Number Six and the Borgia

Front matter

Number Six and the Borgia

By Edgar Wallace

Author of “The Daffodil Enigma,” “The Black Grippe,” Etc.

I. The Beginning of the Hunt

CHAPTER I.

THE BEGINNING OF THE HUNT.

THE most mysterious and baffling thing about Cæsar Valentine was to discover the reason for his mystery. It was a mystery which belonged to the category of elusive thought, the name that is on the tip of your tongue, the fact that is familiar, yet defies exact remembrance.

When the international police conference held its yearly meeting in 19— in Geneva, and after three strenuous days' discussion which embraced matters so widely different as the circulation of forged Swedish notes and the philanderings of the Bosnian Ambassador—the conference did its best to prevent his assassination which occurred six months later—the question of Cæsar Valentine came up for examination. It was an informal discussion, a mere drift of conversation arising out of the Gale case.

“I don't quite know what is this man's offense,” said Lecomte, of the Surete, “he is very rich and very popular and immensely good looking—but none of these qualities is criminal.”

“Where does he get his money?” demanded Leary, of Washington. “We had him in America for five years, and he did nothing but spend.”

“Neither in France nor in America is that a crime,” smiled Lecomte.

“People who have done business with him have had an unfortunate habit of dying suddenly.” It was Hallett, of the London C.I.B., who put the matter so bluntly, and Leary nodded.

“That's so,” he said. “Providence has been very good to Mr. Valentine. He was in a big wheat deal in Chicago in 'thirteen, and the market went against him. The principal operator was Burgess—John Boyd Burgess. He had a grudge against Valentine and would have ruined him. One morning Burgess was discovered dead at the bottom of an elevator shaft in his hotel. He had dropped nineteen floors.”

Monsieur Lecomte shrugged his broad shoulders. “An accident?” he suggested.

“Listen,” said Hallett. “This man Valentine got friendly with a banker in our country—a man named George Gale. Gale financed him out of the bank funds—but that was never proved. Gale was in the habit of taking a nerve tonic. He used to bring one dose in a tiny bottle to the office. He was found one night dead in his office with the little bottle in his hand. It bore the tonic label, but it had contained prussic acid. When the auditors came to examine the books of the bank they found a hundred thousand pounds had disappeared. Valentine's account was in perfect order. Gale went to a suicide's grave—Valentine sent a wreath.”

“Well,” said Lecomte with another shrug, “I am not defending Monsieur Valentine. But it might have been suicide. Valentine might have been innocent. Where is your evidence to the contrary? There was an investigation, was there not?”

Hallett nodded. “And nothing was discovered unflattering to the monsieur! You think he is a bad man? I tell you that I will place the full strength of my department at your disposal to prove it. have him watched day and night, for he is in France for six months in the year, but frankly I would desire more solid foundations for your suspicions.”

“He ran away with a man's wife2” began Hallett, and Lecomte laughed.

“Pardon!” he apologized, “that is not an offense under the Code Napoleon!”

So the conversation drifted elsewhere.

A year later Hallett, of the C.I.B., sat hunched up in his chair, frowning gloomily at a typewritten report which was spread on his desk. He sat for half an hour, thinking, then he touched a bell and somebody came in.

“My friend,” said the chief—and when he began “my friend” he was very serious indeed—“six months ago you came to me with certain theories about Mr. Cæsar Valentine. I don't want you to interrupt me,” he said brusquely as his subordinate seemed likely to speak, “just hear me through. I like you—you know that. I trust you or I wouldn't send you out on what looks like a hopeless search. What is more, I think your theories have some foundation. I have always thought so. That is why I've put you into training and accepted you for this department.”

A nod was the reply. “Police work,” said Hallett, “is a big game of solitaire in every sense of the word. If you watch every card and keep your mind concentrated on the game and you have luck, it comes out. If you start wool-gathering in the earlier stages you'll just miss putting up the right card, and you'll be stuck with the deuce of hearts that should have gone up, lying snug and useless at the bottom of the pack. Patience is everything. Burns sent a man into the mining camps with the scrap of a photograph showing only a murderer's right eye, and it was three years before this fellow of Burns' nailed his man. Lecomte, of the Surete, waited five years before he caught Madame Serpilot, and I myself as a young man trailed the 'Cully' Smith gang for three years, eight months and twelve days before I put Cully where I wanted him—and it will probably take you as long to pull down Cæsar Valentine.”

“When do I start?” asked his companion.

“At once,” replied Hallett. “Nobody must know of your movements—not even at this office. Your pay and expenses will be sent to you and you will be entered in the books as 'on special service abroad.'”

The other smiled. “That will be difficult, chief, my name2”

“You have no name. Henceforth you will be Number Six, and there will be nothing to identify you with—who you are. I shall give instructions that suggestions, wishes or such SOS messages as you send will be acted upon. Now get out and pull Valentine. This man may be. the biggest thing of his kind—and the most dangerous man in the world. On the other hand all the stories that come to police headquarters may be lies. It's a weird job you've taken on. You can't jail a man for living expensively or for running away with men's wives.”

“You've got to be bold and discreet, because I have reason to believe he has the most complete espionage bureau in the world. It was discovering that he subsidized a man here in this office that opened my eyes to the possibilities of the case. A man doesn't spend thousands to plant an ear at headquarters unless he has something to fear.”

Number Six nodded again.

“Now, here's the world before you, my friend,” said Hallett, “and a great reward if you succeed. Find his friends—you can have the entree to every prison in Britain and maybe that will help you.”

“It's a big job,” said Number Six, “but it is the one job in the world I want.”

“That I know,” agreed Hallett. “It will be lonely, but you'll probably find a dozen people who will help you—the men and women he has ruined and broken; the fathers of daughters and the husbands of wives he has sent to hell. They'll be pretty good allies. Now go! I've given you the finest intensive training that I can give, but maybe I haven't taught you just the thing you'll want to know.”

He rose abruptly and offered his hand and Number Six winced under the crushing grip. “Good-by and good luck, Number Six,” he smiled. “Don't forget I shall never know you again if I meet you in the street. You are a stranger to me until you step onto the witness stand at the Old Bailey and give the evidence which will put Mister Valentine permanently out of the game!”

So Number Six went out, nodding to the man at the door—the grim-visaged custodian of the custodians—and for some years Scotland Yard lost sight of one, against whose name in the secret and confidential register of the criminal investigation bureau, Hallett wrote in his own hand:

On very particular service. No reference to be made to this agent in any report whatever.

A year later Hallett summoned Chief Detective Steele to his office and told him just as much of his interview with Number Six as he deemed advisable.

“I haven't heard from Number Six for months,” he said. “Go to Paris and keep a fatherly eye on Cæsar Valentine.”

“Tell me this about Number Six, chief,” said Detective Steel, “is it a man or a woman?”

Hallett grinned. “Cæsar has been six months trying to find out,” he said. “I've fired three clerks for inquiring—don't tell me that I've got to fire you.”

II. “Tray-Bong” Smith

CHAPTER II.

“TRAY-BONG” SMITH.

When in prison at Brixton, England, a man who has no defense, and is waiting his trial on a charge of murder, finds time hanging pretty heavily upon his hands. It was due to this ennui of his that “Tray-Bong” Smith, usually an extremely reticent man, condescended to furnish certain particulars which enables the writer to fill in the gaps of this story which began, for our purpose, in Chi So's tea room, which isn't more than a hundred meters from the Quai des Fleurs.

Chi So was that rarity, a Jap who posed as a Chinese. He ran a restaurant in Paris, which, without being fashionable, was popular. People used to come across the river to eat the weird messes he prepared, and as many as a dozen motor cars have been seen parked at the end of the narrow street in which “The Joyous Pedlar”—that was the name of his joint—was situated.

Tray-Bong Smith had never eaten at Chi So's, but he'd smoked there quite a lot. The restaurant was built on a corner lot and was a fairly old house. It was probably an inn in the days of Louis, for beneath the building was one of the most spacious cellars in Paris. It was a great, vaulted room, about thirty feet from the keystone to the floor, and Chi So had turned this into what he called a “lounge” for his regular customers.

For weeks Tray-Bong Smith had turned into the “lounge” regularly at twelve o'clock every night, to bunk down with a pipe and a few busy thoughts till four o'clock in the morning. There were lots of reasons why he shouldn't wander about Paris at night. At this time some sort of international conference was going on, and it was impossible to stroll from the Place de la Concorde to the Italiennes. without falling over a Scotland Yard man who would know him. Whether other visitors. would have recognized the gaunt, unshaven man with the shabby suit and the discolored shirts as the man who won the one-hundred-yards sprint and the broad jump at the Oxford and Cambridge sports is doubtful. Certain sections of the police, however, knew him very well indeed.

In a little café on Montmartre where he spent his evenings they had christened him “Tray-Bong Smith” because of his practice of replying to all and sundry who addressed him, with this cockneyfied version of “tres bien.” Even when they discovered that his French was faultless and his “tray bong” an amusing mannerism, the name stuck and it came with him to Chi So's, where he was accounted a dangerous man. There were days when he counted his sous, days and nights when he would disappear from view and come back flush with money, changing thousand-franc notes with the nonchalance of a Monte Carlo croupier. But when he was visible at all he was a regular attendant at Chi So's.

If he was regular in his habits, so was Cæsar Valentine. On Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, at two o'clock to the minute, he used to make his appearance in what the habitués of Chi So's called the private box. In one wall, about fifteen feet from the ground, there was a moon-shaped opening, in which had been built either by Chi So or his predecessor, a sort of Swiss balcony. It was unlighted and heavily curtained, and it was suspected that Chi So made quite a respectable income out of letting the box to respectable people who wanted to be thrilled by the dope horrors of Paris and peregrinating journalists who were writing up Chinatown stories.

Cæsar Valentine, as a rule, came through a private door direct into the cellar, but sometimes he would stalk through the “lounge” looking from side to side with that insolent stare of his, and go out through a small door in the wall which communicated, by means of a circular iron staircase, with the private box above. And there he would sit for exactly one hour, peering down at the smokers, his eyes ranging the whitewashed cavern which with its big Chinese lanterns, its scarlet dado, and the brightly covered bunks was not without its picturesque qualities. Chi So said that he was a “beautiful man” and the description was not extravagant. He was invariably in evening dress which fitted him like a glove. about six feet in height, with such a face as the old Greek sculptors loved to reproduce, his head was covered with a mass of small brown curls, slightly—very slightly—tinged with gray. The first time Tray-Bong Smith saw him he thought he was a man of twenty-eight. The second time, when a shaft of light from a torn lantern caught him square, he guessed he was nearer fifty. He had big, brown, melancholy eyes, a Straight nose, a chin a little too rounded for the fastidious taste, and on his cheeks just a faint flush of color.

The night this story begins Tray-Bong Smith had turned in at Chi So's by the side door which was used by the smokers and took off his mackintosh in the hall. Chi So was there rubbing his hands, a sly and detestable little figure, in blue silk blouse and trousers, and he helped him off with his coat. “It's raining, Mr. Thmith?” he lisped.

“Like the devil,” growled Tray-Bong. “A poisonous night, even for Paris.”

Chi So grinned. “You thmoke plenty to-night, Mr. Thmith, I have thome good thtock in from China. Plenty people here to-night.”

Smith grunted a reply and went down the stone stairs and found his bunk. Chi-always reserved the same bunk for regular customers, and Smith's was just opposite the “private box.” O San, the pipe man, gave him his instrument of delight, made and lit a pill, and then hurried off.

There were the usual queer lot of people there that night. Society folks, a woman or two, the old camelot who sells the story of his life at the corner of the Rue Royale, and a gentleman whom Smith recognized as an official attached to one of the numerous embassies in Paris. Him he noted for future use and profit.

At two o'clock precisely came Cæsar Valentine, and with him Chi So, who usually accompanied him if he came through the lounge. Chi So's attitude was servile, his voice a wheedling whine, but Valentine said nothing. He strode down between the bunks and paused opposite that on which Tray-Bong Smith lay with wide eyes and wakeful.

Valentine looked for a moment absent-mindedly, and then, turning, walked through the door which Chi So had opened and reappeared a little later in the gallery. There he sat, his white hands on the plush ledge of the box, his chin on the back of his hands,. looking down; and it seemed that the unshaven Englishman in the bunk below was the principal attraction, for his eyes always came back to him. At half past two there was a curious stir, a faint chatter of voices from the passageway leading down from the side entrance, and the dull sound of blows. Then Chi So appeared in a panic and came twittering across the lounge to where Tray-Bong Smith was lying. Smith was out of the bunk and on his feet in an instant.

“Mis' Smit', you go quickly; here is the polith—it is for you! Through this door!” He indicated the door leading to the gallery. “Mis' Valentine shall not mind.”

Smith was through the door in two strides and, closing it behind him, went noiselessly up the narrow iron stairs which led directly into the “box.” Cæsar Valentine turned as he entered, and he spoke for the first time to the man who was destined to play so important a part in his life.

“You're in trouble?” he said.

“At present, no. In a few moments, yes,” said Smith and opened his shirt at the front. Cæsar saw the butt of the man's gun behind the linen and knew why Tray-Bong invariably lay on his right side.

“Do you know the way out?” he asked.

“I will show you.” He pulled aside a curtain and revealed a rough opening in the wall. Smith stepped through and passed along a passage lit by one electric bulb and leading, apparently, to a blank end.

“Straight ahead and then to your right,” said the voice of Cæsar behind him. “The door opens quite easily.”

The fugitive found the door and stepped out into a small courtyard. Cæsar Valentine brushed past him, crossed the yard without hesitation and, opening another door, they found themselves in a side street. It was raining heavily and a southwesterly gale was blowing.

“Wait,” said Cæsar. He fastened a big cloak about his shoulders. “You are younger than I, and the rain will not hurt you.”

Smith grinned in the darkness and loosened the sheath knife he carried in his hip pocket. Valentine led the way through a labyrinth of alleys. And presently they were standing on the deserted quay. Paris was in the throes of a coal famine and the lighting had been considerably reduced, which helped, for the quay was apparently deserted. Suddenly Valentine caught his companion by the arm.

“One moment,” he said. “You are the person who has the ridiculous nickname, are you not?”

“I cannot be answerable for the absurdity of any names which are given to me by absurd persons,” said Smith a little coldly, and Valentine laughed.

“Tray-Bong Smith?” he asked, and the other nodded.

“Yes, thought so,” Valentine was satisfied. “Only I did not wish to make a mistake. Not that it is possible that I can make mistakes,” he added, and the man at his side thought at first that he was jesting, but he was serious enough.

Along the quay Smith could see two dim lights and guessed that these belonged to Valentine's motor car. He walked on, a little ahead of the exquisite, toward the car and was less than fifty feet from safety when a man came out of the darkness, gripped him by the coat, and swung him round as he flashed an electric lamp in his face.

“Hullo!” he said in French. “Tray-Bong Smith, N'est ce pas? I want you, my ancient!”

Valentine stopped dead and shrunk back into the shadows, watching. Only for a second did Tray-Bong Smith hesitate, then with a swift movement of his hand he knocked the lamp from the man's hand. In another second he had gripped his assailant by the throat and had thrust him back against the gray stone parapet behind which the Seine flowed swiftly.

“You want me, eh?” he said between his teeth and Valentine saw the quick rise and fall of a glittering blade. The man relaxed his grip and slid limply to the ground. Smith looked round to left and right, then stooping, lifted the fallen man bodily in his arms and flung him across the parapet into the river. Only one groan came from the victim and something amused Tray-Bong Smith, for he laughed as he picked his knife from the pavement and threw it after the man into the stream.

Valentine had not moved until the knife was sent flying. Then he came forward, and Smith could hear his quick breathing. “My friend,” he said, “you are rapid.”

He said no more than this and walked rapidly toward the car and opened the door. The chauffeur could not have seen what had happened, for the quay was badly lit—but there may have been some other spectator. The car moved forward until it came almost abreast of the spot where the struggle had occurred. Smith thought he saw some one on the pavement, and dropped the rain-blurred window to look. The car was moving slowly, and the head lamps of the car had only just flashed out their fullest radiance.

In the light of the lamps was a girl. She was dressed from head to foot in black, and stood peering over the parapet into the dark river. As the car came up to her she turned her head and the man had a momentary glimpse of the saddest and most beautiful face he had ever seen. His shoulders were out of the window, and he was looking back, when he felt Valentine's hand clutch him and pull him back.

“You fool,” he said savagely, “what are you doing? Whom were you looking at?”

“Nobody,” said Smith, and pulled up the window.

III. The House of Caesar

CHAPTER III.

THE HOUSE OF CAESAR.

Cæsar Valentine had several houses and flats in or near Paris, Of this fact Tray-Bong Smith was well aware. He thought at first that he was being taken to Valentine's beautiful apartments on the Boulevard Victor Hugo, but the car went straight across the Place D'Etoiles, and sped down the Avenue of the Grand Armee. It was difficult on such a night to know in what direction they were going, but after a while it was apparent to Smith from the violent nature of the road, that they were going in the direction of Maisons Lafitte. Presently the car turned into what seemed to be a side lane with high hedges on either side. The car bumped and jolted slowly for ten minutes over what could not have been anything better than a cart track, then turned abruptly to the left and through a dilapidated gate.

It was too dark to see the house, and when the car stopped and Valentine's guest descended, he had no time to make any observations. It was a fairly big château; how big Smith could net tell for Cæsar opened the door with extraordinary quickness and ushered him into a large, dark hall. He switched on an electric light, and the stranger had time to observe a broad flight of stairs leading out of the hall before he was hurried across the parquet floor through another door into a large saloon.

It was one of the few rooms in private houses that deserve the name of saloon. It was lofty and spacious, its walls paneled with white wood; its ceilings were beautifully carved in the Moorish fashion, and illumination came from two rich electroliers. The furniture was not only magnificent, but regal. It is queer what things impress one. Smith always remembered that saloon by its carpet—an immense expanse of purple, heavily embroidered in gold, the ornamentation consisting of fleur-de-lis and a cipher “C.” The next thing that impressed him was a beautiful coat of arms above the big open fireplace. Two of its four quarterings held the lily of France, one, three gold bars, and the fourth a bull upon a golden ground.

Cæsar took off his wet cloak and flung it on the back of the chair, strolled to the fireplace, switched on an electric radiator, and stood with his back to the glow.

An imposing figure was Valentine in his immaculate evening dress. Smith approved the snowy-white shirt front and the three pearl studs, the thin platinum chain stretched across the white waistcoat, and guessed the reason for the little mocking smile that curled Cæsar's fine lips.

“My friend, Tray-Bong Smith,” he said slowly, “have you ever seen a man guillotined?”

“Half a dozen,” said the other promptly. “On to the board, head in the kang! Snick! Head in basket! Vive la France!”

Valentine frowned as though he were annoyed at the flippancy in the tone of his guest. Then he laughed and nodded. “I think you're the man I want,” he said. “That is the attitude to adopt toward life. But never forget, Smith, that you must not laugh at authority. Authority is sublime, beyond ridicule, cruel, unjust, tragic, but never humorous.”

Smith was slipping off his wet coat as the other spoke. “Put it before the fire,” said Cæsar. “Better still, throw it out through that door.” He pointed to a door to the right of the fireplace. “Madonna Beatrice will see to it.”

Smith obeyed him to the letter, wondering who might be Madonna Beatrice. Suddenly Cæsar looked at him sharply. “Is there any blood on your hands?” he asked.

Smith shook his head. “I aimed at the fifth intercostal space,” he said calmly. “There would be little blood.”.

Cæsar nodded approvingly as his companion examined his hands. “You have not taken much opium to-night,” he said. He stepped toward the man and peered into his eyes.

“I never take opium,” said Tray-Bong coolly. “I do not go to Chi So's to smoke, but to watch.”

Again Cæsar laughed. “An admirable lieutenant,” he said. “But you must not be too clever with me, Smith. I have taken a great risk for you. And let me tell you that I also came to Chi So's to watch, and to watch you.”

Smith had guessed that already, but said nothing.

“To watch you,” Cæsar repeated. “Chi So's business was built on my money. The place is useful to me. He tells me news that I want to hear, and when I learned that an English criminal was hiding in Paris from the police, that he was wanted for murder in America, and for forgery and divers other sordid and stupid crimes, we became interested in you.”

“We?” repeated Smith, and again Cæsar frowned and changed the trend of his observations.

“I do not approve of crime; your kind of crime. It is stupid and small and leads nowhere but to the guillotine.”

Smith might have offered his own views on crime, but at that moment the door opened slowly and a man entered. He was a little, red-haired man, and his ruddiness extended to his face, which was flaming. Somehow he matched neither Cæsar nor the saloon, for he was showily dressed; a heavy gold watch chain dangled from his waistcoat pocket and his attitude was defiant. Smith, a student of men, guessed that he had been drinking, and was not mistaken.

“Well, Ernest, what do you want?”

Ernest advanced unsteadily into the room and glanced from Cæsar to the watchful Smith. “Hullo!” he said loudly. “Got a visitor, eh?” The voice was coarse and uneducated, and it came to the visitor in the nature of a shock that he should speak so familiarly to his immaculate host.

“Yes, I have a visitor,” said Cæsar softly.

For a moment the little man said nothing, then clearing his throat: “I'm going to-morrow.”

“Oh, you're going to-morrow, are you?” repeated Cæsar in a mild tone.

“Yes, I'm going to London. Any objection?”

Cæsar shook his head and smiled. “None at all.”

“You know where to send my salary, I suppose?” asked the little man.

Cæsar licked his lips. “Your salary? I thought you were leaving my employment?”

“You know where to send my salary, I suppose?” said the little man in a tone of menace. “I'm taking a ten-years' holiday.” He laughed at his own humor. “A ten-years' holiday,” he repeated. “That's good, ain't it?”

“And I'm to send you your salary for ten years, eh?” said Cæsar.

“You'll be sorry if you don't,” threatened the man. “I haven't been here doing your dirty work for three years for nothing. Let him do it!” He nodded toward Smith. “See how he likes it. I could write a book about you, Mr. Valentine.”

Cæsar laughed. “And it would be very interesting, I'm sure. And have you waited up all the evening, to tell me this?”

“Yes, I have. I've got a lot to tell you, and I should tell you some more if that man wasn't here.”

“Keep it until the morning,” said Cæsar, dropping his hand good-humoredly on the other's shoulder. “Go back to bed, my friend, and ask Madonna Beatrice to come to me.”

“Madonna Beatrice!” sneered the other. “She's a beauty, she is!”

The visitor thought he saw Cæsar's face go pink, but the big man laughed softly to himself and, walking slowly to the door, he very gently pushed his unruly servitor forth. “It is a curious characteristic of servants,” he said, “that they invariably imagine they know their masters' guilty secrets. You have probably had a similar experience.”'

“I never keep servants who share my secrets,” said Smith, “and to this fact I ascribe my freedom and well-being.”

There was a gentle tap at the door, and Cæsar turned quickly. “Come in, Madonna,” he said.

The woman who entered piqued the visitor's curiosity. Cæsar had a reputation for affairs. It was a reputation not particularly creditable to himself. Smith had expected to see a young and beautiful girl, but the woman who came in had no claim to beauty. She was an old woman, squat and fat, her face was dark and disfigured with tiny warts. Her gray-black hair was brushed back smoothly from her head and gathered in a bun behind; and to add to her grotesqueness she was dressed in a robe of bright emerald green, cut square at the breast. About her neck was a huge gold necklace of barbaric design, and her fat hands were covered with jewels. Yet old as she was, and laughable as was her get-up, there was something about her poise that spoke of strength and power.

“Madonna,” said Cæsar softly, and he spoke in liquid Spanish, “our friend here is staying with us for some time. Will you see that his room is made ready for him?”