A woman's debt

by William Le Queux

The Scotchman waved his big hand round his comfortable, roomy apartment. “I wouldn’t care to say it outside these four walls, and not to more than a few inside them, because we’ve nothing but very substantial conjecture, and up to the present we’ve not been able to lay a finger on him, he’s so devilish clever. But there’s no doubt he’s a ‘wrong ’un.’”

“Do you mean actually a crook?” queried Lane.

MacKenzie nodded his massive head. “Anyway, the friend of crooks; he’s been observed in some very queer company quite outside of his own proper beat, which we know is the West End and the fashionable clubs and a few smart and semi-smart houses. We know birds of a feather flock together, and men are known by the company they keep.”

So Sir George Clayton-Brookes, the elegant man-about-town, led a double life then—associating at one end of the scale with the fashionable and semi-fashionable denizens of the west, at the other with certain flashy members of the underworld.

MacKenzie proceeded to relate that their attention had been first attracted to him by a series of burglaries committed at certain country houses and hotels, from the owners of and visitors at which valuable jewellery and articles of plate had been stolen. At three of the houses in question he had actually been a guest at the time of the robberies, and with regard to the others, he had been a visitor a little time previously. The theory was that he took advantage of his opportunities to spy out the position of the land, to furnish the actual thieves with plans of the interior of the different mansions at which he had stayed, and give details of the jewellery belonging to the various guests. It was curious, to say the least, that robberies should occur, as it seemed, automatically either during his actual visits or very shortly after them.

Further evidence was afforded by the fact that he had frequently been observed in the company of certain high-class crooks who engineered and financed various criminal schemes, the practical working of which was left to subordinates.

Lane could not say he was surprised overmuch, he had long ago come to the conclusion that there was something very mysterious about this supposed man of wealth and substance, who could purchase a thousand pound car one day, and be scared out of his wits on another lest a cheque for a paltry thirty pounds should be dishonoured.

“But as I say,” concluded MacKenzie, “he’s as artful as a monkey, and we can’t get evidence enough to connect him with any one of the actual thefts. But there is the coincidence I have mentioned, and that’s evidence for us, although it wouldn’t do for a judge and jury.”

“And what about the young man—his supposed nephew?” asked Lane.

“Oh, we’ve had him under observation as well, and, of course, he must be mixed up with Sir George in some way or another, but we don’t think in these particular things. They see each other pretty nearly every day, but they appear to lead different lives. Young Brookes doesn’t go very much into the same sort of society; he doesn’t stay at country houses, seems on a bit lower plane than the baronet. But I’ve no doubt they run some little show of their own together.”