Stamped in Gold

Front matter

Stamped in Gold

by Edgar Wallace

I.—Stage Money

CHAPTER I.

STAGE MONEY.

FRANK ALWIN lifted his manacled hands and gingerly pulled off his mustache. The sound of the orchestra playing the audience out came faintly through the heavy curtains which divided the stage from the auditorium. He looked round as the property man came forward with an apology.

“Sorry, sir,” he said. “I didn't know the curtain was down. We finished earlier to-night.”

Frank nodded and watched, as the man deftly unlocked the handcuffs and took them into his charge.

Five minutes before, Frank Alwin had been the wicked Count de Larsca, detected in the act of robbing the Bank of Brazil, and arrested by the inevitable and invincible detective.

He stood on the stage absent-mindedly as the nimble stage hands “struck” the scene. Then he walked to the whitewashed lobby which led to the dressing rooms.

A girl was waiting in her street clothes, for her tiny part had been finished an hour before. Frank, his mind fully occupied with other matters, had a dim sense of obligation. He had a keener sense that he had failed to surrender a great wad of paper “money” which he had filched from the property safe, and which now reposed in his pocket. He smiled into the girl's anxious face as he approached her and slipped half a dozen bills from his pocket. These he folded solemnly and pressed into her hand.

“For the che-ild, Marguerite,” he said extravagantly, saw the amazement in the open eyes, chuckled to himself, and mounted the stairs to his dressing room, two at a time.

He was near the top when he remembered and cursed himself. He dashed down again to find she was gone.

Wilbur Smith, late Captain Wilbur Smith but now just Wilbur Smith of the secret service, was lounging in a big armchair in the actor's dressing room, filling the small apartment with blue smoke. He looked up as his friend entered.

“Hello, Frank!” he exclaimed. “What's the matter? Didn't the show go?”

“I'm an ass,” said Frank Alwin, dropping into a chair before his dressing table.

“In some things, yes,” said Wilbur Smith genially; “in other things quite a shrewd man for an actor. What particular asinine thing have you done now?”

“There's a girl2” began Frank, and the other nodded sympathetically.

“I'm sorry. I didn't intend probing into your indiscretions. If you are that kind of an ass, why that counts nothing against you.”

“Don't be a fool,” said Alwin irritably. “It isn't that sort at all. There's a little girl in this company2” He hesitated. “Well, I can tell you. Her name is Maisie Bishop. She has a small part in the show.”

The other nodded. “I have seen her, a very pretty girl. Well?”

Again Frank hesitated. “Well, the fact is,” he said awkwardly, “she came to me to-night as I was going on and said she was in some kind of trouble—her people I mean. And she asked me if I would lend her some money. It was only a few seconds before I went on. I promised her I would and forgot all about it.”

“Well, you can find her,” said the other.

“It isn't that that is worrying me. Look here!” He thrust his hands in his pocket and threw a roll of bills on the table. “Stage money! I saw her waiting for me and clean forgot our conversation, so far forgot it that I acted the fool and gave her half a dozen of these by way of a joke.”

Wilbur laughed,

“Don't let it worry you,” he said. “I promise you if she is arrested for trying to pass fake money I'll see her and you through.”

He rose from the chair, and, walking across to the dressing table, picked up the bundle of notes. It was a very thick bundle, and the bills were of large denomination.

“That's pretty good stage money,” he said.

In the process of rubbing his face with cold cream Alwin stopped to look. “It isn't the usual stage money, either,” he said. “Why, you might think that was real stuff.” He wiped his hand on a towel, and, picking up one of the bills, examined it. “Silk threads O. K. Now what the devil does this mean? I've never had stage money like this before. That girl ought to be able to pass every one of those bills. Wilbur, I wish you would go down and see her. She lives on the East Side somewhere. The stage doorkeeper will give you her address.”

“Queer, isn't it?” said Wilbur Smith thoughtfully, fingering a bill. “The realest-looking stuff I have ever seen and—good Lord!”

He had turned the bill over and was staring at its back.

“What is it?” asked the startled Alwin.

The detective pointed to a little yellow design which had evidently been stamped upon the bill.

“What is it?” asked Alwin again.

“What do you think it is?” demanded Wilbur Smith in a strange voice.

“Well, it looks to me like the picture of an idol.”

The other nodded.

“You're nearly right. It is a picture of The Golden Hades!”

“The who?”

“The Golden Hades!” replied the other. “Have you never heard of Hades?”

“Yes,” said Frank with a smile. “It is a place you send people to when they are in the way.”

“It is also the name of a deity,” said Wilbur Smith grimly, “a gentleman who is also called Pluto.”

“But why do you call it golden? Because of its color?”

The other shook his head.

“This is the third Hades I have seen, but the others were in sure-enough gold.”

He picked up the bills and counted them carefully.

“Ninety-six thousand dollars!” he said.

“Do you mean,” asked Frank with a gasp, “that these are2”

“They are real enough,” said the detective, nodding. “Where did you get them?”

“I got them in the usual way from the property man.”

“Can you bring him up?”

“If he hasn't gone home,” said Frank. Going to the door he roared for his dresser. “Send Hainz up.”

Fortunately Hainz was intercepted at the door just as he was leaving, and was brought back to the dressing room. As he passed through the door his eye fell upon the money on the table and he uttered an impatient “Tchk!”

“Why, I knew I had forgotten to collect something from you, Mr. Alwin,” he said, “but being late for the curtain rattled me and made me forget it. I'll take these2”

“Wait a moment!” It was Wilbur Smith who spoke. “You know me, Hainz?”

“Yes, sir,” said the man, grinning; “not professionally, but I know you well enough.”

“Where did you get this money?”

The other stared. “Money? What do you mean? This?” He jerked his thumb to the bills on the table.

“I mean that,” said Smith.

“Where did I get it?” repeated the property man slowly. “Why, I bought those from a bill man. I was running short of stage stuff and he had a lot. He was using 'em as a border for that movie, 'The Lure of Wealth.'”

“Where did he get them?” asked Smith.

“I don't know. He just had 'em given to him.”

“Do you know where I can find him?”

The man produced a dingy little note-book and read an address.

“I know where he lives because he sometimes does a bit of work for me,” he said.

When the man had gone Wilbur Smith faced his astonished friend.

“Get that paint off your face, Frank, and make yourself human,” he said good-naturedly. “If you don't mind I'll take charge of that money and we will go and have supper somewhere.”

“But what the devil does it all mean?” asked Frank Alwin.

“I'll tell you while we are eating,” evasively replied Wilbur Smith.

He had little to tell as he frankly admitted half an hour later.

“The first time I saw The Golden Hades it was real gold,” he explained. “It had been stamped on the back of a thousand-dollar bill, and had been dusted over with gold leaf. Then it had the word 'Hades' in Greek beneath it, and that's how I came to identify the picture; it is pretty easy to identify from any classical dictionary.

“The bill came into my hands in a very curious way. There was a poor woman down on the East Side who worked as a helper in a Brooklyn hotel. According to her story she was returning home one night when a man walked up to her and gave her a big package of bills and walked away. She got back to her room, lit the gas, for the dusk was falling, and found that she had a hundred thousand dollars. She couldn't believe her eyes; she thought somebody was having a joke with her and thought, as you thought, that the money was fake. She put the money under her pillow, intending in the morning to take it to some one who could tell real money from counterfeit. In the night she was awakened by hearing somebody in her room. She was about to cry out when a voice told her to be silent; somebody lit the gas and she discovered that there was not only one but three masked men standing about her bed.”

Frank looked at the detective. “Are you stringing me?”

Wilbur Smith shook his head. “This is dead serious,” he said. “They asked where the money was, and she, speechless with terror at the sight of their guns, pointed to the pillow and fainted off. When she recovered the money was gone, all except one bill, that which I mentioned, which they had overlooked in their hurry. She brought this to the police the next day and told her story. They turned the case over to us. The chief thought it was a lie, and that the woman had stolen the money from the hotel where she was working, and, getting scared, had prepared this very thin yarn to exonerate herself.”

“And was this so?”

The detective shook his head. “No,” he said. “I took the case in hand. There was no money missing from the hotel. The woman had a very good character; was, in fact, one of the poor but transparently honest type, and we had no other course to pursue but to hand over the thousand dollars to her. This was the first time I ever met The Golden Hades.

“The second time,” he went on, “was in almost as remarkable circumstances. This time the notes, several of them, were in the possession of a man named Henry Laste, a confirmed gambler who was picked up drunk in the street by a patrolman and rushed into the station. I happened to be making a call at the moment, and when the man was searched, eight of these bills for a thousand dollars were found in his pocket. We got him sober and he told us a story that his wife had found the notes between the leaves of a book she bought somewhere downtown. I got this information from him about eight o'clock in the morning,” Wilbur Smith went on slowly, “and, as our operatives and the police work more or less together on a case in which both of us are interested, I started off with them for his house to interview his wife. He lived in a tenement, and when we got to the door and knocked there was no answer. I was deeply interested in the business and I knew there was something big behind it. I got the janitor to unlock the door with a master key.”

“And the woman was gone?” asked Frank.

The detective shook his head. “The woman was there,” he said simply, “dead! Shot through the heart with an automatic pistol, every room ransacked, drawers turned out, wardrobes2”

“The Higgins Tenement Murder!” exclaimed Alwin.

Wilbur nodded gravely. “The Higgins Tenement Murder,” he said.

“And did you find any notes?”

“None. We wanted to bring a charge against the husband, but he had no difficulty in proving an alibi. He had been at a gambling house the whole of the night, had been in the police station since one o'clock in the morning, and the murder had been committed at ten minutes past two. The shot that killed the woman passed through her body and through an alarm clock which stopped at that hour.”

They sat looking at each other in silence. The clatter and chatter of the restaurant jangled in the ears of Frank Alwin and there came to him a sudden realization of danger, mysterious, menacing, and real.

“I see,” he said slowly. “Everybody who has handled those notes stamped with The Golden Hades have been2”

“Held up,” the detective finished the sentence. “That's just it, and that is why I am going to stick with you through the night, Frank.”

They had been friends for many years, the leading man at the Imperial and his old-time school fellow who had more crime discoveries to his credit than any of his colleagues.

Frank Alwin himself had three strenuous years of good service to his credit in the secret service, and had he not been a born producer, a brilliant actor, and a comfortably rich man, he might have made a reputation equally great with that which he enjoyed, in the same service as his friend.

“I don't like it,” said Alwin after a while. “It is uncanny. Who was Pluto, anyway?”

“He was the deity of the nether regions, the one deity who is worshiped to-day by certain cranks. I suppose there is something about him that appeals to the modern demonologist.”

A waiter came to the table at that moment.

“Mr. Alwin,” he said, “there's a phone message for you.”

Frank got up and the detective half rose to accompany him.

“Don't worry,” said Frank with a laugh. “They are not going to kill me by phone. Anyway, they couldn't get the money, as you have it in your pocket.”

Three minutes passed and he did not return. Five minutes went by and the detective grew uneasy. He beckoned the waiter.

“Go see if Mr. Alwin is still at the phone,” he said.

The man returned almost immediately.

“Mr. Alwin is not there, sir,” he said.

“Not there?”

Wilbur Smith was on his feet in an instant. He pushed the chair aside and left the dining room. The hall porter said he had not seen Alwin go out but he had been absent from the entrance for five minutes. He had seen a car waiting at the door which was gone when he returned.

The detective ran into the deserted street. There was nobody in sight. The entrance stood between and at equal distance from two electric-light standards, whose rays were so thrown that immediately before the entrance of the restaurant was a little patch of darkness.

He saw something on the edge of the pavement, stooped, and picked it up. It was Frank's hat,—battered and damp. He carried it to the light. One look was sufficient. His hand, where he had touched the crushed crown, was red with blood.

II.—The Underground Chamber

CHAPTER II.

THE UNDERGROUND CHAMBER.

STEPS. Two steps—three steps—four steps—five steps—landing—turn. One step—two steps—three steps—four steps—five steps—six steps—landing—no, this was the end of the stairway.”

A key clicked in the lock, and presumably a door opened, because there came a breath of cold and somewhat musty air. Then the journey was resumed.

Frank Alwin came to consciousness, or semiconsciousness, as they were carrying him down a flight of steps. By some peculiar trick of the mind he began his count at “two” without being conscious that the first step had been descended. His head was aching, and his face felt as sticky and uncomfortable as though somebody had spilled mucilage down it, and his arms pained dreadfully.

But the head was the worst. He had never realized how inspired was the coiner of phrases when he had described a “splitting headache.” It was as though his skull had been rent in two and the broken ends were grating. The agony seemed unendurable; he could have cried out with the pain of it, but subconscious reason bade him be silent. Whoever carried him was handling him with care. He felt himself laid upon a bed.

“Spring bed, damp pillow,” registered his mind.

Then the electric light was turned on and the sensation, after the darkness, was almost as painful as his throbbing head. He groaned and turned over, and groaned again.

“Phew!” said a voice. “Look at my coat! Blood will never wash off, and I'll have to burn it. I think it was a fool's trick, anyway, to bring him here. Why not leave him?”

“Because Rosie is right,” said another voice—a deeper tone with a growl in it.

“Rosie!” The first speaker laughed contemptuously.

“Who was Rosie?” wondered Frank Alwin through his pain. “Was there a woman at the back of this extraordinary mischief? What manner of woman was she?”

He remembered coming out of the restaurant because—because—he couldn't remember just why he had gone into the street. He had only the dimmest recollection of what had happened after. Anyway, he was here, and he was alive; that was something. But they were talking of Rosie.

“I tell you Rosie was right,” said the growling voice. “This fellow Smith is the most dangerous man in New York—for us.”

“What about Peter Correlly?” said the first speaker, and there was a silence, as though the second man, who spoke with such authority, was considering the matter, as apparently he was.

“Peter Correlly?” he repeated. “Why, yes, Peter Correlly is dangerous, but Wilbur Smith wouldn't have him on to the same job. Besides, I think it is much too big a thing for Peter Correlly, anyway.”

There was another pause and the sound of somebody washing his hands. That some one was singing in a low voice and Frank judged this to be the washer. What is there about the sound of running water which inspires all men to song?

“But it is all nonsense,” said the voice of the first man who had spoken, and the note of contempt still held. “Rosie doesn't think for a minute that Wilbur Smith will chuck up the job because his pal is in danger? Anyway, how is he to know that we haven't finished him? Rosie talks about killing two birds with one stone, but we ain't killed any birds yet. This nut hasn't got the money, and he's alive.”

There was a long pause.

“Yes,” said the growling voice, “that's so. Maybe we've got to alter our program. You are sure he said he gave the money to Smith? Maybe he didn't know what he was saying.”

“He knew what he said all right,” said the first speaker. “Smith has the money, and that alters things.”

Frank was trying desperately hard to catch hold of the past few hours or few minutes. When had he said he had given the money to Wilbur Smith? He had no recollection of the few moments of consciousness which he had enjoyed on the way to this place. Yet somehow he knew that the man was speaking the truth, and he groaned again.

One of the men came across and looked down at him. “Hullo, you!” he said in a growling voice. “Do you feel better?”

Frank unscrewed his eyes—that is just how the sensation felt—and peered up at his questioner. He might have saved himself the trouble, for the lower part of the man's face was covered by a silk handkerchief.

“You're in luck,” said the man. “You ought to be dead by rights. You're in a little place which was built specially for me—a regular swell apartment. Why, you can have a needle bath if you want one!”

Frank groaned again, and presently he heard no more. The man with the handkerchief sat down, pulled the unconscious man to his back, and lifted his eyelids.

“I thought he was dead for a minute,” he said. “He's a bit soft. You didn't plug him that hard, Sammy?”

The man addressed as Sammy laughed, He was shorter than his companion, quicker of foot, more wiry, and he stepped over to the side of the unconscious Alwin and examined his hurts with deft fingers.

“It is nothing serious,” he said. “He has only lost a little blood.”

He rose and looked round the raw brick walls of the room.

“A very desirable residence,” he said, “but I'm glad it is he and not me that's going to live here. Tom, if we ever have to hide for our lives, this is about the last place in the world we ought to be. Yes, I know it has a bathroom and lots of books and plenty of grub, and it is the sort of place where you could sit quiet for a year if you were clever. But what applied six months ago does not apply now. I thought it was a grand idea of Rosie's when he first put it up. Rosie planned the whole building, brought the workmen up from Mexico, sent them home again, and no other human eye saw it being built.”

He chuckled, then went on:

“But things have gone big since then, Tom. What looked like a little graft that nobody would take any notice of, is now the biggest thing we've ever struck, And Lord bless Rosie for it!”

“Rosie? Huh!” growled the other.

“Why, say, you were praising him up just now,” sneered the second man, “which reminds me,” he said suddenly, in a different tone of voice.

On the other side of the room from where he was sitting were two sea chests, one on top of the other. Their fastening was of a primitive character and he opened one, examining its contents with an approving eye. It was half full of books, papers, scrapbooks, wire table baskets, stationery racks, and paraphernalia of an office desk.

“Rosie wants this stuff sorted out,” said the man.

“Sorted out,” repeated Alwin, coming back to consciousness.

“Let him come and sort 'em out,” said the other. “What's the hurry, anyway?”

He pondered a moment, then said:

“I suppose we ought to do it. Rosie said there was a lot of stuff in these boxes that might be of use, and a lot that might be damaging if it ever fell into wise hands. We could take it up to the Temple to-morrow night, then Rosie could persuade the mug to send them to his place.”

What was the mug? Alwin puzzled over that word until he remembered that “mug” was English slang for fool. He heard the snap of the watchcase and the grating of the chair being pushed against the wall. Then one of the men said briskly:

“Well, it is time. Why doesn't Rosie come?”

There was a sharp tap-tap at that moment which sounded to Frank as though it came from the ceiling. It was like the tap of a walking stick on a tesselated pavement, and he wondered what was above the vaulted roof.

“Talk of the devil,” said the man called Sam. “Come on, Tom. He won't come down here. What about this fellow?”

“Leave him for a moment and leave the light. Let us see what Rosie has to say.”

The door shut softly behind them, and with an effort Frank turned his head. He was in a large cellar. It was evidently the cellar of a house which had been newly built. It was oblong in shape, and the concrete floor was covered with matting; it was clean and apparently well ventilated. It contained three beds, on one of which he was lying, the others being in the corners on either side of the door. There was a plain table, two wooden chairs, and a wicker chair, and these, with the two chests, constituted the furniture of what one of the men had called his “apartment.”

In the corner farthest from the entrance was a door, which apparently led to the bath of which the man had boasted.

By a powerful effort of will Alwin dragged himself to the edge of the bed, and, holding tight to the headboard, stood erect. His head swam, his knees felt as though they would collapse at any minute; he thought he was going to faint. He was sick and trembling and his head was one wild, frantic ache. His first thought was to find some weapons which his captors might incautiously have left behind in a moment of forgetfulness, but this miracle did not happen. After a few painful moments he crawled back to the bed and lay down. The relief was such that he was satisfied to stay. He had put his hand to his head and discovered that some sort of rough dressing had been applied to the wound on his scalp, and there was nothing now to do but to rid himself of this intolerable ache and to recover some of his lost strength.

He must have dozed off, for he was awakened by the door being opened and the two men entering. The man called Tom was grumbling about the boxes. Evidently Rosie had been insistent. Though they spoke of this mysterious personage in tones from which they did not attempt to banish their contempt, he was evidently of some importance.

“What about this fellow?” said one of them suddenly, and Frank knew they were speaking of him.

“Give him till to-morrow night,” said the growling voice. “Let us see what we can do with Smith.”

“Do you think we can do anything with him?”

“Who? Smith? Sure we can. He has the money. Rosie says so and Rosie knows.”

“That makes a difference. It complicates things to put this guy out of the reckoning. This is the third blunder Rosie has made in three months.”

They lowered their voices here, and Frank could not follow them. He gathered that they were examining the two black boxes which stood against the wall, for he heard them pant as they lifted one down to examine the box underneath. Presently they left, and he heard the thud of the door as they shut it behind them.

III.—Preliminary Steps

CHAPTER III.

PRELIMINARY STEPS.

I AM sorry to disturb you.”

In the gray of the morning Wilbur Smith stood, hat in hand, at the door of a small apartment and the elderly man who had opened the door, clad in an old overcoat which was worn over his pajamas, gazed sleepily upon the unexpected visitor.

“Here is my card.”

The man took it and read.

“Secret service!” he said, startled. “Why, whatever has happened?”

“There's nothing wrong2”

“Don't tell me that Maisie2”

“There's nothing very wrong in the sense that your daughter is responsible. I suppose Miss Maisie Bishop is your daughter?”

“Come in, sir,” said the man. “Just one minute while I light the gas.”

The little room was furnished neatly but poorly.

“Is it about the money?” said the man anxiously. “I didn't understand it. You see, Maisie asked Mr. Alwin because he had been so kind to her in the past. I was amazed when she brought the money back. I didn't know he was that rich. I thought there must be some mistake. Mr. Alwin has sent you2”

Wilbur shook his head.

“Not exactly,” he said. “But if you don't mind I would like to see your daughter.”

He waited in some anxiety and was relieved to hear the girl's voice. Presently she came in, a little pale but looking pretty, he thought. She carried in her hand a little bundle of notes.

“Is it about these?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Mr. Alwin gave them to me,” she said, speaking agitatedly. “I thought there was a mistake, but I didn't think he would send2”

“He has not sent anybody, be assured of that. I have really come to see that you are safe,” said Wilbur kindly. “As to the money, you need not worry. I shall want it for a few days. At the end of that time if nothing happens I will return it to you.”

“I hated asking Mr. Alwin at all,” she said, “but daddy has been troubled about money, and we owed a lot of rent. I tried everybody before I asked Mr. Alwin, and I think I should have sunk through the floor with shame if he had refused. It is awful to ask,” she faltered.

“Don't worry about that, please,” said Wilbur with a little smile. “I am only concerned about you, about the danger2”

“The danger?” she asked quickly. “What do you mean? You said something about my safety.”

He was examining the notes under the gas. They each bore the yellow stamp.

“These are they,” he said, and drew from his pocket a big bundle of notes which Frank had handed to him. The girl's mouth opened in astonishment at the sight of so much money.

“You see, the numbers are consecutive. I had better take a note of these.”

He jotted some figures down on the leaf of his notebook and tore it out.

“Keep this for reference,” he said. “Those are the numbers of the bills I have taken, and as I say they will be returned to you—if nothing happens. In the meantime,” he drew his own bill fold from his pocket, “you must tell me how much money you wanted to borrow from Mr. Alwin and let me supply your needs.” He saw the flush that rose to the girl's cheek and laughed. “You must take this as a loan from Frank Alwin,” he said, and winced at the thought that Alwin at that moment was probably dead.

She named a sum in a low tone and he extracted the bills from his bill fold and passed them to her.