第18章

T.X.came from Downing Street at 11 o'clock one night, and his heart was filled with joy and gratitude.

He swung his stick to the common danger of the public, but the policeman on point duty at the end of the street, who saw him, recognized and saluted him, did not think it fit to issue any official warning.

He ran up the stairs to his office, and found Mansus reading the evening paper.

"My poor, dumb beast," said T.X."I am afraid I have kept you waiting for a very long time, but tomorrow you and I will take a little journey to Devonshire.It will be good for you, Mansus -where did you get that ridiculous name, by the way!""M.or N.," replied Mansus, laconically.

"I repeat that there is the dawn of an intellect in you," said T.

X., offensively.

He became more serious as he took from a pocket inside his waistcoat a long blue envelope containing the paper which had cost him so much to secure.

"Finding the revolver was a master-stroke of yours, Mansus," he said, and he was in earnest as he spoke.

The man coloured with pleasure for the subordinates of T.X.loved him, and a word of praise was almost equal to promotion.It was on the advice of Mansus that the road from London to Lewes had been carefully covered and such streams as passed beneath that road had been searched.

The revolver had been found after the third attempt between Gatwick and Horsley.Its identification was made easier by the fact that Vassalaro's name was engraved on the butt.It was rather an ornate affair and in its earlier days had been silver plated; the handle was of mother-o'-pearl,"Obviously the gift of one brigand to another," was T.X.'s comment.

Armed with this, his task would have been fairly easy, but when to this evidence he added a rough draft of the threatening letter which he had found amongst Vassalaro's belongings, and which had evidently been taken down at dictation, since some of the words were misspelt and had been corrected by another hand, the case was complete.

But what clinched the matter was the finding of a wad of that peculiar chemical paper, a number of sheets of which T.X.had ignited for the information of the Chief Commissioner and the Home Secretary by simply exposing them for a few seconds to the light of an electric lamp.

Instantly it had filled the Home Secretary's office with a pungent and most disagreeable smoke, for which he was heartily cursed by his superiors.But it had rounded off the argument.

He looked at his watch.

"I wonder if it is too late to see Mrs.Lexman," he said.

"I don't think any hour would be too late," suggested Mansus.

"You shall come and chaperon me," said his superior.

But a disappointment awaited.Mrs.Lexman was not in and neither the ringing at her electric bell nor vigorous applications to the knocker brought any response.The hall porter of the flats where she lived was under the impression that Mrs.Lexman had gone out of town.She frequently went out on Saturdays and returned on the Monday and, he thought, occasionally on Tuesdays.

It happened that this particular night was a Monday night and T.

X.was faced with a dilemma.The night porter, who had only the vaguest information on the subject, thought that the day porter might know more, and aroused him from his sleep.