John Minute, descending from his cab at the door, looked up at the imposing facia with a frown. Entering the broad vestibule, he handed his card to the waiting attendant and took a seat in a well-furnished waiting room. Five minutes later he was ushered into the presence of "The Man Who Knew." Mr. Mann, a comical little figure at a very large writing table, jumped up and went halfway across the big room to meet his visitor. He beamed through his big spectacles as he waved John Minute to a deep armchair.
"The chief commissioner sent you, didn't he?" he said, pointing an accusing finger at the visitor. "I know he did, because he called me up this morning and asked me about three people who, I happen to know, have been bothering you. Now what can I do for you, Mr. Minute?"
John Minute stretched his legs and thrust his hands defiantly into his trousers' pockets.
"You can tell me all you know about me," he said.
Saul Arthur Mann trotted back to his big table and seated himself.
"I haven't time to tell you as much," he said breezily, "but I'll give you a few outlines."
He pressed a bell at his desk, opened a big index, and ran his finger down.
"Bring me 8874," he said impressively to the clerk who made his appearance.
To John Minute's surprise, it was not a bulky dossier with which the attendant returned, but a neat little book soberly bound in gray.
"Now," said Mr. Mann, wriggling himself comfortably back in his chair, "I will read a few things to you."
He held up the book.
"There are no names in this book, my friend; not a single, blessed name. Nobody knows who 8874 is except myself."
He patted the big index affectionately.
"The name is there. When I leave this office it will be behind three depths of steel; when I die it will be burned with me."
He opened the little book again and read. He read steadily for a quarter of an hour in a monotonous, singsong voice, and John Minute slowly sat himself erect and listened with tense face and narrow eyelids to the record. He did not interrupt until the other had finished.
"Half of your facts are lies," he said harshly. "Some of them are just common gossip; some are purely imaginary."
Saul Arthur Mann closed the book and shook his head.
"Everything here," he said, touching the book, "is true. It may not be the truth as you want it known, but it is the truth. If I thought there was a single fact in there which was not true my raison d'être would be lost. That is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, Mr. Minute," he went on, and the good-natured little face was pink with annoyance.
"Suppose it were the truth," interrupted John Minute, "what price would you ask for that record and such documents as you say you have to prove its truth?"
The other leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands meditatively.
"How much do you think you are worth, Mr. Minute?"
"You ought to know," said the other with a sneer.
Saul Arthur Mann inclined his head.
"At the present price of securities, I should say about one million two hundred and seventy thousand pounds," he said, and John Minute opened his eyes in astonishment.
"Near enough," he reluctantly admitted.
"Well," the little man continued, "if you multiply that by fifty and you bring all that money into my office and place it on that table in ten-thousand-pound notes, you could not buy that little book or the records which support it."
He jumped up.
"I am afraid I am keeping you, Mr. Minute."
"You are not keeping me," said the other roughly. "Before I go I want to know what use you are going to make of your knowledge."
The little man spread out his hands in deprecation.
"What use? You have seen the use to which I have put it. I have told you what no other living soul will know."
"How do you know I am John Minute?" asked the visitor quickly.
"Some twenty-seven photographs of you are included in the folder which contains your record, Mr. Minute," said the little investigator calmly. "You see, you are quite a prominent personageone of the two hundred and four really rich men in England. I am not likely to mistake you for anybody else, and, more than this, your history is so interesting a one that naturally I know much more about you than I should if you had lived the dull and placid life of a city merchant."
"Tell me one thing before I go," asked Minute. "Where is the person you refer to as 'X'?"
Saul Arthur Mann smiled and inclined his head never so slightly.
"That is a question which you have no right to ask," he said. "It is information which is available to the police or to any authorized person who wishes to get into touch with 'X.' I might add," he went on, "that there is much more I could tell you, if it were not that it would involve persons with whom you are acquainted."
John Minute left the bureau looking a little older, a little paler than when he had entered. He drove to his club with one thought in his mind, and that thought revolved about the identity and the whereabouts of the person referred to in the little man's record as "X."
CHAPTER VII
INTRODUCING MR. REX HOLLAND
Mr. Rex Holland stepped out of his new car, and, standing back a pace, surveyed his recent acquisition with a dispassionate eye.
"I think she will do, Feltham," he said.
The chauffeur touched his cap and grinned broadly.
"She did it in thirty-eight minutes, sir; not bad for a twenty-mile runhalf of it through London."
"Not bad," agreed Mr. Holland, slowly stripping his gloves.
The car was drawn up at the entrance to the country cottage which a lavish expenditure of money had converted into a bijou palace.
He still lingered, and the chauffeur, feeling that some encouragement to conversation was called for, ventured the view that a car ought to be a good one if one spent eight hundred pounds on it.
"Everything that is good costs money," said Mr. Rex Holland sententiously, and then continued: "Correct me if I am mistaken, but as we came through Putney did I not see you nod to the driver of another car?"
"Yes, sir."
"When I engaged you," Mr. Holland went on in his even voice, "you told me that you had just arrived from Australia and knew nobody in England; I think my advertisement made it clear that I wanted a man who fulfilled these conditions?"
"Quite right, sir. I was as much surprised as you; the driver of that car was a fellow who traveled over to the old country on the same boat as me. It's rather rum that he should have got the same kind of job."
Mr. Holland smiled quietly.
"I hope his employer is not as eccentric as I and that he pays his servant on my scale."
With this shot he unlocked and passed through the door of the cottage.
Feltham drove his car to the garage which had been built at the back of the house, and, once free from observation, lit his pipe, and, seating himself on a box, drew from his pocket a little card which he perused with unusual care.
He read:
One: To act as chauffeur and valet. Two: To receive ten pounds a week and expenses. Three: To make no friends or acquaintances. Four: Never under any circumstances to discuss my employer, his habits, or his business. Five: Never under any circumstances to go farther eastward into London than is represented by a line drawn from the Marble Arch to Victoria Station. Six: Never to recognize my employer if I see him in the street in company with any other person.
He read:
One: To act as chauffeur and valet. Two: To receive ten pounds a week and expenses. Three: To make no friends or acquaintances. Four: Never under any circumstances to discuss my employer, his habits, or his business. Five: Never under any circumstances to go farther eastward into London than is represented by a line drawn from the Marble Arch to Victoria Station. Six: Never to recognize my employer if I see him in the street in company with any other person.
The chauffeur folded the card and scratched his chin reflectively.
"Eccentricity," he said.
It was a nice five-syllable word, and its employment was a comfort to this perturbed Australian. He cleaned his face and hands, and went into the tiny kitchen to prepare his master's dinner.
Mr. Holland's house was a remarkable one. It was filled with every form of labor-saving device which the ingenuity of man could devise. The furniture, if luxurious, was not in any great quantity. Vacuum tubes were to be found in every room, and by the attachment of hose and nozzle and the pressure of a switch each room could be dusted in a few minutes. From the kitchen, at the back of the cottage, to the dining room ran two endless belts electrically controlled, which presently carried to the table the very simple meal which his cook-chauffeur had prepared.
The remnants of dinner were cleared away, the chauffeur dismissed to his quarters, a little one-roomed building separated from the cottage, and the switch was turned over which heated the automatic coffee percolator which stood on the sideboard.
Mr. Holland sat reading, his feet resting on a chair.
He only interrupted his study long enough to draw off the coffee into a little white cup and to switch off the current.
He sat until the little silver clock on the mantelshelf struck twelve, and then he placed a card in the book to mark the place, closed it, and rose leisurely.
He slid back a panel in the wall, disclosing the steel door of a safe. This he opened with a key which he selected from a bunch. From the interior of the safe he removed a cedarwood box, also locked. He threw back the lid and removed one by one three check books and a pair of gloves of some thin, transparent fabric. These were obviously to guard against tell-tale finger prints.
He carefully pulled them on and buttoned them. Next he detached three checks, one from each book, and, taking a fountain pen from his pocket, he began filling in the blank spaces. He wrote slowly, almost laboriously, and he wrote without a copy. There are very few forgers in the criminal records who have ever accomplished the feat of imitating a man's signature from memory. Mr. Rex Holland was singularly exceptional to all precedent, for from the date to the flourishing signature these checks might have been written and signed by John Minute.