The Orange-Yellow Diamond Part 37

Yada showed his white teeth again.

"A plain--and a wide question, Mr. Levendale!" he answered, with a laugh. "I see that you are anxious to enlist my services. Evidently, you believe that I do know something. But--you are not the owner of the diamond! Which of these gentlemen is?"

Levendale made a half impatient gesture towards Stephen Purvis, who nodded at Yada but remained silent.

"He is!" said Levendale, testily. "But you--can do your talking to me.

Again--how much do you know in this matter?"

"Enough to make it worth your while to negotiate with me," answered Yada. "Is that as plain as your question?"

"It's what I expected," said Levendale. "You want to sell your knowledge."

"Well?" a.s.sented Yada, "I am very sure you are willing to purchase."

Once more that duel of the eyes--and to John Purdie, who prided himself on being a judge of expressions, it was evident that the younger man was more than the equal of the older. It was Levendale who gave way--and when he took his eyes off Yada, it was to turn to Stephen Purvis.

Stephen Purvis nodded his head once more--and growled a little.

"Make terms with him!" he muttered. "Case of have to, I reckon!"

Levendale turned once more to the j.a.panese, who smiled on him.

"Look you here, Mr. Yada," said Levendale, "I don't know who you are beyond what I'm told--your card tells me nothing except that you live--lodge, I suppose--in Gower Street. You've got mixed up in this, somehow, and you've got knowledge to dispose of. Now, I don't buy unless I know first what it is I'm buying. So--let's know what you've got to sell?"

Yada swept the room with a glance.

"Before these gentlemen?" he asked. "In open market, eh?"

"They're all either police, or detectives, or concerned," retorted Levendale. "There's no secret. I repeat--what have you got to sell?

Specify it!"

Yada lifted his hands and began to check off points on the tips of his fingers.

"Three items, then, Mr. Levendale," he replied cheerfully. "First--the knowledge of who has got the diamond and the money. Second--the knowledge of where he is at this moment, and will be for some hours.

Third--the knowledge of how you can successfully take him and recover your property. Three good, saleable items, I think--yes?"

Purdie watched carefully for some sign of greed or avarice in the informer's wily countenance. To his surprise, he saw none. Instead, Yada a.s.sumed an almost sanctimonious air. He seemed to consider matters--though his answer was speedy.

"I don't want to profit--unduly--by this affair," he said. "At the same time, from all I've heard, I'm rendering you and your friend a very important service, and I think it only fair that I should be remunerated. Give me something towards the expenses of my medical education, Mr. Levendale: give me five hundred pounds."

With the briefest exchange of glances with Stephen Purvis, Levendale pulled out a cheque-book, dashed off a cash cheque, and handed it over to the j.a.panese, who slipped it into his waistcoat pocket.

"Now--your information!" said Levendale.

"To be sure," replied Yada. "Very well. Chang Li has the diamond and the money. And he is at this moment where he has been for some days, in hiding. He is in a secret room at a place called Pilmansey's Tea Rooms, in Tottenham Court Road--a place much frequented by medical students from our college. The fact of the case is, Mr. Policeman, and the rest of you generally, there is a secret opium den at Pilmansey's, though n.o.body knows of it but a few frequenters. And there!--there you will find Chang Li."

"You've seen him there?" demanded Levendale.

"I saw him there during last night--I know him to be there--he will be there, either until you take him, or until his arrangements are made for getting out of this country," answered Yada.

Levendale jumped up, as if for instant action. But the Inspector quietly tapped him on the elbow.

"He promised to tell you how to take him, Mr. Levendale," he said.

"Let's know all we can--we shall have to be in with you on this, you know."

"Mr. Police-Inspector is right," said Yada. "You will have to conduct what you call a raid. Now, do precisely what I tell you to do.

Pilmansey's is an old-fas.h.i.+oned place, a very old house as regards its architecture, on the right-hand side of Tottenham Court Road. Go there today--this mid-day--a little before one--when there are always plenty of customers. Go with plenty of your plain-clothes men, like Mr.

Ayscough there. Drop in, don't you see, as if you were customers--let there be plenty of you, I repeat. There are two Pilmanseys--men--middle-aged, sly, smooth, crafty men. When you are all there, take your own lines--close the place, the doors, if you like--but get hold of the Pilmansey men, tell them you are police, insist on being taken to the top floor and shown their opium den. They will object, they will lie, they will resist--you will use your own methods. But--in that opium den you will find Chang Li--and your property!"

He had been drawing on his gloves as he spoke, and now, picking up his hat and umbrella, Yada bowed politely to the circle and moved to the door.

"You will excuse me, now?" he said. "I have an important lecture at the medical school which I must not miss. I shall be at Pilmansey's, myself, a little before one--please oblige me by not taking any notice of me. I do not want to figure--actively--in your business."

Then he was gone--and the rest of them were so deeply taken with the news which he had communicated that no one noticed that just before Yada fastened his last glove-b.u.t.ton, Melky Rubinstein slipped from his corner and glided quietly out of the room.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

PILMANSEY'S TEA ROOMS

Two hours later, it being then a quarter-to-one o'clock, Purdie and Lauriston got out of a taxi-cab at the north-end of Tottenham Court Road and walked down the right-hand side of that busy thoroughfare, keeping apparently careless but really vigilant eyes open for a first glimpse of the appointed rendezvous. But Pilmansey's Tea Rooms required little searching out. In the midst of the big modern warehouses, chiefly given up to furniture and upholstery, there stood at that time a block of old property which was ancient even for London. The buildings were plainly early eighteenth century: old redbrick erections with narrow windows in the fronts and dormer windows in the high, sloping roofs. Some of them were already doomed to immediate dismantlement; the tenants had cleared out, there were h.o.a.rdings raised to protect pa.s.sers-by from falling masonry, and bills and posters on the threatened walls announced that during the rebuilding, business would be carried on as usual at some other specified address. But Pilmansey's, so far, remained untouched, and the two searchers saw that customers were going in and out, all unaware that before evening their favourite resort for a light mid-day meal would attain a fame and notoriety not at all promised by its very ordinary and commonplace exterior.

"An excellent example of the truth of the old saying that you should never judge by appearances, Andie, my man!" remarked Purdie, as they took a quick view of the place. "Who'd imagine that crime, dark secrets, and all the rest of it lies concealed behind this?--behind the promise of tea and m.u.f.fins, milk and buns! It's a queer world, this London!--you never know what lies behind any single bit of the whole microcosm. But let's see what's to be seen inside."

The first thing to be seen inside the ground floor room into which they stepped was the man from New Scotland Yard, who, in company with another very ordinary-looking individual was seated at a little table just inside the entrance, leisurely consuming coffee and beef sandwiches. He glanced at the two men as if he had never seen them in his life, and they, preserving equally stolid expressions with credit if not with the detective's ready and trained ability, pa.s.sed further on--only to recognize Levendale and Stephen Purvis, who had found accommodation in a quiet corner half-way down the room. They, too, showed no signs of recognition, and Purdie, pa.s.sing by them, steered his companion to an unoccupied table and bade him be seated.

"Let's get our bearings," he whispered as they dropped into their seats. "Looks as innocent and commonplace within as it appeared without, Andie. But use your eyes--it ought to make good copy for you, this."

Lauriston glanced about him. The room in which they sat was a long, low-ceiling apartment, extending from the street door to a sort of bar-counter at the rear, beyond which was a smaller room that was evidently given up to store and serving purposes. On the counter were set out provisions--rounds of beef, hams, tongues, bread, cakes, confectionery; behind it stood two men whom the watchers at once set down as the proprietors. Young women, neatly gowned in black and wearing white caps and ap.r.o.ns, flitted to and fro between the counter and the customers. As for the customers they were of both s.e.xes, and the larger proportion of them young. There was apparently no objection to smoking at Pilmansey's--a huge cloud of blue smoke ascended from many cigarettes, and the scent of Turkish tobacco mingled with the fragrance of freshly-ground coffee. It was plain that Pilmansey's was the sort of place wherein you could get a good sandwich, good tea or coffee, smoke a cigarette or two, and idle away an hour in light chatter with your friends between your morning and afternoon labours.

But Lauriston's attention was mainly directed to the two men who stood behind the bar-counter, superintending and directing their neat a.s.sistants. Sly, smooth, crafty men--so they had been described by Mr.

Mori Yada: Lauriston's opinion coincided with that of the j.a.panese, on first, outer evidence and impression. They were middle-aged, plump men who might be, and probably were, twins, favouring mutton chop whiskers, and good linen and black neckcloths--they might have been strong, highly-respectable butlers. Each had his coat off; each wore a spotless linen ap.r.o.n; each wielded carving knives and forks; each was busy in carving plates of ham or tongue or beef; each contrived, while thus engaged, to keep his sharp, beady eyes on the doings in the room in front of the counter. Evidently a well-to-do, old-established business, this, and highly prosperous men who owned it: Lauriston wondered that they should run any risks by hiding away a secret opium den somewhere on their ancient premises.

In the midst of their reflections one of the waitresses came to the table at which the two friends sat: Lauriston quicker of wit than Purdie in such matters immediately ordered coffee and sandwiches and until they came, lighted a cigarette and pretended to be at ease, though he was inwardly highly excited.

"It's as if one were waiting for an explosion to take place!" he muttered to Purdie. "Even now I don't know what's going to happen."

"Here's Ayscough, anyway," said Purdie. "He looks as if nothing was about to happen."

Ayscough, another man with him, was making his way unconcernedly down the shop. He pa.s.sed the man from New Scotland Yard without so much as a wink: he ignored Levendale and Stephen Purvis; he stared blankly at Purdie and Lauriston, and led his companion to two vacant seats near the counter. And they had only just dropped into them when in came Mr.

Killick, with John Purvis and Guyler and slipped quietly into seats in the middle of the room. Here then, said Lauriston to himself, were eleven men, all in a secret--and there were doubtless others amongst the company whom he did not know.

"But where's Melky Rubinstein?" he whispered suddenly. "I should have thought he'd have turned up--he's been so keen on finding things out."

"There's time enough yet," answered Purdie. "It's not one. I don't see the j.a.p, either. But--here's the Inspector--done up in plain clothes."