be safer to return them to the safe after my daughters have gone to bed, Mr. Narcombe. Not at all necessary. If our man gets in, they're lying there in full view like that will prove a tempting bait, and, well, he'll find there's a hook behind it. I shall be there waiting for him. Now go and join the ladies, you and Miss Lawn, and act as though nothing out of the common was in the wind. My men and I will stop here, and you had better put out the light and lock us in, so that there may be no danger of anybody finding out that we are here. No doubt Miss Wyvern and her sister will go to bed earlier than usual on this particular occasion. Let them do so. Send the servants to bed, too. You and Miss Lawn go to your bed at the same time as the others, or at least let them think that you have done so. Then come down and let us out. To this, Sir Horace assented, and taking Miss Lawn with him, went at once to the picture gallery and joined his daughters, with whom they remained until eleven o'clock. Promptly at that hour, however, the house was locked up, the bride-elect and her sister went to bed, the servants having already gone to theirs, and stillness settled down over the darkened house. At the end of a dozen minutes, however, it was faintly disturbed by the sound of slippered feet coming along the passage outside the consulting room. Then a key slipped into the lock, the door was opened, the light switched on, and Sir Horace and Miss Lawn appeared before the eager watchers. Now then, lively my men, look sharp! whispered Narcombe, a man to each window and each staircase, so that nobody may go up or down or in or out without dropping into the arms of one of you. Confine your attention to this particular floor, and if you hear anybody coming, lay low until he's within reach, and you can drop on him before he bolts. Is this the door of the picture gallery, Sir Horace? Yes, answered Sir Horace, as he fitted a key to the lock. But surely you'll need more men than you have brought, Miss Narcombe, if it is your intention to guard every window individually, for there are four to this room, see? With that he swung open the door, switched on the electric light, and Narcombe fairly blinked at the dazzling sight that confronted him. Three long tables laden with crystal and silver, cut glass and jewels, and running the full length of the room, flashed and scintillated under the glare of the electric bulbs, which encircled the corners of the gallery and clustered in luminous splendour in the crystal and frosted silver of a huge central chandelier, and spread out on the middle one of these a dazzle of splintered rainbows, a very plain of living light, laid caskets and cases, boxes and trays containing those royal gifts, of which the newspapers had made so much, and the vanishing cracksmen had sworn to make so few. Mr. Narcombe went over and stood beside the glittering mass, resting his hand against the table, and feasting his eyes upon all that opulent splendour. God bless my soul! It's superb! It's amazing! he commented. No wonder the fellow is willing to take risks for a prize like this. You are a splendid temptation, a gorgeous bait to you beauties, but the fish that snaps at you will find that there's a nasty hook underneath in the shape of maverick Narcombe. Never mind the many windows, Sir Horace. Let him come in by the myth that's his plan. I'll never leave these things for one instant between now and the morning. Good night, Miss Lorne. Go to bed and to sleep. You do the same, Sir Horace. My lay is here. With that he stooped, and lifting the long drapery which covered the table and swept down in heavy folds to the floor, crept out of sight under it, and let it drop back into place again. Search off the light and go. He called to them in a low-sunk voice. Don't worry yourselves either of you. Go to bed and to sleep if you can. As if we could! answered Miss Lorne agitatedly. I shall be able to close an eyelid. I'll try, of course, but I know I shall not succeed. Come, Uncle, come. Oh, do be careful, Mr. Narcombe, and if that horrible man does come. I'll have him. So help me, God! he vowed. Switch off the light and shut the door as you go out. This is Forty Faces Waterloo at last. And in another moment the light snicked out, the door closed, and he was alone in the silent room. For ten or a dozen minutes not even the bare suggestion of a noise disturbed the absolute stillness. Then, of a sudden, his chained ear caught a faint sound that made him suck in his breath and rise on his elbow the better to listen. A sound which came not without the house but from within, from the dark hall where he had stationed his men to be exact. As he listened he was conscious that some living creature had approached the door, touched the handle, and by the swift, low rustle and the sound of hard breathing that it had been pounced upon and seized. He scrambled out from beneath the table, snipped on the light, twirled open the door, and was in time to hear the irritable voice of Zahorris say, Testerly, Don't make an ass of yourself by your overzealousness. I've only come down to have a word with Mr. Narcombe. And to see him standing on the threshold grow tearsk in a baggy suit of striped pyjamas with one wrist enclosed as in a steel band by the gripped fingers of Petrie. Why didn't you say it was you, sir? exclaimed that crestfallen individual as the flashing light made manifest his mistake. When I heard you first and see you come up out of that back passage I made sure it was him. And if you'd have struggled I'd have bashed your head as sure as eggs. Thank you for nothing," he responded, Testerly. You might have remembered, however, that the man first got to get into the place before he can come downstairs. Mr. Narcombe, turning to the superintendent, I was just getting into bed when I thought of something I'd neglected to tell you. And as my niece is sitting in her room with the door open and I wasn't anxious to parade myself before her in my nightclothes, I came down by the back staircase. I don't know how in the world I came to overlook it, but I think you ought to know that there's a way of getting into the picture gallery without using either the windows or the stairs, and that way ought to be both searched and guarded. Where is it? What is it? Why in the world didn't you tell me in the first place? exclaimed Narcombe irritably as he glanced round the place, searchingly. Is it a panel, a secret door, or what? This is an old house, and old houses are sometimes a very nest of such things. Happily this one isn't. It's a modern innovation, not an ancient relic that offers the means of entrance in this case. A Yankee occupied this house before I bought it from him. One of those blessed chivalry individuals, his country breeds, who can't stand a breath of cold air indoors after the passing of the autumn. The wretched man put one of those wretched American inflections a hot air furnace in the cellar, with huge pipes running to every room in the house, great tin monstrosities big around the man's body, ending in openings in the wall with what they call registers to let the heat in, or shut it out as they please. I didn't have the wretched contrivance removed, or those blessed registers plastered up. I simply had them papered over when the rooms were done up. There's one over there near that city, and if a man got into this house he could get into that furnace thing and hide in one of those flus until he got ready to crawl up it as easily as not. It struck me that perhaps it would be as well for you to examine that furnace and those flus before matters go any further. Of course it would! Great Scott! Sir Horace, why didn't you think to tell me of this thing before? said Narcombe excitedly. The fellow may be in it at this minute. Come, show me the wretched king. It's below in the cellar. We shall have to go down the kitchen stairs and I'll have to light. Here's one, said Petrie, unhitching a bullseye from his belt and putting it into Narcombe's hand. Better go with Sir Horace at once, sir. Leave the door of the gallery open and the light on. Fish and me will stand guard over the stuff till you come back. So in case the man is in one of them flus and tries to bolt out at this end, we can nab him before he can get to the windows. A good idea, commented Narcombe. Come on, Sir Horace, is this the way? Yes, but you'll have to tread carefully and mind you don't fall over anything. A good deal of my paraphernalia bottles retorts and the light is stored in the little recess at the foot of the staircase, and my assistant is careless and leaves things lying about. Evidently the caution was necessary. For a minute or so after they had passed on and disappeared behind the door leading to the kitchen stairway, Petrie and his colleagues heard a sound as of something being overturned and smashed, and laughed softly to themselves. Evidently, too, the danger of the furnace had been grossly exaggerated by Sir Horace. For when, a few minutes later, the door opened and closed, and Narcombe's men, glancing toward it, saw the figure of their chief reappear, it was plain that he was in no good temper. Since his features were knotted up into a scowl, and he swore audibly as he snapped the shutter over the bullseye and handed it back to Petrie. Nothing worth looking into, superintendent. No, not a thing, he replied. The silly old josser. Pulling me down there amongst the coals and rubbish for an insane idea like that. Aye, the flues wouldn't admit the passage of a child, and even then there's a bend and abrupt elbow that nothing but a cat could crawl up. And that's a man who's an authority on the human brain. I sent the old silly back to bed by the way he came, and if— There he stopped. Stopped short, and sucked in his breath with a sharp wheezing sound. For, over sudden, a swift pattering footfall and a glimmer of moving light had sprung into being, and drawn his eyes upward. And there, overhead, was Miss Lawn coming down the stairs from the upper floor in a state of nervous excitement, and with a bedroom candle in her shaking hand. A loose gun flung on over her nitrous, and her hair streaming over her shoulders in glorious disarray. He stood and looked at her with ever quickening breath, with ever widening eyes, as though the beauty of her had wakened some dormant sense, whose existence he had never suspected. As though, until now, he had never known how fair it was possible for a woman to be—how fair, how lovable, how much to be desired. And whilst he was so looking, she reached the foot of the staircase, and came pantingly toward him. Oh, Mr. Norkham, what was it, that noise I heard? She said, in a tone of deepest agitation. It sounded like a struggle, like the noise of something breaking, and I dressed as hastily as I couldn't came down. Did he come? Has he been here? Have you caught him? Oh, why don't you answer me instead of staring at me like this? Can't you see how nervous and frightened I am? Dear Heaven, will no one tell me what has happened? Nothing has happened, Miss, answered Petrie, catching her eye as she flashed round on him. You'd better go back to bed. Nobody's been here but Sir Horace. The noise you heard was me a-grabbing of him, and he and Mr. Norkham are tumbling over something as they went down to look at the furnace. Furnace? What furnace? What are you talking about? She cried agitatedly. What do you mean by saying that Sir Horace came down? Only what the superintendent himself will tell you, Miss, if you ask him. Sir Horace came downstairs in his pyjamas a few minutes ago, to say as he'd recollected about the flus of the furnace in the cellar being big enough to hold a man. And then him and Mr. Norkham went below to have a look at it. She gave a sharp and sudden cry, and her face went as pale as a dead face. Sir Horace came down. She repeated, moving back a step, and leaning heavily against the banister. Sir Horace came down to look at the furnace. We have no furnace. What? We have no furnace, I tell you, and Sir Horace did not come down. He is up there still. I know, I know, I tell you, because I fear for his safety, and when he went to his room I locked him in. Sir Lieutenant! The word was voiced by every man present, and six pairs of eyes turned toward Norkham with a look of despairing comprehension. Get to the cellar! Head the man off! It's he, the cracksman! He shouted out. Find him! Get him! Knab him if you have to turn the house upside down! They needed Mouss' second bidding, for each man grasped the situation instantly, and in a twinkling there was a veritable pandemonium. Shouting and scrambling like a band of madmen, they lurched to the door, whirled it open, and went flying down the staircase to the kitchen, and so to a discovery which none might have foreseen. For almost as they entered, they saw lying on the floor a suit of striped pyjamas, and close to it gagged, bound, helpless, trust up like a goose that was ready for the oven, jives on his wrists, jives on his ankles, their chief, their superintendent, Mr. Maverick Narkham, in a state of collapse, and with all his outer clothing gone. After him, after that devil, and a thousand pounds to the man that gets him, he managed to gasp as they rushed to him and ripped loose the gag. He was here when we came. He has been in the house for hours. Get him! Get him! Get him! They surged from the room and up the stairs like a pack of stampeded animals. They raced through the hall and bored down on the picture gallery in a body, and twirling open the now closed door went tumbling headlong in. The light was still burning. At the far end of the room a window was wide open, and the curtains of it fluttered in the wind. A collection of empty cases and caskets lay on the middle table, but man and jewels were alike gone. Once again the vanishing cracksman had lived up to his promise, up to his reputation, up to the very letter of his name. And for all Mr. Maverick Narkham's care and shrewdness, forty faces had turned the trick, and Scotland Yard was done. End of the second part of the prologue. The third part of the prologue of Gleek, the man of the forty faces. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Ruth Golding. Gleek, the man of the forty faces by Thomas W. Hanshaw. Prologue, Part Three Through all the night its best men sought him, its dragnets fished for him, its tentacles groped into every whole and corner of London in quest of him, but sought and fished and groped in vain. They might as well have hoped to find last summer's partridges or last winter's snow as any trace of him. He had vanished as mysteriously as he had appeared, and no royal jewels graced the display of Miss Wyvern's wedding-gifts on the morrow. But it was fruitful of other gifts, fruitful of an even greater surprise that morrow. For the first time since the day he had given his promise, no souvenir from the man who called himself Hamilton Gleek, no part of last night's loot came to Scotland Yard. And it was while the evening papers were making screaming copy and glaring headlines out of this, that the surprise in question came to pass. Miss Wyvern's wedding was over, the day and the bride had gone, and it was half past ten at night when Sir Horace, answering a hurry call from headquarters, drove post-haste to Superintendent Nacham's private room, and passing in under a red and green lamp which burned over the doorway, entered and met that surprise. Maverick Nacham was there alone, standing beside his desk, with the curtains of his window drawn and pinned together, and at his elbow an unlighted lamp of violet-coloured glass, standing and looking thoughtfully down at something which lay before him. He turned as his visitor entered, and made an open-handed gesture towards it. Look here! he said, laconically. What do you think of this? Sir Horace moved forward and looked, then stopped and gave a sort of wandering cry. The electric bulbs overhead struck a glare of light down on the surface of the desk, and there, spread out on the shining oak, lay apart of the royal jewels that had been stolen from Wyvern House last night. Nacham! You got him, then! Got him after all! No, I did not get him. I doubt if any man could, if he'd chose not to be found, said Nacham bitterly. I did not recover these jewels by any act of my own. He sent them to me, gave them up voluntarily. Gave them up? After he had risked so much to get them? God bless my soul! What a man! Why, there must be quite half here of what he took! There is half, and even half. He sent them to-night, and with them this letter. Look at it, and you will understand why I sent for you and asked for you to come alone. There's some good in even the devil, I suppose, if one but knows how to reach it and stir it up. So Horace read, I have lived a life of crime from my very boyhood, because I couldn't help it. Because it appealed to me. Because I glory in risks and revel in dangers. I never knew where it would lead me. I never thought, never cared. But I looked into the gateway of heaven last night, and I can't go down the path to Hell any longer. Here is an even half of Miss Wyvern's jewels. If you and her father would have me hand over the other half to you, and would have the vanishing cracksman disappear forever, and a useless life converted into a useful one, you have only to say so to make it an accomplished thing. All I ask in return is your word of honour, to be given to me by signal, that you will send for Sir Horace Wyvern to be at your office at eleven o'clock tonight, and that you and he will grant me a private interview, unknown to any other living being. A red and green lantern hung over the doorway lead into your office will be the signal that you agree, and a violet light in your window will be the pledge of Sir Horace Wyvern. When these two signals, these two pledges are given, I shall come in and hand over the remainder of the jewels, and you will have looked for the first time in your life upon the real face of the man who calls himself Hamilton Cleyke. God bless my soul! What an amazing creature! What an astounding request!" exclaimed Sir Horace as he laid the letter down. Willing to give up twenty thousand pounds worth of jewels for the mere sake of a private interview, what on earth can be his object, and why should he include me? I don't know, said Narcom in reply. It's worth something at all events to be rid of the vanishing cracksmen for good and all, and he says that it rests with us to do that. It's close to eleven now. Shall we give him the pledge he asks, Sir Horace? My signal is already hung out. Shall we agree to the conditions and give him yours? Yes, yes, by all means! Sir Horace made answer, and lighting the violet lamp, Narcom flipped open the pinned curtains and set it in the window. For ten minutes nothing came of it, and the two men talking in whispers while they waited began to grow nervous. Then somewhere in the distance a clock started striking eleven, and without so much as a warning sound the door flashed open, flashed shut again. A voice that was undeniably the voice of breeding and refinement said quietly, Gentlemen, my compliments, here are the diamonds and here am I. And the figure of a man, faultlessly dressed, faultlessly mannered, with the slim-loined form the slim-walled nose and the clear-cut features of the born aristocrat stood in the room. His age might lie anywhere between twenty-five and thirty-five, his eyes were straight-looking and clear, his fresh, clean-shaven face was undeniably handsome, and whatever his origin, whatever his history, there was something about him in look, in speech, in bearing, that mutely stood sponsor for the thing called birth. God bless my soul! exclaimed Sir Horace, amazed and appalled to find the reality so widely different from the image he had drawn. What monstrous juggle is this? Why, man alive, you're a gentleman! Who are you? What's driven you to a dog's life like this? A natural bent, perhaps, a supernatural gift, certainly Sir Horace, he made reply. Look here! Could any man resist the temptation to use it when he was endowed by nature with the power to do this? His features seemed to rise and not, and assume in as many moments a dozen different aspects. I've had the knack of doing that since the hour I could breathe. Could any man go straight with a fateful gift like that if the laws of nature said that he should not? And do they say that? That's what I want you to tell me. That's why I have requested this interview. I want you to examine me, Sir Horace, to put me through those tests you use to determine the state of mind of the mentally fit and mentally unfit. I want to know if it is my fault that I am what I am, and if it is myself I have to fight in future or the devil that lives within me. I'm tired of wallowing in the mire. A woman's eyes have lit the way to heaven for me. I want to climb up to her, to win her, to be worthy of her, and to stand beside her in the light. Her? What her? That's my business, Mr. Narcombe, and I'll take no man into my confidence regarding that. Yes, my friend, but Margo, how about her? I'm done with her. We broke last night when I returned, and she learned—never mind what she learned. I'm done with her, done with a lot of them. My life is changed forever. In a name of heaven-man, who and what are you? Cleek, just Cleek. Let it go at that," he made reply. Whether it's my name or not is no man's business. Who I am, what I am, whence I came, is no man's business either. Cleek will do. Cleek of the forty faces. Never mind the past. My fight is with the future. And so examine me, Sir Horace, and let me know if I or fate to blame for what I am. Sir Horace did. Absolutely fate," he said, when, after a long examination, the man put the question to him again. It is the criminal brain fully developed, horribly pronounced. God help you, my poor fellow, but a man simply could not be other than a thief and a criminal with an organ like that. There's no hope for you to escape your natural bent except by death. You can't be honest. You can't rise. You never will rise. It's useless to fight against it. I will fight against it. I will rise. I will. I will. I will. He cried out vehemently. There is a way to put such craft and cunning to account. A way to fight the devil with his own weapons and crush him under the weight of his own gifts, and that way I'll take. Mr. Narcombe, he whirled and walked toward the superintendent, his hand outstretched, his eager face aglow. Mr. Narcombe, help me. Take me under your wing. Give me a start. Give me a chance. Give me a lift on the way up. Good heaven man, you don't mean. I do. I do. So help me heaven, I do. All my life I fought against the law. Now let me switch over and fight with it. I'm tired of being clique the thief, clique the burglar. Make me clique the detective, and let us work together hand in hand for a common cause and for the public good. Will you, Mr. Narcombe? Will you? Will I? Won't I? said Narcombe, springing forward and gripping his hand. Joe, what a detective you will make, bully boy, bully boy. It's a compact then? It's a compact clique. Thank you, he said in a choked voice. You've given me my chance. Now watch me live up to it. The vanishing cracksman has vanished for ever, Mr. Narcombe, and it's clique the detective, clique of the forty faces from this time on. Now give me your riddles, I'll solve them one by one. End of the prologue. Chapter 1 of Clique the man of the forty faces. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Ruth Golding. Clique the man of the forty faces by Thomas W. Hanshaw. Chapter 1 The sound came again. So unmistakably this time the sound of a footstep in the soft squashy ooze on the heath, there could be no question regarding the nature of it. Miss Lorne came to an instant standstill, and clutched her belongings closer to her with a shake and a quiver, and a swift prickle of goose flesh round round her shoulders, and up and down the backs of her hands. There was good brave blood in her it is true, but good brave blood isn't much to fall back upon. If you happen to be a girl without escort, carrying a handbag containing twenty odd pounds in money, several bits of valuable jewellery, your whole earthly possessions in fact, and have lost your way on hamstered heath at half-past eight o'clock at night, with a spring fog shutting you in like a wall, and shutting out everything else but a mackerel collection of clouds that looked like grey smudges on the greasy silver of a twilight sky. She looked round, but she could see nothing and nobody. The heath was a white waste that might have been part of the scenery in Lapland, for all there was to tell that it lay within reach of the heart and pulse of the sluggish Leviathan London. Over it the vapours of night crowded, an almost palpable wall of thick wet mist, stirred now and again by some atmospheric movement which could scarcely be called a wind, although at times it drew long lacy filaments above the level of the denser mass of fog, and melted away with them into the calm still upper air. Miss Lawn hesitated between two very natural impulses to gather up her skirts and run, or to stand her ground and demand an explanation from the person who was undoubtedly following her. She chose the latter. Who is there? Why are you following me? What do you want? She flung out, keeping her voice as steady as the hard sharp hammering of her heart would permit. The question was answered at once, rather startlingly, since the footsteps which caused her alarm had all the while proceeded from behind and slightly to the left of her. Now there came a hurried rush and scramble on the right. There was the sound of a match being scratched, a blob of light in the grey of the mist, and she saw standing in front of her a ragged, weedy red-headed youth with the blazing match in his scooped hands. He was thin to the point of ghastliness. Hunger was in his pinched face, his high cheekbones, his gouged jaws, staring like a starved wolf through the unnatural brightness of his pale eyes from every gaunt feature of him. Allo! he said, with a strong cockney accent as he came up out of the fog, and the flair of the match gave him a full view of her, standing there with her lips shut hard and the handbag clutched up close to her with both hands. You what called was it? What priced me for answering of you, eh? Yes, it was I that called. She replied, making a brave front of it. But I do not think it was you that I called too. Keep away, please. Don't come any nearer. What do you want? Well, I'll take that blessed handbag to go on with, and if there aren't no money in it, tumble it out. Let's see, lively now. I'll feed for the rest of this week. God, yes! She made no reply, no attempt to obey him, no movement of any sort. Fear had absolutely stricken every atom of strength from her. She could do nothing but look at him with big frightened eyes and cheek. Look here, aren't you going to do it quiet, or are you going to make me take the blessed thing from you? He asked. I'll do it if you put me to it, my at-yuss. It aren't my game. I'm what you might call a hammer-chewer at it. But when there's something inside you, what tears and tears and tears, any game's worth trying that pulls out the claws of it. She did not move even yet. He flung the spent-match from him and made a sharp step toward her, and he had just reached out his hand to lay hold of her, when another hand, strong, sinewy, hard-shutting as an iron clamp, reached out from the mist and laid hold of him, plucking him by the neck-band and intruding a bunch of knuckles and shut fingers between that and his up-slanted chin. Now, then, drop that little game at once, you young monkey!" struck in the sharps to carto of a semi-excited voice. Interfering with young ladies, eh? Let's have a look at you. Don't be afraid, Miss Lawn. Nobody's going to hurt you. Then a pocket torch spat out a sudden ray of light, and by it both the half-throttled boy and the wholly frightened girl could see the man who had thus intruded himself upon their notice. "'Oh, it is you! It is you again, Mr. Creek,' said Elsa, with something between a laugh and a sigh of relief as she recognized him. "'Yes, it is I. I have been behind you ever since you left the house in Barden Road. "'It was rash of you to cross the heath at this time and in this weather. "'I rather fancied that something of this kind would be likely to happen, and so took the liberty of following you.' "'Then it was you I heard behind me.' "'It was I, yes. I shouldn't have intruded myself upon your notice if you hadn't called out.' "'A moment, please. Let's have a look at this young highwayman, who so freely advertises himself as an amateur.' The light spat full into the gaunt, starved face of the young man, and made it stare forth doubly ghastly. He had made no effort to get away from the very first. Perhaps he understood the uselessness of it with that strong hand gripped on his ragged neckband. Perhaps he was in his way something of a fatalist. London breathed so many among such as he. Starved things that find every boat chained, every effort thrust back upon them unrewarded. At any rate, from the moment he had heard the girl give to this man a name which every soul in England had heard at one time or another during the past two years, he had gone into a sort of mild collapse, as though realising the utter uselessness of battling against fate, and had given himself up to what was to be. "'Hello!' said Creeke, as he looked the youth over. "'Yours is a face I don't remember running far love before, my young beauty. Where did you come from?' "'Where I seem like to be going now you've got your current pickers on me.' "'Hell!' answered the boy, with something like a sigh of despair. "'Least ways I've been in hell ever since I can remember anything, so I reckon I must have come from there.' "'What's your name?' "'Dollops. I suppose I must have had another some time, but I never heard of it.' "'What's that?' "'Yes, most 19.' "'What? Oh, go throw something at yourself. I aren't too young to be hungry, am I?' "'And where's a cove gonna find this ear on his work you're retalking of?' "'I'm fair sick of the gamer looking for it.' "'Besides, you don't see parties as goes in for the upper thing, walking round with ribs on them like bed slacks, "'not even the price of a cup of coffee in their pockets, do ya? No fear.' "'I wouldn't have hurt a young lady, but I'd tell you straight, I'd took every blessed farving she had on her "'if you hadn't have dropped on me like this.' "'Got down to the last ditch, down to the point of desperation, eh?' "'Yes, so would you if you had a thing inside your tearing and tearing like I have.' "'I'll eat a blooming crumb since the day before yesterday at four in the morning, "'when a gent in the lansom, drunk as a lord he was, "'treated me in a parcel of others to a bun and a cup of coffee at a coffee stall over I-gateway.' "'Stood out again being a crook as long as ever I could, as long as ever I'm going to, I reckon, "'now you've got your maulers on me. I'll be on a list after this. "'The cops all know me, and when you've got a name, well, watch the odds. "'You might as well have to go on as well, and get over going empty.' "'All right, run me in, sir. Any hour I'll have a bit to eat and a bed to sleep in tonight, "'and that's one comfort.' Clee could have been watching the boy closely, narrowly, with an ever-deepening interest. Now he loosened the grip of his fingers, and let his hand drop to his side. "'Suppose I don't run you in, as you put it. "'Suppose I take a chance and lend you five shillings. "'Will you do some work and pay it back to me in time?' he asked. The boy looked up at him and laughed in his face. "'Look here, governor. He's playing it like Dan to laugh with a chat just before you're going to hang him,' he said. "'You come off your blessed perch.' "'Right,' said Clee, and now you get up on yours, and let us see what you're made of.' Then he put his hand into his trousers' pocket. There was a chink of coins, and two half-crowns lay on his outstretched palm. "'There you are. Off with you now, and if you are any good, turn up some time to-night at number 204 Clarge Street, and ask for Captain Horatio Burbage. He'll see that there's work for you. Toddle along now, and get a meal and a bed, and mind you keep a close mouth about this.' The boy neither moved nor spoke nor made any sound. For a moment or two he stood looking from the man to the coins, and from the coins back to the man. Then gradually the truth of the thing seemed to trickle into his mind, and as a hungry fox might pounce upon a stray fowl, he grabbed the money and bolted. "'Remember the name and remember the street,' Clee called after him. "'You take your bloomin' out far, will,' came back through the enfolding mist. "'Gorgeous!' Just that, and the use was gone. "'I wonder what you will think of me, Miss Lawn,' said Cleeke, turning to her. "'Taking a chance like this, and above all with a fellow who would have stripped you of every jewel and every penny you have with you, if things hadn't happened as they have.' "'And I can very ill afford to lose anything now, as I suppose you know, Mr. Cleeke. "'Things have changed sadly for me, since that day Mr. Narcum introduced us at Ascot,' she said, with just a shadow of seriousness in her eyes. "'But as to what I think regarding your action toward that dreadful boy?' "'Oh, of course, if there is a chance of saving him from a career of crime, I think one owes him that as a duty. In the circumstances the temptation was very great. It must be a horrible thing to be so hungry that one is driven to robbery to satisfy the longing for food.' "'Yes, very horrible, very, very indeed. "'I once knew a boy who stood as that boy stands at the parting of the ways, when the good that was in him fought the last great fight with the devil of circumstances. "'If a hand had been stretched forth to help that boy at that time?' "'Oh, well, it wasn't. "'The devil took the reins and the game went his way. "'If five shillings will put the reins into that boy's hand to-night and steer him back to the right path, so much the better for him and for me. "'I'll know if he's worth the chance I took to-morrow.' "'Now, let us talk about something else. "'Will you allow me to escort you across the heath and see you safely on your way home? "'Or would you prefer that I should remain in the background as before?' "'How ungrateful you must think me to suggest such a thing as that,' she said, with a reproachful smile. "'Walk with me, if you will be so kind. "'I hope you know that this is the third time you have rendered me a service "'since I had the pleasure of meeting you. "'It is very nice of you, and I am extremely grateful. "'I wonder you find the time, or, well, take the trouble. "'Rather, Archly, a great man like you.' "'Shall I take off my hat and say, thank you, Mom, "'or just the hat need praise from Sir Hubert his praise indeed?' "'He said, with a laugh, as he fell into step with her, "'and they faced the mist and the distance together. "'I suppose you're alluding to my success in the famous Stanhope case. "'The newspaper has made a great fuss over that,' Mr. Narcombe tells me. "'But, please, one big success doesn't make a great man. "'Anymore than one rose-brush makes a garden.' "'Are you fishing for a compliment, or is that really natural modesty?' "'I had heard of your exploits and seen your name in the papers "'o dozens of times before I first had the pleasure of meeting you. "'And since then?' "'No, I shan't flatter you by saying how many successes "'I have seen recorded to your credit in the past two years. "'Do you know that I have a natural predilection for such things? "'It may be morbid of me. Is it? "'I have the strongest kind of a leaning towards the tales of Gaborio. "'And I've always wanted to know a really great detective, like Le Coq or Dupin. "'And that day at Ascot when Mr. Narcombe told me that he would introduce me "'to the famous Man of the Forty Faces, Mr. Creak, "'why do they call you the Man of the Forty Faces? "'You always look the same to me.' "'Perhaps I shan't when we come to the end of the heath "'and get into the public street, where there are lights and people,' he said. "'That I always look the same in your eyes, Miss Lawn, "'is because I have but one face for you, and that is my real one. "'Not many people see it, even among the men of the yard "'who I occasionally work with.' "'You do, however.' "'So does Mr. Narcombe occasionally.' "'So did that boy, unfortunately.' "'I had to show it when I came to your assistance, "'if only to assure you that you were in friendly hands "'and to prevent you taking fright and running off into the mist in a panic, "'and losing yourself where even I might not be able to find you. "'That is why I told the boy to apply for work "'to Captain Burbage of Clarges Street.' "'I am Captain Burbage, Miss Lawn. "'Nobody knows that, but my good friend Mr. Narcombe "'and now you.' "'I shall respect it, of course,' she said. "'I hope I need not assure you of that, Mr. Cleak.' "'You need assure me of nothing, Miss Lawn,' he made reply. "'I owe so much more to you than you are aware that—' "'Oh, well, it doesn't matter.' "'You'll ask me a question a moment ago. "'If you want the answer to it, look here.' He stopped short as he spoke. The pocket-torch clipped faintly, and from the shelter of a curved hand the glow of it struck upward to his face. It was not the same face for ten seconds at a time. What Sir Horace Wyvern had seen in Mr. Narcombe's private office at Scotland Yard on that night of nights, more than two years ago, Sir Horace Wyvern's niece saw now. "'Oh!' she said, with a sharp intaking of breath as she saw the writhing features knocked and twist and blend. "'Oh, don't! It is uncanny! It is amazing! It is awful!' And after a moment when the light had been shut off and the man beside her was only a shape in the mist. "'I hope I may never see you do it again,' she merely more than whispered. "'It is the most appalling thing! I can't think how you do it! How you came by the power to do such a thing!' "'Perhaps by inheritance,' said Cleek, as they walked on again. "'Once upon a time, Miss Lawn, there was a lady of extremely high position who, at a time when she should have been giving her thoughts to, well, more serious things, used to play with one of those curious little rubber faces which you can pinch up into all sorts of distorted countenances. You have seen the things, no doubt.' She would sit for hours, screaming with laughter over the droll shapes into which she squeezed the thing. Afterward, when her little son was born, inherited the trick of that rubber face as a birthright. "'It may have been the same case with me.' "'Let us say it was, and drop the subject, since you have not found the sight of pleasing one. "'Now tell me something, please, that I want to know about you.'" End of chapter 1 Chapter 2 of Cleek, The Man of the Forty Faces This Librivox recording is in the public domain, recording by Ruth Golding. Cleek, The Man of the Forty Faces, by Thomas W. Hanshaw. Chapter 2 "'About me, Mr. Cleek.' "'Yes, you spoke about there being a change in your circumstances. "'Spoke as though you thought I knew.' "'I do not, but I should like to, if I may. "'It will, perhaps, explain why you are out alone and in this neighbourhood at this time of night.' "'It will,' she said, with just a shadow of deeper colour coming into her cheeks. "'The house you saw me coming out of is the residence of a friend and former schoolmate. "'I went there to inquire if she could help me in any way to secure a position, "'and stop later than I realised.'" "'Procure you a position, Miss Lawn. A position as what?' "'Companion, Amanuensis, governess, anything that,' with a laugh and a plush, "'respectable young females may do to earn a living when they come down in the world. "'You may possibly have heard that my uncle, Sir Horace, has married again. "'I think you must have done so, for the papers were full of it at the time. "'But I forget, quizzically, you don't read newspapers, do you, "'even when they contain accounts of your own greatness?' "'I wonder if I deserve that. At any rate, I've got it,' said Clicke, with a laugh. "'Yes, I heard all about Sir Horace's wedding. Some four or five months ago, wasn't it?' "'No, three. Three last Thursday, the fourteenth. "'A woman doesn't forget the date of her enforced abdication. "'The new Lady Wyvern soon let me know that I was a superfluous person in the household. "'Today I came to the conclusion to leave it, "'and have taken the first actual step toward doing so. "'A lucky step, too, I fancy, or at least it promises to be. "'As how?' "'My friend knows of two people who would be likely to need me. "'One, a titled lady here in England, who might be very glad to have me. "'I am quoting that, please, as governess to her little boy. "'The other, a young French girl, who is returning shortly to Paris, "'who also might be glad to have me as companion. "'Of course, I would sooner remain in England, but, well, "'it is nicer to be a companion than a governess, "'and the young lady is very nearly my own age. "'Indeed, we were actually at the same school together when we were very little girls.' "'I see,' said Creeke, a trifle gloomily. "'So then it is possible that it will eventually be the young French lady and Paris in future. "'When do you fancy? Soon?' "'Oh, I don't know about that. "'I haven't quite made up my mind as yet which of the two it will be. "'And then there's the application to be sent afterwards.' "'Still, it will be one of the two, certainly.' "'Oh, yes. I shall have to earn my living in future, you know. "'So naturally, of course,' she gave her shoulder an eloquent upward movement and let the rest go by default. Creeke did not speak for a moment, merely walked on beside her, a ridge between his eyebrows and his lower lip sucked in, as if he were mentally debating upon something and was afraid he might speak incorsiously, but of a sudden. "'Miss Lawn,' he said, in a curiously tense voice, "'May I ask you something? "'Let us say that you had set your heart upon obtaining one or the other of these two positions. "'Set it so entirely that life wouldn't be worth a straw to you if you didn't get it. "'Let us say, too, that there was something you had done, "'something in your past which, if known, "'might utterly preclude the possibility of your obtaining what you wanted. "'It is an absurd hypothesis, of course, "'but let us use it for the sake of argument. "'We will say that you had done your best to live down that offensive something done, "'and were still doing all that lay in your power to atone for it. "'That nobody but one person shared the knowledge of that something with you "'and upon his silence you could rely. "'Now, tell me, would you feel justified in accepting the position upon which you had set your heart "'without confessing the thing? "'Or would you feel in duty bound to speak, "'well, knowing that it would, in all human probability, be the end of all your hopes?' "'I should like to have your opinion upon that point, please.' "'I can't see that I or anybody else could have other than the one,' she replied. "'It is an age-old maxim, is it not, Mr. Kreek, "'that two wrongs cannot by any possibility constitute a right. "'I should feel in duty bound, in honour bound, to speak, of course. "'To do the other would be to obtain the position by fraud, "'to steal it as a thief steals things that he wants. "'No sort of atonement is possible, is even worth the name, "'if it is backed up by deceit, Mr. Kreek.' "'Even though that deceit is the only thing that could give you your heart's desire, "'the only thing that could open the gates of heaven for you, "'the gates of heaven, as you put it, can never be opened with a lie, Mr. Kreek. "'They might be opened by the very thing of which you speak, Confession. "'I think I should take my chances upon that. "'At any rate, if I failed, I should at least have preserved my self-respect, "'and done more to merit what I wanted than if I had secured it by treachery.' "'Think of the boy you helped a little while ago. "'How much respect will you have for him if he never lives up to his promise? "'Never goes to Clarger Street at all. "'Yet, if he does live up to it, will he not be doubly worth the saving? "'But, please,' with a sudden change from seriousness to gaiety, "'if I am to be led into terminating, might I not know what it is all about? "'I shall be right, shall I not, in supposing that all this is merely the preface to something else?' "'Either the preface, or the finest,' said Kreek, with a deeply drawn breath. "'Still, as you say, no atonement is worth calling an atonement if it is based upon fraud. "'And so, Miss Lawn, I am going to ask you to indulge in yet another little flight of fancy. "'Carry your mind back, will you, to the night when your cousin—to the night two years ago, "'when Sir Horace Wyvern's daughter had her wedding present stolen, "'and you, I believe, had rather a trying moment with that fellow who was known as the vanishing cracksman. "'You can remember it, can you not?' "'Remember it? I shall never forget it. "'I thought, when the police ran downstairs and left me with him, that I was talking to Mr. Narcombe. "'I think I nearly went after with terror when I found out that it was he.' "'And you found it out only through his telling you, did you not? "'Afterward, I am told, the police found you lying, fainting, at the foot of the stairs. "'The man had touched you, spoken to you, even caught up your hand and put it to his lips. "'Can you remember what he said when he did that? Can you?' "'Yes,' she answered with a little shudder of recollection. "'For weeks afterward I used to wake up in the middle of the night thinking of it and going cold all over. "'He said, you have come down into hell and lifted me out. "'Under God you shall lift me into heaven as well.' "'And perhaps you shall,' said Clicke, stopping short and uncovering his head. "'At any rate I'll not attempt to win it by fraud. "'Miss Lawn, I am that man. I am the vanishing cracksman of those other days. "'I've walked the straight path since the moment I kissed your hand.' "'She said nothing, made no faintest sound. "'She couldn't. All the strengths, all the power to do anything but simply stand and look at him, had gone out of her.' "'But even so she was conscious, dimly but yet conscious, of a feeling of relief that they had come at last close to the end of the heath, "'that there was the faint glow of light dimly observable through the enfolding mist, "'and that there was the rumble of wheels, the pulse of life, "'the law-guarded paths of the city's streets beyond."