The Clue of the Twisted Candles | Page 8

should have been necessary, and yet he had speculated on
the best of advice - it was Kara's advice.
The connection suddenly occurred to him, and yet Kara had not directly
suggested that he should buy Roumanian gold shares, but had merely
spoken glowingly of their prospects. He thought a moment, and then
walked back slowly into the study, pulled open the drawer of his desk,
took out the sinister little Browning, and slipped it into his pocket.
"I shan't be long, dear," he said, and kissing the girl he strode out into
the darkness.
Kara sat back in the luxurious depths of his car, humming a little tune,

as the driver picked his way cautiously over the uncertain road. The
rain was still falling, and Kara had to rub the windows free of the mist
which had gathered on them to discover where he was. From time to
time he looked out as though he expected to see somebody, and then
with a little smile he remembered that he had changed his original plan,
and that he had fixed the waiting room of Lewes junction as his
rendezvous.
Here it was that he found a little man muffled up to the ears in a big top
coat, standing before the dying fire. He started as Kara entered and at a
signal followed him from the room.
The stranger was obviously not English. His face was sallow and
peaked, his cheeks were hollow, and the beard he wore was
irregular-almost unkempt.
Kara led the way to the end of the dark platform, before he spoke.
"You have carried out my instructions?" he asked brusquely.
The language he spoke was Arabic, and the other answered him in that
language.
"Everything that you have ordered has been done, Effendi," he said
humbly.
"You have a revolver?"
The man nodded and patted his pocket.
"Loaded?"
"Excellency," asked the other, in surprise, "what is the use of a revolver,
if it is not loaded?"
"You understand, you are not to shoot this man," said Kara. "You are
merely to present the pistol. To make sure, you had better unload it
now."

Wonderingly the man obeyed, and clicked back the ejector.
"I will take the cartridges," said Kara, holding out his hand.
He slipped the little cylinders into his pocket, and after examining the
weapon returned it to its owner.
"You will threaten him," he went on. "Present the revolver straight at
his heart. You need do nothing else."
The man shuffled uneasily.
"I will do as you say, Effendi," he said. "But - "
"There are no 'buts,' " replied the other harshly. "You are to carry out
my instructions without any question. What will happen then you shall
see. I shall be at hand. That I have a reason for this play be assured."
"But suppose he shoots?" persisted the other uneasily.
"He will not shoot," said Kara easily. "Besides, his revolver is not
loaded. Now you may go. You have a long walk before you. You know
the way?"
The man nodded.
"I have been over it before," he said confidently.
Kara returned to the big limousine which had drawn up some distance
from the station. He spoke a word or two to the chauffeur in Greek, and
the man touched his hat.
CHAPTER II
Assistant Commissioner of Police T. X. Meredith did not occupy
offices in New Scotland Yard. It is the peculiarity of public offices that
they are planned with the idea of supplying the margin of space above
all requirements and that on their completion they are found wholly
inadequate to house the various departments which mysteriously come

into progress coincident with the building operations.
"T. X.," as he was known by the police forces of the world, had a big
suite of offices in Whitehall. The house was an old one facing the
Board of Trade and the inscription on the ancient door told passers-by
that this was the "Public Prosecutor, Special Branch."
The duties of T. X. were multifarious. People said of him - and like
most public gossip, this was probably untrue - that he was the head of
the "illegal" department of Scotland Yard. If by chance you lost the
keys of your safe, T. X. could supply you (so popular rumour ran) with
a burglar who would open that safe in half an hour.
If there dwelt in England a notorious individual against whom the
police could collect no scintilla of evidence to justify a prosecution, and
if it was necessary for the good of the community that that person
should be deported, it was T. X. who arrested the obnoxious person,
hustled him into a cab and did not loose his hold upon his victim until
he had landed him on the indignant shores of an