“Of course I won’t say anything,” laughed the girl. “The fact is, I’ve had a row with the housekeeper and have given in my notice. I leave this day week.”
This news was to the woman very reassuring. “You’re quite certain you took the right key?” she asked.
“Quite. I looked at the maker’s name before I pressed it into the wax,” she answered. “But I’d like to see Mr Elton again before I leave Richmond.”
“He’ll be back in a couple of days, and then he will write to you. I’ll tell him. Good-night, and thanks.”
And the woman with the little box in her muff moved away well satisfied.
A quarter of an hour later she met Allen outside Richmond Station, and placing the little box in his hands, explained that the girl was leaving her place the following week.
“Excellent! We’ll delay our action until she’s gone. I suppose I’d better see her before she goes, so as to allay any suspicion.” Then, opening the box, his keen eye saw that the impression was undoubtedly one of a safe key.
Indeed, next morning, he took it to a man in Clerkenwell who for years had made a speciality of cutting keys and asking no questions, and by the following night the means of opening the safe at Underhill Road was in Allen’s hands.
The man who lived by the blackmailing of those whom he entrapped—mostly women, by the way—was nothing if not wary, as was shown by the fact that he had sent Freda to act as his messenger. If the girl had told the police the woman could have at once declared that she had never seen the girl before, though if the little box had been found upon her, explanation would have been somewhat difficult. But the gang of which the exquisite adventurer Gordon Gray was the alert head always acted with forethought and circumspection; the real criminal keeping out of the way and lying “doggo” proof was always rendered as difficult as possible.
Gray had gone over to Brussels, which accounted for Willowden being closed. He had a little piece of rather irritating business on hand there. Awkward inquiries by the police had led to the arrest of a man who had sent word in secret that if his wife were not paid two thousand pounds as hush-money, he would tell what he knew. And the wife being a low-class Belgian woman from Namur, Gray had gone over to see her and to appease her husband by paying the sum demanded.