by Lewis Hockley [Percy Longhurst].
Originally published in The Magnet Library (The Amalgamated Press, Ltd.) vol.1 #17 (06 Jun 1908).
When Greek Meets Greek, then comes the Tug of War.
"Th' chap as I saw in th' mornin'—one of 'em!" McDonald replied impatiently.
"But who—"
The Jew was interrupted by a sudden ringing of a bell in the room, the bell that was moved from the button outside the closed shop-door; it had followed upon repealed knockings, but these had been unheard.
With an imprecation, he went to see who was there, leaving McDonald in his chair staring sullenly at the fireplace. All at once the pugilist got on his legs; he could hear voices, these of the Jew and the visitor. He went to the door, opened it gently, and put his head to the crack, listening for a few seconds. Then he straightened up.
"Blow me!" be whispered. "Why, if it ain't the Fellow hisself!"
* * * * *
Frank Dennis, having arranged to meet his chum at seven o'clock in tho evening at the office, so that both might have the benefit of whatever Punch, the light-fingered pugilist and champion of McDonald's victim, might have to cay, walked straight down to Houndsditch, found, and knocked at the door of No. 142.
No. 142 was a shop; but the shutter was drawn down, covering the entire window front, and the door was fast. "F, Brown & Co., Fish Salesmen, and Wet and Dried Fish Merchants" appeared on the fascia, but there way no evidence that the shop had been used for such business for quite a while. There was nothing, indeed, to show that the establishment was used for any business, or even that it was inhabited at all. The windows were entirely bare, the lower panes in every frame coloured a dark-red, almost chocolate with age and dirt. If Mr. Solomon Abrams carried on his picture postcard designing and printing here he did so very quietly, and in a fashion little likely to arouse any attention.
There was no knocker, but Frank rapped hard on the door with his knuckles. Several tines be knocked; but
there was no reply, and, going out on to the kerbstone, he examined the front of tho building thoroughly. The place seemed to to deserted; but there was the number plain enough on the fascia, 142, and that was what his chum had stated as Mr. Abrams's domicile, and Punch had said likewise. He hadn't made any mistake.
He went back to the door and a small black button, hitherto unobserved, caught his eye; he pressed it, keeping his finger-tip there for several seconds, and awaited results.
Within a minute he had a demonstration that the shop was not abandoned. He heard footsteps, quick and light, approaching; a chain was removed, bolts were drawn back, the door opened about a foot, and he saw a long strip of the face and figure of the answerer of his summons—a face olive-coloured, fleshy, and clean-shaven, with dark eyes, and dark, greasy-seeming hair above, and below, garments of the conventional kind, and respectable appearance.
"Vat ith it you want?" this individual demanded.
"I am anxious to see Mr. Solomon Abrams," began Dennis civilly. "I understand that he—"
"Well, vat ith it? I am Mr. Abrams," his interrogator inquired.
"Is that so? I am pleased to hear it, very pleased! I imagined at first I had made a mistake. I was afraid the shop was empty," Frank answered, with amiable volubility. He was beginning to really like the detective work, and his self-possession did not desert him. He did not feel nervous and awkward as when he interviewed Mrs. Biddlecombe. "I was anxious to see you, Mr. Abrams, and I sincerely hope my visit is not made at an inconvenient time, that I am not disturbing you. I should have been very sorry to have—"
Mr. Abrams interrupted his visitor's easy flow of language a trifle impatiently.
"Have you come on buthineth, thir?" he asked. "I am—"
"Yes, yes; I am on business," Dennis hastened to assure him. "And we may as well come straight to the point at once. You manufacture picture postcards, is that not so, Mr. Abrams?"
"Yeth, it ith," the Hebrew admitted. "Ith it about them you have come?"
"Yes, it is."
"To give an order?"
"Well, not exactly to give an order; but concerning them. I should like to have a few minutes' conversation with you about them, if I may, Mr. Abrams."
The Jew hesitated; he didn't know this young man; had never set eyes upon him before so far as he was aware; but he was on business, and Mr. Solly Abrams was not the man to turn that away. He asked his visitor to enter the house, and led the way to the room where he had been talking with "Sleeping" McDonald. The presence of the prize-fighter wouldn't matter; or, if it were necessary, he could ask him to leave the room for a few minutes. Apologising for the darkness, he took Dennis along a narrow and dusty passage, and pushing the door, which was slightly open, invited Dennis to walk in.
As he stepped into the room himself after Dennis, a hasty exclamation rose to his lips, as he glanced about. The room was empty, McDonald had vanished!
Dennis turned round.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Abrams!" he said politely. "What was it you said? I did not quite hear."
He looked round him as he spoke. Abrams was not smoking, there was neither cigar nor cigarette end lying on the table or elsewhere, yet the scent of freshly-lighted tobacco was plainly evident to his nose.
Frank Dennis was beginning to take notice of little matters such as this.
"No, no; I did not thay anything; I did not thpeak!" Mr. Abrams answered hastily.
He was wondering where on earth the prize-fighter could have vanished. He hadn't gone out by the passage; he couldn't have passed through the second door the office-parlour boasted, for that was locked, and the postcard maker himself had the key; as for the window, it was fastened and strongly barred. Abrams wondered whether McDonald had hidden himself beneath the table.
But what had he hidden himself for, anyway? Had he been afraid the ringer of the bell was a policeman, come to make good his ridiculous—and costly—fears of the previous evening, whatever those fears might have been for.
Dennis was also doing a bit of wondering. A cap of a hideous shepherds-plaid pattern and of the exaggerated golfsnape, hung on the back of a chair, where McDonald in his hurry had overlooked or forgotten it. Dennis spotted that cap immediately; its colour seemed familiar; he was quite sure he recognised it, that he had seen it somewhere and quite recently; but his memory proved elusive, for the life and soul of him he couldn't "place" that startling head covering.
"Vell, thir," began Abrams tentatively, after a minute's silence, seeing that his visitor made no haste to get to work; "vat ith it I can have the pleasure of doing for you?"
"Postcards, my dear sir, postcards!" Frank answered genially. He was feeling not a little pleased with himself, the glamour and fascination of the work of the detective-hero of fiction was beginning to appear in this work he was doing himself, giving it an interest it had somehow lacked before.
"You have a trade-mark, haven't you, Mr. Abrams," he went on, "by which all your work may be identified."
"That ith tho," admitted the Jew, wondering what was coming. "An 'A' inthide a ring, bottom right-hand corner.
"That is what I am informed," Dennis said briskly. "Your cards, then, may be easily recognised. Can you tell me, sir, if this is one of your make of cards, or only a forgery?"
He came round the littered table to where Mr. Abrams was standing, and held before his eyes, grasping it tightly in either hand, a glaringly-coloured picture postcard. The scene presented was a gorgeous landscape; in a blank space about three-quarters of an inch wide beneath the picture were written some words in an unformed, roundish hand.
As he held out the card for inspection, Dennis's eyes were turned, not to it, but upon the cardmaker's face.
"Thertainly, thir, that card is one of mine!" Abrams replied without the slightest hesitation. "You can thee—"
And then he stopped suddenly. Dennis, watching him closely, saw his eyes open a fraction wider, and his thick, fleshy lips come apart slightly. He stopped in the middle of drawing a breath, and stared at the card as if he saw something that fascinated him. And Frank could see that his eyes were not upon the picture, but were resting upon the few lines of writing beneath.
The ghost of a smile twinkled in Dennis's eyes. The postcard Abrams was staring at was that which had fallen from the pocket of Sandy McDonald and Grip had picked up.
For a good minute the silence in the little dirty room was so profound that the young detective could distinctly hear the ticking of Abrams' watch and his own.
It was Dennis himself who broke it.
"Then I can safely assume that you were the maker of this card, Mr. Abrams?" he said, in a tone of relief, and appearing not to have noticed his companion's abruptly broken off sentence.
"Vat ith your name, thir? Why did you vant to know about thith?" asked Abrams.
He was still staring at the card, and did not look up as he spoke; but his lips had shut firmly again; he had regained his temporarily lost self-possession.
"I'm afraid you wouldn't know my name if I were to tell you," Dennis answered lightly. "My object, as I said, was to learn if the card be a forgery or not. I am in hopes of tracing the writer. Perhaps you could help me; perhaps you keep books, and it might be possible to tell me to whom you sold this card, and from that it may be possible to trace the writer."
Almost involuntarily Abrams' fingers went out towards the card as Dennis spoke; but, without appearing to notice the motion, Dennis drew it away.
Suddenly the Jew stirred; he moved away from the table, and he looked Frank Dennis squarely in the face. The slight quivering of his heavy eyelids was the only sign of agitation that he allowed to be visible.
"Will you let me have another look at that card again?" he said quietly. "I am beginning to think ith not one of mine, after all; that it ith, ath you thaid, a forgery. I will have another glanthe at the private mark."
But Dennis did not give it him; he waited, saying nothing.
"If it ith a forgery, and I can thoon tell," went on the Jew still calmly, though the flickering of his eyelids increased in quickness. "I will find out who it ith, who ith copying my regithtered trade-mark, and I will have him prothecuted; let me have the card again, mithter."
"Thank you, but I don't think it's worth while," Dennis replied, and he did not speak with the same airiness as before.
"But I do, thir!" the Jew exclaimed quickly.
"Then I differ from you." And Dennis put the card back in his pocket.
For a few seconds Abrams regarded the young detective steadily, then he stepped quickly to the door, and put his back against it.
"Who are you? And vat'th thith game you're playin'?" he cried thickly.
"A question I might ask you!" retorted Dennis. "What d'you mean by your action?"
For answer, Abrams' hand sought the lock, turned the key, and then he came forward a pace.
"Vat ith it you're up to, mithter?" he demanded, and his olive cheeks became livid in colour.
"I've told you twice," Dennis rejoined coolly. "I mean to find out who is the writer of this postcard!"
There was no need to keep the mask off any longer; all pretence was thrown aside, and the two faced each other with drawn blades, acknowledged adversaries.
"Give me that card, or you don't leave thith room alive!" the Jew exclaimed, and menacing as were his words, they were as nothing compared with the expression in his eyes.
Dennis laughed shortly.
"Don't talk such melodramatic nonsense," he said. "This card is mine, I shall not give it to you, and if you're not a fool, you'll unlock that door and make no attempt to prevent me leaving. I learned all I want to know, and I am going."
"Oh, are you?" sneered the Jew. "Not with that card. I mean vat I thay. Hand it over, an' quickly, too, or you're ath good ath dead."
"Open that door!"
"Give me that card!"
"Open that door!"
"Give me that card!"
The men faced each other, both with flaming eyes, determined lips, and quivering nostrils. The muscles of each were suddenly braced, as if they were only awaiting the signal for action.
It was an intensely dramatic situation.
In point of physique—were the decision of the two points to be put to the argument of bodily force—the Jew was vastly the inferior. Compared with Frank Dennis, he was a little man, even though the frame and muscles of the youthful detective lacked the set firmness of fully-developed manhood. Frank topped him by a good four inches; in weight he held the advantage of an extra forty pounds. If it came to a scrimmage between the two for the possession of the postcard or the unlocking of the door, the odds were decidedly against the Hebrew. Even though, as it was likely, Abrams was no novice in the use of his hands, that would avail him but little, the room was too small. And, for that matter, Dennis himself knew more than a bit about boxing, and, in addition, possessed a very considerable acquaintance with the no less useful art of wrestling.