CHAPTER II✦

TITTLE-TATTLE OF MR. TEAL

Inspector Teal was that unusual type of man who literally takes both pride and pleasure in his employment. Mr. Teal loved talking shop, and would do so for hours on end if he found a listener on whom his enthusiasm was not wasted.

He was never off duty. His leisure hours would always find him sauntering round the preserves of other divisions, listening to gossip in public houses and at coffee stalls, entering queer and unregistered "clubs," and paying friendly calls on eccentric gentlemen not unknown to the Records Office. Criminals, to him, were a race of children--interesting, amusing, and completely human, but occasionally in need of sharp correction. And when necessity demanded that they be chastised, he haled them to their punishment without resentment.

It was his boast that he knew every bad man in London, and he was probably right.

The morning following his discovery of the Alpha Triangle (already, with that queer instinct for the dramatic which few would have suspected beneath his prosaic exterior, he spelt it with capital letters) Inspector Teal flowed--there is no other word for his peculiar method of locomotion--in the direction of Kensington, for on the left-hand side of Church Street, behind a door over which hung three golden orbs, lived Mr. Eddie--more commonly known as "Snooper"--Brome.

He was a big, florid, shock-headed man with an alarming taste in fancy waistcoats. Also the reputation of being a receiver of stolen goods.

Mr. Teal considered himself lucky to find him in residence, for Snooper was a man of erratic habits and rarely attended to his business in person.

"Good morning, Snooper," said Mr. Teal affably. "How's trade?"

"Not too bad," said Snooper--trade, with him, was always either "not too bad" or "not too good"--"Have a cigar?"

The sample he offered was undoubtedly a weed of great price, and Mr. Teal sniffed at it suspiciously.

"Who gave you this?" he asked, and Snooper shook his head.

"I cannot," he said unhappily, "get rid of the idea that you suspect me of being a receiver."

"You might have made a worse guess," said Mr. Teal. "Quite easily. How are the crooks? Or is 'clients' the correct term? Comrades Lew and Gat are heading for trouble, you know."

"Don't know 'em," said Eddie.

"Interesting people, very," said Mr. Teal. "Especially the educated Gat. He has the most cherubic blue eyes. You'd love him." He stirred in his chair sluggishly. "By the way, Snooper, there's a friend of mine I'd like to bring along to meet you one day, if you'll let me know when you're at home. He's interested in criminals."

Mr. Brome shrugged.

"I'm afraid my acquaintance with the criminal fraternity won't help him. Still," he admitted, "like all pawn--er--financial agents, I have had stolen property offered to me. Naturally, I immediately notified the police."

"On two occasions," supplemented Mr. Teal. "And the total value of the stuff was exactly two pounds five shillings and ten pence."

"I can't help that. I wish it had been more," said Eddie piously.

"I believe you," said Mr. Teal.

He glanced round the room, his heavy-lidded eyes taking in afresh every familiar detail of unostentatious comfort--even luxury. There was no suggestion of wealth, but more than a hint of solid well-being. Looking merely at Snooper's waistcoats, one would never have suspected their inhabitant of possessing so artistically furnished a room.

"You do rather well out of pawn--er--financial agenting," remarked Teal absently, and went off at an abrupt angle. "Are you the philanthropist who's financing Birdie Sands?"

"Birdie's hands?" inquired the puzzled Mr. Brome.

"Birdie Sands," Mr. Teal enunciated clearly and distinctly. "Strange as it may seem, I was once educated."

"I have met a Mister Sands. Who's this 'Birdie' Sands?"

"A gentleman," said Mr. Teal, "who used to be on the whizz."

"On what?" demanded the startled Snooper.

"A pickpocket," explained Mr. Teal patiently. "Do you know him?"

If Mr. Brome did not squawk derisively, his elevated archidiaconal eyebrows rendered such a lamentable exhibition unnecessary.

"A low criminal?" he protested. "Now, I ask you, Mr. Teal, is it likely?"

"Taking things all round, I should say it is. Birdie Sands," went on the detective, apparently for his own benefit, "is, or was, the best whizzer operating in London. He was inside up--to about six weeks ago--that's about twice the time you've been financial agenting, isn't it, by the way? Since then we've had nothing on him, and he seems to have all the money in the world."

"He may be going straight," suggested Eddie.

"Go straight?" jeered Teal drowsily. "It's a physical impossibility. That man's a human corkscrew with all the twists case-hardened. He's a born crook--his mother was a crook and all his fathers were crooks, and Birdie was brought up as a crook, Borstal trained. Why, if you shot him out of a gun he'd tie knots in the barrel."

"What happened to the gun you were shot out of when you got that face?" inquired Mr. Brome vulgarly, but Inspector Teal failed to bite.

He heaved himself laboriously from his chair.

"I'm interested," he said, "because when a born-an'-bred crook earns a lot of honest money, it just ain't natural. I've got a nose for dirty work, and that same nose is worrying me now. When shall I bring my friend along?"

"Shall we say Sunday?" invited Mr. Brome. "At eight? Suit you? Splendid. Good-bye."

But he stopped Teal at the door.

"I hope you won't put any ideas into his head," he said anxiously.

Mr. Teal regarded him thoughtfully.

"What I'm afraid of," he replied, "is that he'll put ideas into yours."

With that his projected programme was exhausted, but he was destined to have an interesting morning.

On his way back to the Yard he dropped in at Walton Street police station, near the Brompton Road, for a chat with the divisional-inspector. While he was there a lank, saturnine man entered jauntily.

"James Mattock--convict on licence. I've come to report."

Inspector Teal surged across (as I have said, one has to use extraordinary words to convey his ponderous mode of progression).

"Hullo, Mattock," he said. "When did you come out?"

"A fortnight ago."

Mattock's manner did not encourage further conversation, but it took a lot to put off Mr. Teal.

"What are you doing now?"

The man's thin lips twisted.

"Working. Do you want to get me the sack by telling them my past record?" he sneered. "Because if so, you're too late. I thought I'd get in with it before you busies got a chance."

"I suppose you picked up that word in Wandsworth," said Teal. "Getting the slang already--a pity. Who are 'them'?"

"Raegenssen's. I'm head clerk and in practice semi-manager. They haven't got much of a staff."

"That's a pity, too," murmured Mr. Teal. "Temptation never did anybody any good; and you weren't built for a crook, Mattock."

"I'm glad of that," said Mattock, surveying Mr. Teal's girth pointedly.

Teal fingered his chin, his eyes on the other man's face. It was a refined face, lined bitterly. The man was educated--Teal knew that, for he himself had arrested Mattock for his first and only crime. Teal also knew what the court that sentenced Mattock for forgery never knew--why the crime was committed.

"Let's see," mused Teal. "Hannassay put you away."

"That's true."

"A cheque--you were his private secretary, weren't you? And he saw to it you got the full stretch--not even a first offender's chance. That's right, isn't it?"

"It is."

Mr. Teal's contemplative fingering of his chin continued. He would have been better pleased if Mattock had been stung to a storm of abuse and threats, for the only dangerous criminal is the one who hugs his grievances.

"You don't love him much, do you?"

"Would you?" countered the other.

"Possibly not," admitted Mr. Teal. "Did they ever recover the money you drew on that cheque? Six thousand, wasn't it? You must have a tidy bit put away--why go clerking? Or did Joan throw you over?"

"That's my business," said Mattock icily. "What exactly are you trying to do, Teal--rub in my disgrace, or persuade me to commit another crime so that you can make me a thorough old lag?"

Mr. Teal shrugged. His sleepy eyes were nearly closed.

"I'm sorry you're such a fool, Mattock," he drawled. "What I'm trying to do is to save you from making an utter mess of the rest of your life."

"Thanks," said Mattock curtly. "And now do you mind going and preaching to someone else?"

"I will," promised Mr. Teal. "Come along and have lunch, Mattock, and let's talk things over."

He rolled in to report progress to Storm later, and told of an unsatisfactory conversation.

"He thawed after a bit, but since he was liquid air to start with he wasn't much better than an iceberg even then. A card--he was a gentleman all right, once, and still talks like one. One of the Somerset Mattocks--they had pots of money once, and then went bust. Mattock fell in with Joan Sands, Birdie's sister. She got very ill. The docs. said the only way to save her life was to operate and then send her to the south of France for a long rest. Mattock couldn't pay, and Birdie was in stir and never had much money anyway. He was defiant and insolent in court, otherwise he might have got off a bit lighter, in spite of all the fuss Hannassay kicked up at the time about making examples and so on. He's the hottest man in the country on crooks, and they all hate him like a pussyfoot hates beer. My own idea is that Mattock begged Hannassay to help him out and was turned down. Hannassay's as hard as tungsten, in any case."