Читать книгу The Black онлайн

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"Any work done for me will be paid for," said Hamon a little impatiently. "Have you got the scheme worked out?"

The inspector nodded.

"There is a house on Blackheath," he said, "owned by a retired Colonial officer. He is a rich man, and has a wonderful collection of antique jewellery. There are only his wife, his daughter and three servants in the house, and I've got a man who could crack it in about five minutes. It wouldn't be so easy to get the jewellery, because that is kept in a safe, but there's no need to worry about touching the stuff. The thing is to get him to the house, and to leave enough evidence to catch your man. The real difficulty is going to be to break down any alibi that he may have. It is useless pulling him in for a burglary at Blackheath if he can prove that at the time he was in his club."

"Can you bring him to Blackheath by any means?" asked the interested Mr. Hamon.

The detective nodded.

"That is what I'm working for," he said, "but it will require a whole lot of manœuvring. Morlake lives in a sort of Oriental flat in Bond Street and has two servants—a Moor named Mahmet—he's travelling a lot in Morocco—and a valet named Binger, who is a pensioner of the 14th Hussars. Binger doesn't live on the premises: he lives with his wife and family in the Blackheath Road—that's why I chose Blackheath. Usually, when Morlake's in town, Binger comes down to Blackheath by one of the all-night cars that run on the southern route. Sergeant Slone has become friendly with Binger, who doesn't know, of course, that Slone is a police officer. Every attempt he has made to get Binger to talk about his boss has been useless so far. I'm perfectly sure he knows a lot more about Morlake than he tells. But he's as dumb as an oyster the moment the conversation turns round to James Morlake."