Jimmy removed the commissionaire’s cap from his head and grinned.
“One of these fine days, Angel, you’ll lose your job, introducing the Home Secretary’s name. Phew!”
“It had to be done,” said Angel sadly. “It hurts me to lie, but I couldn’t very well tell Spedding that the sergeant of the commissionaires had been one of my own men all along, could I?”
CHAPTER X
SOME BAD CHARACTERS
It happened that on the night of the great attempt the inquisitive Mr. Lane, of 76 Cawdor Street, was considerably exercised in his mind as to the depleted condition of his humble treasury. With Mr. Lane the difference between affluence and poverty was a matter of shillings. His line of business was a humble one. Lead piping and lengths of telephone wire, an occasional door-mat improvidently left outside whilst the servant cleaned the hall, these represented the scope and extent of his prey. Perhaps he reached his zenith when he lifted an overcoat from a hatstand what time a benevolent old lady was cutting him thick slices of bread and butter in a basement kitchen.
Mr. Lane had only recently returned from a short stay in Wormwood Scrubbs Prison. It was over a trifling affair of horsehair abstracted from railway carriage cushions that compelled Mr. Lane’s retirement for two months. It was that same affair that brought about his undoing on the night of the attempt.
For the kudos of the railway theft had nerved him to more ambitious attempts, and with a depleted exchequer to urge him forward, and the prestige of his recent achievements to support him, he decided upon burglary. It was a wild and reckless departure from his regular line, and he did not stop to consider the disabilities attaching to a change of profession, nor debate the unpropitious conditions of an already overstocked labor market. It is reasonable to suppose that Mr. Lane lacked the necessary qualities of logic and balance to argue any point to its obvious conclusion, for he was, intellectually, the reverse of brilliant, and was therefore ill-equipped for introspective or psychological examination of the circumstances leading to his decision. Communing with himself, the inquisitive Mr. Lane put the matter tersely and brutally.
“Lead pipin’s no go unless you’ve got a pal to work with; telephone wires is so covered up with wood casin’ that it’s worse’n hard work to pinch two-penn’oth. I’m goin’ to have a cut at Joneses.”
So in the pelting rain he watched “Joneses” from a convenient doorway. He noted with satisfaction the “workmen” departing one by one; he observed with joy the going of “Jones” himself; and when, some few minutes afterwards, the queer-looking old man, whom he suspected as being a sort of caretaker, came shuffling out, slamming the gate behind him, and peering left and right, and mumbling to himself as he squelched through the rain, the watcher regarded the removal of this final difficulty as being an especial act of Providence.
He waited for another half-hour, because, for some reason or other, the usually deserted street became annoyingly crowded. First came a belated coal cart and a miserably bedraggled carman who cried his wares dolefully. Then a small boy, escaping from the confines of his domestic circle, came to revel in the downpour and wade ecstatically but thoroughly through the puddles that had formed on the uneven surface of the road. Nemesis, in the shape of a shrill-voiced mother, overtook the boy and sent him whining and expectant to the heavy hand of maternal authority. With the coast clear Mr. Lane lost no time. In effecting an entrance to the headquarters of the “Borough Lot,” Mr. Lane’s method lacked subtlety. He climbed over the gate leading to the yard, trusting inwardly that he was not observed, but taking his chance. Had he been an accomplished burglar, with the experience of any exploits behind him, he would have begun by making a very thorough inspection of likely windows. Certainly he would never have tried the “office” door. Being the veriest tyro, and being conscious, moreover, that his greatest feats had connection with doors carelessly left ajar, he tried the door, and to his delight it opened.